Patterico's Pontifications

5/3/2022

Leaked Draft of Dobbs Suggests Roe & Casey to be Overturned; UPDATED with Analysis by Patterico

Filed under: General — JVW @ 6:30 am



[guest post by JVW]

The Internet is abuzz with the leak of a draft opinion of what appears to be the majority decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association case currently in front of the Supreme Court. The draft, authored by Justice Samuel Alito with at least four other Justices signing on, suggests that the court is poised to strike down both Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the two decisions which codified abortion as a sacrosanct right and made it to supporters what my own senior (very, very senior at that) Senator Dianne Feinstein likes to call a super-precedent which absolutely could not be abridged by man nor God.

According to the draft, first obtained by Politico, Justice Alito writes: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.” At the end of the decision, he concludes: “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.” As NRO points out, this is a draft opinion and could very well be changed before it is officially released, but at this point the tea leaves seem to indicate that Roe will at long last be overturned.

So who exactly leaked the draft to the media? Over at Powerline, Steven Hayward sees the handiwork of progressive Democrats who are trying to ignite a firestorm which they hope will force Chief Justice Roberts and either Justice Gorsuch or Kavanaugh or perhaps even Barrett to get cold feet. In fact, Prof. Hayward makes an outright accusation which is not at all out of the realm of possibility:

A complete draft opinion has never leaked from the Supreme Court before, and it has long been understood that anyone (especially a law clerk) who leaked an opinion would be kissing their legal career goodbye. This is why I think the leak probably came from one of the Justices. And my money is on Sonia Sotomayor, who is by far the most politicized Justice on the Court, though she will soon have company when Ketanji Brown-Jackson joins the Court.

Alexandra Desanctis also believes that this leak surely came from one of the Court lefties and that it is designed to whip up protests to intimidate wavering members of the conservative bloc. She is joined in this assessment by Kathryn Jean Lopez. Considering that Democrats were so fond of lecturing all of us about “dangerous departures from the norms” and that they have essentially said that citizens seeking to be heard by the the people they elect to represent them (which is substantially different than appointed judges, by the way) are perhaps engaging in domestic terrorism, it’s a little bit rich but unsurprising that they have resorted to underhanded tactics like this when their backs are up against the wall. Naturally, the usual media fatheads are downplaying the nature of how the draft was obtained by Politico, deeming the actual draft contents — which I remind you would have mostly been eventually published anyway — to be far more important.

Dan McLaughlin predicted the likely emergence of a leak way back in December:

There is another question, though, that I wonder about: If the Court is doing something as dramatic — and as upsetting to the sorts of people who clerk for the liberal justices — as overturning Roe, will it be able to keep that a secret for seven months? The Court in modern times has had a remarkable record of keeping the justices, the law clerks, and the rest of the Court’s personnel sworn to secrecy about even the most momentous pending cases. Rumors have cracked that more often in recent years, especially in Obamacare cases, but we have never really seen the dam break. It will be quite impressive if it can keep a secret this time — and if it can’t, we may see a pressure campaign on the Court (or worse, violence) unprecedented in modern times.

NRO makes reference to a CNN report which claims that the Chief Justice will not join the Alito opinion to completely dismantle Roe and Casey, but he will concur in allowing the Mississippi restrictions on abortion to stand. Assuming no other votes switch, this kind of makes the replacement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Amy Coney Barrett a really big f______ deal, as our President was fond of saying to his old boss. And it’s a delicious irony that the Notorious RBG’s selfish insistence upon dying on the Court is what might ultimately undermine the nearly half-century abortion regime in the country that she so staunchly supported. Yes, it will make elements of the left go absolutely nuts, all the more reason that I hope to witness it with my own eyes.

– JVW

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Thanks to JVW for writing this up. I have some thoughts.

First, I hope they find the person (likely a clerk for a leftist judge) who leaked this thing, and fire and disgrace them. This is unacceptable behavior and it should be a career-ender for any position of trust. If that person thinks their promise of confidentiality means nothing, they can be a journalist, but not a lawyer.

Guaranteed it was someone on the left, and I believe it was a clerk and not a justice. They should be ashamed. They are contributing to the politicization of one of the few institutions left that commands the trust of the people. Even to the extent that you might think the Court politicized, it makes a point of giving reasons for its decisions (the controversial “shadow docket” aside), which must withstand scrutiny and argument from the other side. It’s nothing like the politicization of Congress and the presidency, and if you can’t see that, then you have trouble making distinctions and I feel sorry for you.

Second, the expected result is not a surprise. Ed Whelan has an excellent summary of the opinion here. To me, this summary by Whelan of the introduction says a lot:

There is no explicit or implicit right to abortion in the Constitution. Abortion is not within the category of rights that have been held to be guaranteed in their substance by the Due Process Clause. Far from being deeply rooted in the nation’s history and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, it was a crime at all stages of pregnancy in three-quarters of the states when the 14th Amendment was adopted.

This is the critical point, and I highlighted it in December after the argument:

One more question to highlight, from Justice Alito:

JUSTICE ALITO: The brief for the American Historical Association says that abortion was not legal before quickening in 26 out of 37 states at the time when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. Is that correct?

MS. RIKELMAN: That is correct because some of the states had started to discard the common law at that point because of a discriminatory view that a woman’s proper role was as a wife and mother, a view that the Constitution now rejects, and that’s why it’s appropriate to do the historical analysis at a higher level of generality.

JUSTICE ALITO: In the face of that, can it said that the right to — to abortion is deeply rooted in the history and traditions of the American people?

This will be central to Justice Alito’s opinion, and I bring it up because the question well highlights the flaw in that silly article I critiqued at my Substack (which you can subscribe to here) claiming that there is an “originalist case for abortion.” The point here is: an originalist case for abortion cannot be shown by showing that several states allowed abortion when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. Any such case is torpedoed by a showing that several (and actually a majority) of states banned abortion. Given that, how can anyone show that abortion meets the Supreme Court’s definition of a fundamental right — which is a right that is “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Those are quotes from Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) 521 U.S. 702 and you are going to see them in Alito’s opinion. (If he writes one, and I think he will — at least a concurrence.)

Always trust content from Patterico.

Third, the reaction from the left is predictable. Here’s a smarter person from that crowd:

The only ways around this are to pretend an amendment means something different than it was originally understood to mean, or pass a new amendment. Only the latter is a legitimate exercise of power.

Also, pretending this is a new concept is not really being straightforward with the non-lawyers. People need to understand that this was also the standard before 2022.

I assume the justices will hold fast and not let this pernicious leak affect them.

It’s about time this atrocity was overruled. Soon.

UPDATE x2 BY PATTERICO:

308 Responses to “Leaked Draft of Dobbs Suggests Roe & Casey to be Overturned; UPDATED with Analysis by Patterico”

  1. Good morning!

    Patterico (2faab6)

  2. This is now the place for your “leaked Dobbs opinion” comments.

    Patterico (2faab6)

  3. I had a long and I think interesting Substack set to publish today on arbitrariness and the death penalty. I will now save it until tomorrow or Wednesday, because this leak is going to suck up all the oxygen for a while.

    Patterico (2faab6)

  4. I like how the guy whose Twitter handle is @questionauthority is telling us that we cannot possibly question the wisdom of the Burger Court from a half-century ago. These people have no idea how clownish they seem to the rest of us.

    JVW (020d31)

  5. Sic ‘m!

    A full-scale investigation involving the FBI is expected into the leak of the draft opinion to determine who was the source.

    nk (8aec2e)

  6. “First, I hope they find the person (likely a clerk for a leftist judge) who leaked this thing, and fire and disgrace them.”

    I think it’s the opposite, a leak by a conservative attempting to reign in moderating concurrences.

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  7. Disappointing decision. When the Republicans take over Congress they need to pass a total ban.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  8. Will the U.S, Marshalls be able to protect the justices and families?

    mg (8cbc69)

  9. The twits (sic) I have seen list the leak as Reason Number Five that the Supreme Court is illegitimate:
    1. Garland, Garland, Garland, Gorsuch!
    2. Kavanaugh lied at his confirmation!
    3. Amy Coney Barrett was rushed through!
    4. Ginny Thomas!
    5. The leak.

    nk (8aec2e)

  10. I also thought it was Sotomayor. It’s also possible that a justice asked/encouraged/manipulated a clerk into doing it. If a justice is involved, they will be asked to resign, but they might not. If they refused, things could get awkward. I very much doubt that a justice could be impeached and convicted for this though.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  11. I think it’s the opposite, a leak by a conservative attempting to reign in moderating concurrences.

    I’ve seen that speculation elsewhere too. Interesting conjecture, but if I were handicapping the field I would lay at least 3:1 odds that it comes from the left.

    JVW (020d31)

  12. Will the U.S, Marshals be able to protect the justices and families?

    I don’t see family members being in danger, but an assassination attempt against Thomas or Alito seems possible.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  13. I very much doubt that a justice could be impeached and convicted for this though.

    I doubt that Chief Justice Roberts has this sort of temperament, but could he essentially freeze her out as a form of punishment if she refused to resign? For example, could he stop assigning her opinions to write (though hopefully she won’t be finding herself in the majority on any heavily-disputed cases ever again) and could he order a cut to her staff, including the number of clerks she is able to hire? That might be an interesting standoff but, again, I doubt that the Chief has it in him.

    JVW (020d31)

  14. I think it’s possible that Roberts may join in the decision now. As for the leak coming from the Right, it makes no sense; doing that, and getting caught, would be just about the only thing that could save Roe.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  15. I doubt that the Chief has it in him.

    Ostracism does not require a leader. Also, ending many options with “And Sotomayor should resign” (apologies to Cato the Elder) might give her the nudge.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  16. “As for the leak coming from the Right, it makes no sense; doing that, and getting caught, would be just about the only thing that could save Roe.”

    This is why crime doesn’t exist. If you get caught, you go to jail, so nobody does crimes.

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  17. ‘thulhu,

    I can see why you want it to come from the Right, but you must realize that is not the way to bet. Your reverse-logic motive is possible, but Occam would be surprised.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  18. President Joe Biden told reporters Tuesday that the leaked Supreme Court opinion on overturning Roe v. Wade could pave the way for decisions undermining various other policies, including same-sex marriage.

    Earlier in the day, Biden vowed to oppose the ruling whenever it is handed down, called for voters to elect “pro-choice” lawmakers, and asked Congress to pass legislation codifying Roe, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/biden-says-radical-supreme-court-decision-on-abortion-endangers-gay-marriage

    So much for the “It’s the Law of the Land” argument. Heads we win, tails you lose.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  19. Someone forgot to write Biden’s remarks down for him, it seems:

    “The idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child, based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think goes way overboard,” he continued before suggesting the Supreme Court could offer a similar ruling on other “privacy” related cases, including “who you marry.”

    “There are so many fundamental rights that are affected by that, and I’m not prepared to leave that to the whims of the public at the moment,” the president said.

    “Whims of the public” is it? Biden was elected by the whims of the public. Why is it a whim when it’s against what you want, but when the voters back you in a squeaker of an election, it’s a mandate from God?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  20. Rich Lowry offhandedly makes an interesting point: that the timing of this leak may in fact indicate that the Alito draft is indeed going to be the final version and is in fact the version that four other justices have signed on to, despite what the Chief may want us to believe. If that is indeed the case, Mr. Lowry suggests, they Court needs to release the decision immediately.

    JVW (020d31)

  21. “I can see why you want it to come from the Right, but you must realize that is not the way to bet. Your reverse-logic motive is possible, but Occam would be surprised.”

    However:

    “I think it’s possible that Roberts may join in the decision now.”

    “If that is indeed the case, Mr. Lowry suggests, they Court needs to release the decision immediately.”

    You guys are literally making my argument for me.

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  22. You guys are literally making my argument for me.

    Because just like the Democrats, you don’t believe in the Law of Unintended Consequences?

    JVW (020d31)

  23. “Because just like the Democrats, you don’t believe in the Law of Unintended Consequences?”

    What’s the intended consequence of a liberal leak? The draft opinion has been circulating since February.

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  24. Occam’s razor suggests that it’s a burnout of some kind, one who sees no future in their present position in the Supreme Court and, until we know better, it could be the janitor. Just how tight is “for your eyes only” security in the Supreme Court? I don’t know. Do you all know?

    nk (8aec2e)

  25. What we’re not asking is “Why Politico?” Why not WaPo or NYT? Was it because Politico were the only ones who would touch it?

    nk (8aec2e)

  26. What’s the intended consequence of a liberal leak?

    As I wrote in the past, a last ditch effort to convince Roberts and Kavanaugh/Gorsuch or even Barrett to stand down and agree to allow the Mississippi law to stand without gutting Roe and Casey. And given that we’re talking about leftist activists here, it doesn’t have to be rational or well thought out; it might just be a petulant temper-tantrum.

    And maybe the leaker knows that he/she will eventually be exposed, and wants to build up cred as a “fearless truth-teller” so that he/she can get a job with some left-wing organization nad be feted by various progressive groups.

    JVW (020d31)

  27. What we’re not asking is “Why Politico?” Why not WaPo or NYT?

    That fits in with the notion that it is the Sotomayor clerk who likely leaked this, since it would seem that he has some connection with the Politico reporter.

    JVW (020d31)

  28. “And given that we’re talking about leftist activists here, it doesn’t have to be rational or well thought out; it might just be a petulant temper-tantrum.”

    lol

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  29. Actually, I know of one former clerk of both Alex Kozinski and Sandra Day O’Connor who turned her back on a legal career and became a writer of books. A good one, too, and it’s a pity that the books she writes are Victorian romances, a genre I do not read.

    nk (8aec2e)

  30. What we’re not asking is “Why Politico?” Why not WaPo or NYT? Was it because Politico were the only ones who would touch it?

    Likely. The NYT et al would prefer not to burn that bridge.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  31. A good one, too, and it’s a pity that the books she writes are Victorian romances, a genre I do not read.

    Does the passion scene in a Victorian romance novel culminate with a tender handshake between the lovers, or are they really racy and the hero plants a kiss on the maiden’s fair cheek?

    JVW (020d31)

  32. And maybe the leaker knows that he/she will eventually be exposed, and wants to build up cred as a “fearless truth-teller” so that he/she can get a job with some left-wing organization and be feted by various progressive groups.

    NOW or NARAL would have a place for them. But really, that’s not their best career path, being one of the Elect.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  33. I would point out that nearly every woman now alive has had legal access to abortion during at least some of her child-bearing years. Some of them never used that right, and some of them never supported that right, but many did one or both. This will affect elections for some time to come.

    Maybe it should — the Court makes it clear this is a legislative issue — but those midterms are looking a little less certain now.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  34. Do Murkowski and Collins feel strongly enough about this that they would vote with the Dems on killing the filibuster?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  35. I’m thinking the leak has to come from the left. Mid-terms are coming up and the Democrats are starting to panic – recession, inflation, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and now recent polling showing Hispanics are supporting Republicans more than Democrats.

    This is a way to rally the troops for mid-terms.

    Hoi Polloi (121542)

  36. For those interested in US public opinion on the abortion, here’s the Gallup summary.

    You’ll notice that a large majority wants some limits on abortion.

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  37. The point that most interests me is how everyone seemingly is only interested in the law when it supports their personal opinions. There is no consistent ethos. When they don’t like something, it’s okay to do whatever they like to get rid of it. If they like something, then any attempt to moderate or remove it is wrong. No matter what.

    I think it derives from a perception of “cosmic good” or “cosmic evil,” to borrow from Thomas Sowell.

    It seems perfectly okay to overstate so much that it borders on parody to support what a person prefers. Just look at social media. Ugh.

    I have to return to a quote I cannot find a source for: the only just law is one you do not mind in the hands of your bitterest enemies.

    That should be the goal. Instead, our pundits on every side of the Divide tie themselves up in hypocrisy…depending on the topic of the moment.

    I feel sick to my stomach.

    Simon Jester (017143)

  38. “This is a way to rally the troops for mid-terms.”

    The actual decision would do the same thing, and it would be closer to the election.

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  39. You’ll notice that a large majority wants some limits on abortion.

    While this is actually separate from thinking Roe or Casey was good law, I expect the two things to be conflated by most people.

    For myself, I think that Roe (and later Casey) were terrible mistakes. Not only were they a usurpation of power, but they prevented the orderly action of democracy. Had Roe never happened, I believe that Congress would have eventually got around to a law that allowed some abortions, and been in line with the center of public opinion.

    So, I support overturning Roe. I do not support banning all abortions. To me those are very different questions. It will be interesting, going forward, to see how the political case proceeds.

    Two questions:

    1) Will Congress attempt a national regulation of abortion?
    2) Does Congress have that power?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  40. Assuming the ‘memo’ is genuine, the specifics of the case in play are rather irrelevant– at least to me. Left/right abortion rage is the crab grass in the yard of a house on fire. But the potential contraction of a half-century constitutional right is quite relevant; and the unprecedented leak from SCOTUS merely another benchmark in the general decline of United States society.

    Religion, sports, government, military, education, business- now the SCOTUS– pick the American institution left that has not been wholly corrupted by any vice you can think of– you can’t.

    This is why fellas like Putin and Xi really do smile- it makes it so much easier to peddle their wares as better product than that stale old USA. Nikita Khrushchev once declared, “We do not have to invade the United States, we will destroy you from within.” He was right. And he was from– Ukraine.

    _____

    What we’re not asking is “Why Politico?” Why not WaPo or NYT?

    A young interwebber would go to the Politico rather than the old grey ladies.

    _____

    “We’ll find the leaker!” – Mitch McConnell

    … and dead Mark Felt smiled.

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  41. This is a way to rally the troops for mid-terms.

    Yes, but which troops? In many statehouses, representatives woke to the news that they might have to make a real vote on the issue, not the moot court thing they’ve been playing at for the last 50 years.

    As did the abortion partisans, who have been sending emails all morning.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  42. I agree with JVW, good money is that the leak came from the Left side of the bench. Maybe even from Breyer as a parting salvo, figuring what can you really do to a retiring justice? As I commented on the other open thread, this reinvigorates Democrat fundraising and energy for the midterms and it initiates the full-court press on attacking the opinion and trying to delegitimize the court. That sets the stage for a future court-packing proposal.

    However, the biggest unintended consequence of this opinion is that it could turn the GOP tide, especially in purple toss-up states. Abortion polls have been steady for many years and give a clear edge to the pro-choice side. If enough states swing followed by a 2024 hold of the Presidency, a 60-vote DEM majority in the Senate is not a crazy prediction. It all hinges on the public reaction which in polarized times might moot the above apocalypse….just as Jan 6th got spun as partisan.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  43. ‘Bout time conservative ideologues thanked President Donald Trump; he gave you the conservative justice majority who’ve carried the ball over the goal line. 😉

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  44. Not sure why the rush to dismiss this leak coming from the right. The last leak (which had Roberts running around trying to spare Roe) seems like the sort of thing that might inspire a right wing guy into “finalizing” the decision and making it difficult for a wavering right side person to change his (or her) mind.

    The left has a lot of faith in its blue check cancel culture keyboard meanies to scare folks from doing anything that might wound the bleeding heart of a fierce progressive.

    The right has a lot of faith in its Fox News addled flying monkeys to spook Republican politicians (and maybe a Kavanaugh or two) from showing their RINO colors and not voting right.

    To me, it’s hard to dismiss either a right zealot, a left zealot, or nk’s snooping janitor from being the mole.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  45. What I find surprising is all the pundits “surprised” by the “stunning” arguments Alito used, since they are basically what the anti-Roe side has been saying for 50 years. I suspect that the dissents in Roe and Casey are very similar.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  46. AJL —

    Do you really see abortion as the issue that stops the realignment that has been going on? I doubt it. The great majority of people who support it live in states where it’s going to stay legal.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  47. ‘Bout time conservative ideologues thanked President Donald Trump; he gave you the conservative justice majority who’ve carried the ball over the goal line.

    Why? Any GOP candidate (other than the Democrat Kasich) would have done much the same, and its not like Trump picked those judges anyway.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  48. Did anyone notice that Biden used the phrase “abort a child”? (@18/19)

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  49. As for who leaked this, my money is on Sotomayor, but I might put a little side money on Ginny Thomas.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  50. However, the biggest unintended consequence of this opinion is that it could turn the GOP tide

    Unintended????? This leak is precisely the intent, AJ.

    Joey’s people have internals and know he’s sunk and sinking the rest of his party with him. Airing this leak is desperately blowing ballast. But the breech to the reputation of an American institution is irreputable for those alive today. It’ll take a century to heal– but will leave a lasting scar.

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  51. @49. Bet on Kavanaugh. The drunk left his briefcase in ‘dis-bar’ he favors and a babe sweeping out the place took it from there– so to speak. 😉

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  52. Exclusive audio: Roberts hold SCOTUS staff meeting:

    https://www.soundboard.com/sb/sound/192770

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  53. When I think of Kavanaugh, the dude to version of this guy is who comes to mind:

    https://makeagif.com/i/ZC3qGH

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  54. …”dudebro” version

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  55. UPDATE x2 BY PATTERICO:

    I believe all nine Supreme Court justices should require all of their clerks to sign a statement, today, *under penalty of perjury,* that they did not participate in this leak. Anyone who refuses to sign should be fired on the spot.— Patterico (@Patterico) May 3, 2022

    Patterico (2faab6)

  56. @55 Agreed, at a minimum.

    whembly (7e0293)

  57. The person did his or her duty unlike most of us who are afraid to do their duty. (that includes me) Biden and the democrats should let roberts know retaliation will not be tolerated. Slave holder thomas jefferson said it best it is their duty to alter or abolish it. Dred scott II/

    asset (5eb586)

  58. 55 – 🍻

    mg (8cbc69)

  59. Yeah, fine— sign statements. Mark Felt said he wasn’t Deep Throat for decades– until he did. But who says a ‘clerk’ did it– could be a janitor or a justice— and besides, since the leaker has already demonstrated contempt for institutional norms, rules and regs, signing a piece of paper won’t mean much to ’em. Might as well check the petty cash box, too.

    Given the small pool of people w/access to this information, if they can’t trace the source in 24-48 hours- it indicates some pretty sloppy, if not arcane, office administration going on in the bureaucracy hidden from sight in Black Robed Club. Example; modern efficient organizations keep track of stuff; they have counters on Xerox machines w/key codes to access use and micro-mark pages to source origin. IPhones and gadgets can be traced, too. The SCOTUS are basicly bureaucrats w/life long appointments, afraid of modern appliances like TV cameras inside as is— do they still use typewriters, too? Give them until Friday to put this to bed. Regardless, the damage to the institution is permanent.

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  60. Yet a third motivation, centrist:

    Say that Kavanaugh has moved to Roberts’ position, making that the controlling opinion (keeping Casey but allowing the 15-week rule). Then the leak to let everyone know what it could have been.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  61. This intriguing suggestion comes from an email from Matt Wolking:

    A person called Amit Jain clerks for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

    As a Yale student, Jain blasted Yale for supporting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.

    Jain was quoted in a 2017 Politico piece by Josh Gerstein.

    Today, Gerstein published the draft SCOTUS opinion on Roe.

    TW2020 (824a6b)

  62. I am going to bet that cell records, GPS data and a lot of other stuff is being gone through right now. I wonder just what kind of waivers a Court employee has to sign, but I bet you they are iron-clad.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  63. Regardless, the damage to the institution is permanent.

    The damage is intentional. Sotomayor’s rhetoric at the hearing made it clear that she expected and possibly sought such damage.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  64. I believe all nine Supreme Court justices should require all of their clerks to sign a statement, today, *under penalty of perjury*

    I expect them to be going on the box today. The IC believes in the lie detector in security situations, and has some fairly astute technicians. I also expect several resignations by way of refusal.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  65. By-the-book Breyer said to be miffed retirement leaked January 26, 2022

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/by-the-book-breyer-said-to-be-miffed-retirement-leaked

    Note the date: January 26, 2022. The Alito draft is from February.

    And consider this- who has left the administrative pool of the court bureaucracy since February? This could have been leaked by somebody gone and off the payroll there.

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  66. What I find surprising is all the pundits “surprised” by the “stunning” arguments Alito used, since they are basically what the anti-Roe side has been saying for 50 years.

    Even many abortion rights supporters have acknowledged that Roe is a dog’s breakfast of a ruling. Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself admitted as much. What seems to irk them so much is that they now have to continue to make the moral case for why allowing a woman to terminate a pregnancy — any time up until birth and then maybe even in the immediate moments afterwards — is to the greater good more so than protecting innocent life is. They can’t just fall back on the tired old “It’s settled law!” argument any longer, and that scares the hell out of them.

    JVW (020d31)

  67. Breyer’s retirement may have been leaked because of fear of an RBG disease progression redux…check the “HR people” who interface with health insurance.

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  68. ‘The U.S. Supreme Court requests $96.4 million ($2.7 million for mandatory expenses and $93.6 million for discretionary expenses) in FY 2021 for the Salaries and Expenses account. The $93.6 million request for discretionary appropriations represents a $5.9 million increase over the FY 2020 enacted discretionary appropriation.’

    https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/fy_2021_congressional_budget_summary_0.pdf

    No budget line specified for a plumber. 😉

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  69. How did this happen?

    Every justice (11) appointed between 1969 and 1991 was appointed by a Republican President. Since then, 5 of 9 justices were appointed by Republicans, and 6 of the current justice were appointed by Republicans. When Justice Thomas came onto the Court, Byron White was the only Democrat-appointed justice.

    The real questions is why didn’t this happen earlier.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  70. “Do you really see abortion as the issue that stops the realignment that has been going on?”

    Probably not…people vote their checkbooks first….but there will be a reaction and our social media will amplify it. DEMs will create doomsday scenarios. I would be surprised if it doesn’t narrow some contests and ultimately influence 2024.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  71. What we’re not asking is “Why Politico?” Why not WaPo or NYT? Was it because Politico were the only ones who would touch it?

    Likely. The NYT et al would prefer not to burn that bridge.

    The most disappointed reporter in Washington right now is Nina Totenberg.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  72. “What I find surprising is all the pundits “surprised” by the “stunning” arguments Alito used”

    Yeah, nothing new with the arguments but does this close out the matter….or do we head toward a concerted effort to swing the court back liberal…and simply ground the right in sex discrimination as Ginsburg would have preferred? I guess we will see if our federalism is functional and what women who are stuck in pro-life states do.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  73. The original Roe v. Wade ruling was leaked, too
    ………
    First, the Washington Post published a story about the court’s internal deliberations, including a June 1972 memo from Justice William O. Douglas to his colleagues that was mysteriously leaked.

    Seven months later, Time magazine published the final decision and vote details just hours before the court was due to announce it — the result of an early scoop and a delayed ruling.

    A Supreme Court clerk named Larry Hammond told Time staff reporter David Beckwith, a law school acquaintance, that the Roe ruling was coming, according to lawyer and author James Robenalt, who detailed the incident in a Washington Post column on Monday.

    Hammond gave Beckwith the information “on background,” and it was only to be reported once the opinion came down from the court. But the ruling was slightly delayed, and that week’s magazine ended up hitting newsstands a few hours too soon.

    Then-Chief Justice Warren Burger was reportedly furious about the leak, demanding a meeting with Time’s editors to tell them off. He also sent a letter to the other justices demanding that the leaker be identified and punished, and threatened to subject law clerks to lie-detector tests if no one came forward, Robenalt said.

    According to Peters, this was also the origin of Burger’s “20-second rule,” in which any law clerk caught talking to a reporter would be fired in under half a minute.

    Hammond offered his resignation to his boss, Justice Lewis Powell. But Powell didn’t accept it, and instead called Burger to tell him “that Hammond had been double-crossed,” writes Robenalt, who interviewed Hammond for his 2015 book about the political and cultural events of January 1973.

    Burger wasn’t quick to forgive the magazine, but accepted Hammond’s apology and let him stay on as Powell’s clerk. He continued in that role for an additional term before leaving the court to join the Watergate Special Prosecution Force.
    ………

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  74. Shocked and stunned. 2016 election. AOC’s victory now this. Pundit class is always prefering to be shocked and stunned instead of saying what they really think. In 2018 it was the people who told huckabee get out not the pundits elites. The people will have to do the post natal abortions now biden is to corporate establishment.

    asset (5eb586)

  75. @783. ‘Hammond gave Beckwith the information “on background,” and it was only to be reported once the opinion came down from the court. But the ruling was slightly delayed, and that week’s magazine ended up hitting newsstands a few hours too soon.’

    That’s not quite comparable to this situation. Politico has not said the leak was ‘on background’… and certainly did not hold to publish w/a 7 month delay intending to report when the ruling was released.

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  76. Would DOJ charge someone for leaking SCOTUS abortion opinion draft?
    ……..
    ……..[W]hile the leaker or leakers might face professional consequences — such as getting fired or losing their law license — legal analysts say they will almost certainly not face any criminal exposure, provided they had legitimate access to the document.
    ……….
    “Unless the draft was obtained through means that were themselves unlawful, I’m having a really hard time seeing what crime was committed in leaking it to the press,” University of Texas Law School Professor Stephen I. Vladeck said, adding later: “That doesn’t mean that there won’t or can’t be an investigation, but I’d be really surprised if it ended up with any kind of criminal charge.”

    A draft Supreme Court opinion is not classified, which is typically the basis for leak investigations. ……

    “I am extremely skeptical of what basis or what authority the Justice Department would have to inquire into this matter,” said national security and whistleblower lawyer Bradley P. Moss. “It is certainly a fireable offense — without question — but there is no obvious criminal provision that would apply.”
    …….
    The law that could be at issue is 18 U.S.C. 641 — which prohibits the theft or receipt of stolen government information, as well as theft of the documents. That could apply to Supreme Court documents.

    But the Justice Department’s criminal division has said, as a matter of policy, that it would be inappropriate to bring a prosecution under the law in the following circumstances: when the thing alleged to have been stolen was “intangible property, i.e., government information”; when the person “obtained or used the property primarily for the purpose of disseminating it to the public”; and when the property was not obtained by wiretapping, interception of correspondence or trespassing.
    …….
    In other words, if someone with legitimate access to the draft — such as a justice, clerk or administrative assistant — leaked the information because they thought the public should know about it, the Justice Department would not treat the leak as a crime.
    …….

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  77. ^@73.

    DCSCA (2727e8)

  78. Schumer, Pelosi and the other leftists engaging in insurrection by trying to intimidate a co-equal branch of government need to be brought up on charges. This is what a the real attempt to destroy our nation means.

    NJRob (bf9a51)

  79. Selling secrets: The disturbing tale of Supreme Court clerk Ashton Embry
    ……..
    It was 1911, and Supreme Court clerks were a relatively new innovation. The job wasn’t the case-analyzing, opinion-drafting, intellectual repartee that it is today; it was mostly a typing and valet position, paying the justice’s bills and keeping track of his votes on the court’s cases. Embry kept his head down and did his duty ably for nearly a decade, even after McKenna’s mental capacities began to fail him.

    But on December 16, 1919, Embry suddenly and unexpectedly wrote his justice and tendered his immediate resignation. Embry told McKenna that his side-hustle — a bakery business — had succeeded so well that he needed to devote himself full-time to more leavened endeavors.

    What McKenna didn’t know when he accepted Embry’s resignation later that day was the lede in the morning’s New York papers. They ran a shocking story: Someone had leaked the results of the Supreme Court’s pending decision in United States v. Southern Pacific Railroad to a group of Wall Street speculators shortly before the decision was officially announced. The government had challenged Southern Pacific’s title to some land on account of the company’s alleged fraud when applying for it; the justices decided to come down on the government’s side. When the decision hit, the stock cratered by nearly 10 percent — and the speculators, who had sold the stock short hours before the decision’s release, pocketed a tidy sum.
    ……….
    The grand jury ultimately indicted Embry (and three other conspirators) on a theory (that they) “impaired the functions· of government — a violation of United States Code Section 37 — by depriving the Supreme Court of its usual practice of announcing its decisions at customary times. A strange theory, that the government has a legal right to announce things at customary times, and on penalty of a criminal violation, but there was some case law to support it.
    ………

    At the time there was no law against insider trading, as well as procedural irregularities, so charges were ultimately dismissed in 1921.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  80. For more on the Ashton Embry story, see “The Clerk, The Thief, His Life as a Baker: Ashton Embry and the Supreme Court Leak Scandal of 1919.”

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  81. Burger wasn’t quick to forgive the magazine, but accepted Hammond’s apology and let him stay on as Powell’s clerk. He continued in that role for an additional term before leaving the court to join the Watergate Special Prosecution Force.

    Yet another sign that Warren Burger was full of beans. He bloviates about firing the leaker, but when the leaker comes forward and acknowledges his sin, Burger instead shifts blame to the magazine which published the leak. Yet another data point that Washington DC is just all about protecting their own, ethics and propriety be dammed.

    JVW (020d31)

  82. “Schumer, Pelosi and the other leftists engaging in insurrection by trying to intimidate a co-equal branch of government need to be brought up on charges”

    What charges. Be specific.

    Davethulhu (da3c71)

  83. RIP Norm Mineta (90). Secretary of Transportation on 9/11. As a child, interned at Heart Mountain, WY during World War II where he met a fellow Boy Scout named Alan Simpson.

    Norman was wearing his Boy Scout uniform and clutching a baseball mitt and bat when he and his siblings boarded a train in San Jose. He recalled a U.S. soldier confiscating the bat, calling it a deadly weapon.
    ………
    When Mr. Mineta was serving in Congress, a Los Angeles man sent him a token gift to make up for what he had lost as a boy. It was a bat that had belonged to Hall-of-Famer Hank Aaron. It was worth $1,500 — more than the $250 a House member could accept, according to federal rules — and Mr. Mineta had to return the bat to its sender.

    “The damn government’s taken my bat again,” he said at the time.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  84. All you need to do is look at what the media is saying to know that it was pro-abortionists who leaked the draft. It’s all apocalyptic doom and gloom and the end of womankind as we know it. Whoever the leakers were, they figured that somebody better make some noise right now and not placidly wait for the fait accompli on the last week of June to baa futilely.

    nk (8aec2e)

  85. Yet another sign that Warren Burger was full of beans. He bloviates about firing the leaker, but when the leaker comes forward and acknowledges his sin, Burger instead shifts blame to the magazine which published the leak.

    If you want to stop leaks, prosecute a few reporters and media companies. In general, the laws governing secrecy forbid the possession of secrets by unauthorized persons (and reporters are certainly unauthorized) as well as their publication.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  86. Schumer, Pelosi and the other leftists engaging in insurrection by trying to intimidate a co-equal branch of government need to be brought up on charges. This is what a the real attempt to destroy our nation means.

    NJRob (bf9a51) — 5/3/2022 @ 2:07 pm

    When you say things like this, do you expect them to be taken seriously?

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  87. Put in the wrong thread (Esper)

    Here is the start:

    From Justice Alito’s draft opinion, February, 2022:

    Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak.. </i?

    Worse than that. It was partly a result of a fraud on the court, and that alone is justifiable reason to overrule it.

    The court was told, and said in its opinion, that nobody much thought there was anything wrong with abortion until approximately the 1860s. (although what it cites from the American Medical Association.seems to assume an ethical./moral objection to abortion)

    https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/reproduction/roe_v_wade.htm (it is difficult to find the full text (free) online quickly

    [61] It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the pregnant woman’s life, are not of ancient or even of common-law origin. Instead, they derive from statutory changes effected, for the most part, in the latter half of the 19th century.

    Of course, the quality of judicial research being wehat it is, Alito did not delve into this.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  88. Alexandra Desanctis also believes that this leak surely came from one of the Court lefties

    It might not have been leaked with the intention of it becoming public, but the Justice might have wanted help in crafting a dissenting opinion.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  89. Naturally, the usual media fatheads are downplaying the nature of how the draft was obtained by Politico, deeming the actual draft contents — which I remind you would have mostly been eventually published anyway — to be far more important.

    Something they didn;t do with the Hunter Biden laptop. The idea it was hacked became a reason to ban mention of it on Twitter. (for other purposes, the Biden campaign offered the idea that it might have been salted with fake material.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  90. and if it can’t, we may see a pressure campaign on the Court (or worse, violence) unprecedented in modern times.

    The pressure campaign has started.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/03/protests-roe-v-wade-supreme-court/

    Crowds protest at Supreme Court after leak of Roe opinion draft

    Activists expect a larger turnout Tuesday evening, with protests planned in state capitals across the country

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/05/03/abortion-rights-protests-supreme-court-leak/9628280002/

    In addition to scattered protests nationally, organizers from the Women’s March, a global protest held the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, called on supporters of abortion rights to rally outside federal courthouses and other government buildings.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  91. Guaranteed it was someone on the left, and I believe it was a clerk and not a justice.

    The losing side.

    Since it took so long to surface, (Politico couldn’t have held it more than two months) it seems possible to me this was first given in confidence to someone else by someone who wanted help in drafting a dissenting opinion – although it could also have been intended to go public by the first person who broke confidentiality.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  92. 21. Davethulhu (da3c71) — 5/3/2022 @ 10:21 am

    , the Court needs to release the decision immediately.”

    They can’t. The dissents aren’t reasdy, and the opinion also should incorporate responses to the dissents.

    The normal expectation would be that this would be released on the last day of the term.

    And since Breyer will want to get his points in, it won’t be delayed past that.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  93. @81. Yet another data point that Washington DC is just all about protecting their own, ethics and propriety be dammed.

    Swamp creatures. Which is why populism continues to root deeper and deeper— and citizens, fed up with it all, elect alternatives, like Trump– and ‘storm the castle.’ Bolt down that podium, Nancy!

    DCSCA (8b2e47)

  94. Where’s my violin?

    Abortion clinic at center of Mississippi case may move to N.M. if Roe is overturned
    Shannon Brewer, director of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, told NBC News she may open a clinic in New Mexico if states are allowed to outlaw abortion.

    nk (8aec2e)

  95. @84. All you need to do is look at what the media is saying to know that it was pro-abortionists who leaked the draft. It’s all apocalyptic doom and gloom and the end of womankind as we know it.

    Meh. ‘Womankind’ as we know it… love those endlessly entertaining, hard right ideological conservatives; weep not for Birkenstock Hillary-clones; “Feminism” dies hard for the Uglies. Next move by the thought police will be to expunge ‘Ms.’ and return to the proper Miss or Missus! They got the vote- that’s enough! Gotta get’em back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant one step at a time! 😉

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j-8Q79U1qk

    “Oh we’re the bright young men; who want to go back to 1910; we’re Barry’s Boys…”

    DCSCA (8b2e47)

  96. “I see fascism down the line here.” – Joy Behar, ‘The View’ ABC TV 5/3/22

    I see one ugly woman on my TV.

    DCSCA (8b2e47)

  97. The Schumer-Pelosi joint statement is rather rich:

    “The Republican-appointed justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”

    One could easily switch out “overturn Roe v. Wade” with “institute Roe v. Wade”, since without Republican-appointed justices Roe would never have become law in the first place. Five of the seven justices who decided in favor of Roe were appointed by Republican presidents.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-supporters-roe-vs-wade-was-decided-by-a-republican_b_581fbd44e4b044f827a78f87

    And, to be fair, the pro-life side sees Roe “as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history”.

    Me? I’m as firmly pro-choice as I am anti-Roe. Let the states decide for themselves.

    As to the source of the leak, I have to go with a lefty. Leftists are the ones who get the vapors whenever Roe is threatened. Witness the sh*tshow that was the Kavanaugh hearings. Parsing messages in somebody’s high school yearbook? What an embarrassment, an absolute nadir. All because Roe was in jeopardy.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  98. Our foolish President once again shows that as far as East is from West are his deep musings from reality:

    President Biden called a leaked draft opinion revealing that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade “a radical decision” in comments to reporters on Tuesday.

    “If this decision holds, it’s really quite a radical decision,” Biden told reporters at Andrews Air Force Base.

    Elsewhere in his comments, Biden indicated he could support codifying Roe in law.

    “Roe says what all basic, mainstream religions have historically concluded, that right, the existence of a human life and being is a question,” Biden said. “Is it at the moment of conception? Is it six months? Is it six weeks? Is it ‘quickening’ like Aquinas argued?”

    As typical with this guy, some aide briefed him on what Aquinas allegedly said about Ensoulment of the child in the womb, but as usual he got less than a Cliff’s Notes version of what the Saint truly believed. Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1225 – 1274) was basing his conjecture — and it was really a conjecture which never has had any weight in Canon Law — on observations that Aristotle had made nearly one and one-half millennia earlier, and Aristotle was merely observing the state of physical development of miscarried children at various stages of their development. Aquinas in his own time readily acknowledged the limits of his knowledge. And regardless of what he said about Ensoulment and quickening, he believed that abortion was always a violation of natural law and wrong.

    It’s not as if we expect President Biden to know what the hell he is talking about, but when he actually claims that “Roe says what all basic, mainstream religions have historically concluded,” then he is just beclowning himself. I really am not big on the Church wantonly calling out Catholic politicians for deviations from the Catechism, but when a prominent Catholic like Biden gets it so egregiously wrong in such a public manner then I think his bishop needs to step in and correct the record.

    JVW (020d31)

  99. Shannon Brewer, director of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, told NBC News she may open a clinic in New Mexico if states are allowed to outlaw abortion.

    The very uncharitable side of me snidely suggests that Ms. Brewer almost certainly believes that if she can’t stop pregnancies of young black women then it’s natural that she would go where she can stop pregnancies of young Hispanic and Native American women.

    JVW (020d31)

  100. What I find more egregious is another Biden statement that gay rights would now also be in danger from this decision, when just last term, in Bostock v. Clayton County, by a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court extended sex discrimination protection to gays and transgenders. They’re taking out all the stops. WAAAAAHHH!!!!!

    nk (49014f)

  101. @99. Our foolish President once again shows that as far as East is from West are his deep musings from reality…

    If you downed a shot of bourbon every time he said, “Not a joke… I’m not kidding,” today at Lockheed in Alabama, you’d be drunk in 5 minutes:

    Biden hails ‘Hungarian’ defense of Ukraine, says US gave ‘Russia’ Javelins

    President Biden stumbled repeatedly Tuesday during remarks on US aid to Ukraine — saying the United States “made sure Russia had Javelins” and noting the successful “Hungarian” resistance to Russia’s invasion. Biden made the glaring gaffes at an Alabama facility that makes the anti-tank missiles.

    The context of Biden’s remarks made clear he knew the US was actually arming Ukraine’s government with the sophisticated weapon, and he correctly identified the recipient nation at some points in his remarks.

    https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/biden-hails-hungarian-defense-of-ukraine-says-us-gave-russia-javelins/

    Such an awful outing. A sick, sad, incompetent putz of a POTUS.

    DCSCA (82cfa7)

  102. @98. Me? I’m as firmly pro-choice as I am anti-Roe. Let the states decide for themselves.

    I’m pro-choice so you can choose either way but abortion is no biggie to me on the list of issues facing the nation; the crabgrass on the lawn of a house of fire thing. What is sad is the rescinding of a half-century-old right. It marks another decline in the U.S. society and aids adversaries around the world arguing against America. There’s nothing quilled in the Constitution that guarantees the right to breathe either– so don’t hold your breath if the courts rescind that in 50 years. 😉

    DCSCA (82cfa7)

  103. JVW, she would also expect the black women from the SEC West states to travel out that way, despite Orange TX being closer to Jacksonville FL than to a El Paso. East Saint Louis, Springfield and Champaign in my state will probably get the same ghouls looking at adding or expanding sites targeting that market. Wonder what towns will be the 21st century equivalent of Going to Reno?

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  104. They’re setting the stage for the Kamala Dump.

    It’s going to be OL’Joe Biden/feminist Hillary Clinton 2024 vs.. Trump and a TBD VP. She’ll take the #2 gig, too. [LBJ did.] If the ticket wins- as folks vote for the top of the ticket- Joe will inevitably resign due to health/age issues and Hillary waltzes in to be POTUS w/o every going through primaries or have to raise campaign funds for a POTUS run. If they lose to Trump, the loss will be on Joe.

    DCSCA (82cfa7)

  105. Schumer, Pelosi and the other leftists engaging in insurrection by trying to intimidate a co-equal branch of government need to be brought up on charges. This is what a the real attempt to destroy our nation means.

    NJRob (bf9a51) — 5/3/2022 @ 2:07 pm

    When you say things like this, do you expect them to be taken seriously?
    lurker (cd7cd4) — 5/3/2022 @ 3:12 pm

    OK, I think I found the source of at least some of that derangement. Why you dragged Schumer and Pelosi into it, I won’t speculate. But hey, baby steps.

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  106. I wouldn’t be surprised at whoever released it. There are advantages and disadvantages to both political parties. I don’t think it was a justice, though, unless it might have been Breyer. My guess is either a young lefty clerk who is outraged, because gen z seem to think that any action is justified by their level of outrage, or a very clever righty who wants to move the outrage as far from the mid-terms as possible.

    Possible outcomes: I think overturning of Roe would make things somewhat harder on the working class and ambitious young economically-disadvantaged women who make mistakes in red states. I think it could cause red-state budgetary issues for a myriad of reasons in ten or so years. I think it will lose R votes among women who don’t automatically vote R.

    Personal story: I went to a Catholic HS in a state where abortion was unpopular and my schoolmates protested the local clinic. One week a classmate of mine disappeared to New York for a “shopping trip” that resulted in no apparent items purchased and no stories of places she went or things she did. It was the same year two of her friends did not return to school until mid-October because they were having babies. This is what I suspect will happen more frequently for nice young middle class girls in red states that outlaw abortion.

    Nic (896fdf)

  107. Wonder what towns will be the 21st century equivalent of Going to Reno?

    urbanleftbehind (666267) — 5/3/2022 @ 5:35 pm

    Killeen, TX?

    norcal (3f02c4)

  108. It’s going to be OL’Joe Biden/feminist Hillary Clinton 2024 vs.. Trump and a TBD VP.

    Gotta be Susan Collins then. Imagine how delicious it would be to have Biden (almost 82) and Hillary (77) vs. Trump (78) and Collins (almost 72). Nothing says End Stages of America better than over 300 years of candidates from our two major parties. Maybe we can also add an Independent fusion ticket of Mitt Romney (77) and Jeanne Sheehan (77) just for fun. We’ll leave it up to Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Grassley (both 90) to count the votes.

    JVW (020d31)

  109. @109. ROFLMAOPIP!!!!!!!!!

    DCSCA (2d497b)

  110. This is what I suspect will happen more frequently for nice young middle class girls in red states that outlaw abortion.

    I mean it’s certainly possible, Nic, but I’m guessing that like me you went through high school well before there were over-the-counter abortifacients available at virtually every pharmacy. Maybe I’m totally delusional, but I think that the average “nice young middle class girl” who kind of loses it in the moment and has unprotected sex or else has a obvious birth control failure is going to go to CVS or Walgreens and spend $50 for the morning after pill. And that will probably significantly cut into the number of abortions performed among that subset.

    The people who are really going to be affected by this are girls and women in the underclass who find themselves in this situation. It’s a difficult situation: I know an ob-gyn in an urban area which serves a disadvantaged community who finds herself completely baffled by the women who come to her two or even three times as teenagers to seek abortions. After their first abortion my friend always strongly encourages them to go on some sort of hormonal contraceptive (they can always find someone or some foundation to subsidize the cost), but she says that so many of these girls are just so careless that they don’t bother. It’s very frustrating for her as a physician, even though she supports abortion rights.

    JVW (020d31)

  111. OT- Looks like GOP Ohio is still Trumpland; AP calls it for JD Vance.

    DCSCA (2d497b)

  112. I seem to recall that our distinguished host had a post, maybe 15 years ago, in which he asked that if some form of artificial womb was developed, into which an unwanted unborn child could be transferred, would the pro-abortion people still want an abortion procedure in which the child was killed. If I recall correctly, there were several commenters who said that yes, the mother should have the choice to have the child killed.

    The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (27cb2f)

  113. Here’s a stray thought. Suppose Vance wins the Republican primary, and then goes on to win the general election.

    And then gets a serious case of ingratitude toward Trump. The author of Hillbilly Elegy has a diagnosis of the problems of the rural working class that is unlike Trumpism, to say the least:

    Alongside his personal history, Vance raises questions such as the responsibility of his family and people for their own misfortune. Vance blames hillbilly culture and its supposed encouragement of social rot. Comparatively, he feels that economic insecurity plays a much lesser role. To lend credence to his argument, Vance regularly relies on personal experience. As a grocery store checkout cashier, he watched welfare recipients talk on cell phones although the working Vance could not afford one.

    Now, to say the least, blaming voters for their problems is unusual. But Vance might get away with it, and he would have six years to make his case to the voters, no matter what Trump does. (He’ll turn 38 in August, so it seems nearly certain that he would want a second term, and perhaps a higher office.)

    (Cross posted at Political Betting.)

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  114. @107. Granted this was decades and decades ago, but my late mother was having a very difficult pregnancy and my late father was told it could very well come down to the child or the mother. I asked what would have been the call- and both Dad and Mom said they could always try to have another child, so the plan was to save the mother. The child was me.

    DCSCA (2d497b)

  115. Suppose Vance wins the Republican primary…

    The AP has called it for him, Jimbo.

    DCSCA (2d497b)

  116. @JVW@111 V. late 80s/early 90s, so the morning after pill wasn’t quite available yet, no. In my experience, however, teenagers aren’t necessarily careless (though some are), but they don’t plan ahead well, tend to get caught up in the moment, are terrified that someone they know will see them buying condoms/morning after pill, and never quite believe something will happen to them until it does, sometimes repeatedly. Their brains aren’t fully developed yet, even in the really smart ones.

    Nic (896fdf)

  117. I found ’em: here and here.

    Lots of comments on who then pays for supporting the unwanted child.

    In 2373, in the episode “Body Parts” of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the pregnant Keiko O’Brien is injured in an accident, and Dr Bashir, to save the life of her unborn child, transfers the child to Major Kira Nerys.

    The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana (27cb2f)

  118. This is fantastic news for a couple of reasons, IF it actually goes through (and that remains to be seen):

    -It would be the first real loss for the left in the culture war since the ERA was stopped. This, plus the fight between Disney and DeSantis, shows that the pushback against Wokism isn’t going to be petering out any time soon. And let’s not forget what actually kicked all this off– Democrats Overplay Their Hand on Abortion (emphasis mine)…In New York and Virginia, state governments are working to loosen restrictions on late-term abortion—and giving the anti-abortion movement an opportunity.” The Atlantic, Feb 24,2019

    -Roe was unquestionably a horribly constructed legal judgement, basically crafting a Constitutional right for it out of thin air. If this goes through, the decision will go back to the states, and that’s where there’s actually an opportunity to have hard conversations about at what point a fetus is considered to be a human being deserving legal protections. I know the left LOVES to claim they love “hard conversations,” let’s see if that’s the case when it comes to a legitimately nuanced issue like abortion, rather than “everything bad is whitey’s fault.”

    The simple reality is that, while a majority of people support abortion, a majority of people ALSO support at least some restrictions on the practice. The Democrat-voting media has always framed it as a “all or nothing” proposition because doing so has long helped them manufacture a consensus on the practice. Start talking about what parameters abortion might be allowed versus what restrictions should be accepted–based on science, current medical practices for delivering and caring for preemies, when it feels pain, rape and/or incest, danger to the life of the mother–and once you get past the initial screeching, there might be an opportunity for real compromise. Or, Americans will continue the “great sorting” that’s been going on the last 20-odd years, with abortion maximalists migrating over to blue states and those wanting restrictions going to red or purple states.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  119. “Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned.” Joe Biden today.

    The same guy who in 1982 proposed a constitutional amendment that would overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to choose their own policies on abortion.

    “How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can do and not do with her own body? How dare they? How dare they try to stop her in determining her own future?” Kamala Harris today.

    These are the same people who had no problem with people getting fired for declining to be vaxed.

    There are people who call themselves ‘conservative’ who voted for them.

    Obudman (2d52ed)

  120. On another fun note, the prospect of losing the Boomer Dems’ holy sacrament has temporarily broken the left’s Pavolvian conditioning on gender, and they’ve suddenly recalled that only real, actual women can get pregnant and have babies.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  121. (He’ll turn 38 in August, so it seems nearly certain that he would want a second term, and perhaps a higher office.)

    If Vance is really a Machiavellian genius perhaps he figures that Donald Trump will likely be dead by the end of his first term in the Senate, and thereafter he can run as someone who basically supported Trump but wasn’t blind to his myriad faults. I don’t think Don Jr. is going to be much of a keeper of the flame when the old man croaks.

    JVW (020d31)

  122. On another fun note, the prospect of losing the Boomer Dems’ holy sacrament has temporarily broken the left’s Pavolvian conditioning on gender, and they’ve suddenly recalled that only real, actual women can get pregnant and have babies.

    Awesome comment, Factory Working Orphan. Funny how a real existential crisis (at least for Dems) carries far more weight than their various manufactured existential crises like recognizing men as mothers.

    JVW (020d31)

  123. @122. As an ex-resident of Northwestern Ohio from the ol’Woody Hayes days who escaped to 20th century America, only three things stay with me; 1.: A famed Ohio State bumper sticker– ‘Muck Fishigan’; 2. the aftertaste of Busch 3.2 beer; 3. The motto of all who leave: “A Buckeye is a useless nut.” 😉

    DCSCA (45cd60)

  124. So obsessed with it’s neighbor to the north is Ohio that 2 of the 3 Dem clear 50+1 presidential wins in the past 50 years likely only occurred because the R candidate was Michigan reared (Ford, a Wolverine no less and Romney, the Michigan banker).

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  125. thank you, trump voters

    you’re welcome

    JF (79ce5c)

  126. @125. True story- back in the day, attended a Ford rally; was in the press area [a tall Brit Hume nearly blocked my camera angles] and the first words out of ol’Jerry’s mouth were, “Hello all you wonderful Buckeyes!… [the crowd cheers]… I’m from that state up north!” The crowd boos.

    DCSCA (45cd60)

  127. This is what I suspect will happen more frequently for nice young middle class girls in red states that outlaw abortion.
    Nic (896fdf) — 5/3/2022 @ 5:55 pm

    i dunno, i’m kinda giving some thought to the human beings who got a chance to live a life

    JF (79ce5c)

  128. john roberts leaked it

    cuz it just sounds like a john roberts thing to do

    JF (79ce5c)

  129. Biden mixes up job title, says he’s nation’s first senator from Delaware

    https://nypost.com/2022/05/02/biden-mixes-up-job-title-says-hes-first-senator-from-delaware/

    ‘President Biden on Monday mixed up his job title, telling a crowd at the White House that he was the nation’s first senator from Delaware when he meant to say president.

    Biden, who turns 80 this year, is the oldest-ever US president and Republican critics routinely accuse him of being in mental decline, citing gaffes and instances where he appears to lose his train of thought. “There have not been many of the senators from Delaware. It’s a small state. As a matter of fact, there has never been one. And so I want to take advantage of making sure I introduce [a fellow Delaware native],” Biden said at a White House event marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

    The president, who was born in Pennsylvania before moving to Delaware as a child, represented the state as a senator for 36 years before being vice president for eight years.’

    Oh. My. God.

    DCSCA (45cd60)

  130. If the fertilized egg is a human, then what’s to stop states from outlawing the morning-after pill subsequent to the repeal of Roe?

    norcal (3f02c4)

  131. @JF@128 My concerns are saved for born-people. While I might have opinions on whether the person giving someone in the womb life support should continue their pregnancy or not, they aren’t really relevant because it’s not my body giving them the life support.

    Nic (896fdf)

  132. schumer, pelosi, biden and the other democrat dwarfs know the base is now fed up with their do nothing whining. Its primary time! Speaking of which Trump endorsed j.d. vance won ohio senate primary. Yet never trumpers will say trumps influence in the party is waning. Maybe not!

    asset (4f7826)

  133. Nic (896fdf) — 5/3/2022 @ 8:51 pm

    i used to have the luxury to think like that, but then i grew up and had kids

    but it’s great to see one scenario where you revere the rights of a parent

    JF (79ce5c)

  134. @JF@134 I imagine that it’s nice to live a life where you never had to consider any situations in which you might become pregnant by accident or without your approval, input, or choice, but that isn’t a world I live in, so I’m not going to try to control what someone else decides to do in that situation.

    Nic (896fdf)

  135. The extremists on both sides of the abortion debate are insufferable. One camp says that life begins at conception, and that the destruction of a zygote is murder. The other tribe states that abortion at eight months is completely fine.

    I call b.s. on them both.

    As my uncle used to say, he gets more uncomfortable with abortion the longer the pregnancy goes on. In other words, it’s not black and white, but rather a spectrum.

    Here is my reach-across-the-aisle, compromise position when my state addresses abortion in a post-Roe world: Half. Halfway through a pregnancy should be the dividing line as to legality (except in cases where the mother’s life is threatened).

    This kind of policy would please neither side, to which I say, “Precisely”.

    Is it wishful thinking in a world where people love absolutes, and don’t do nuance? Probably.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  136. told NBC News she may open a clinic in New Mexico if states are allowed to outlaw abortion.

    Oh, I hope so. This is a majority Catholic state, where the “Hispanic” families were here before America was. I can think of no way to get rid of the overbearing smug “progressives” than Catholics going to the polls with abortion as the issue.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  137. Forget that this is about abortion. The alarm bells should be going off regarding the self-righteous behavior of SCOTUS nominees who clearly lied during their confirmation hearings. It’s disturbing- but not surprising in this day and age. If they’ll lie about their POVs asnd opinions on this, they’ll lie about anything- as is the nature of government bureaucrats. Which is just another reason populism is rooting deeper and deeper– and citizens ‘storm the castle.’ It’s just sad— and the sort of behavior to make the likes of Vlad, Xi and Kim smile any time Americans try to set themselves up as some superior moral entity.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  138. Nothing says End Stages of America better than over 300 years of candidates from our two major parties

    I think that both parties will nominate candidates under 60. Maybe under 50.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  139. Nic (896fdf) — 5/3/2022 @ 5:55 pm

    Abortion has not been a local issue in 50 years. Even in the states that have recently passed laws, they were mostly posturing, and were largely ignored as far as affecting anyone. And these laws went both ways. A number of Democrat-controlled states passed extremely liberal abortion laws. It’s no mistake that NM is being mentioned for new clinics.

    But NOW … now it matters. Now all those laws will come under fire, not only from the predictable sources but from grass-roots groups that had not cared about the posturing. And I think that 5 years from now, abortion will be legal in places it is not now, and vice versa.

    As Alito wrote (and the anti-Roe side has argued), Roe short-circuited a political process that will now restart. Ronald-flipping-Reagan signed one of the first abortion liberalization laws before Roe. It’s not at all clear how this will break. I expect the NM law to be changed considerably, and the Democrats to get a sharp rebuke at the polls from the majority-Catholic voters in this state.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  140. Putin’s hackers leaked it, to distract us while he prepares his May 9th masterstroke.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  141. I think that both parties will nominate candidates under 60. Maybe under 50.

    In ’24? So you are of the belief that President Biden ambles off (shambles off) into the sunset? Kamala Harris turns 60 two weeks before Election Day ’24, so are you ruling her out too?

    And it goes without question that you don’t think Trump will maintain his hold on the GOP base two years from now.

    JVW (020d31)

  142. Starting now democrats running in primaries will be asked what will you do to protect abortion rights and make outlaws of the 5 supreme court justices. Jessica cisneros in texas 28 will be a test on may 24.

    asset (4f7826)

  143. The creep McConnell has to pull all election funding for Collins and Murkowski. Republicans now have abortionists in the big tent.
    DISGUSTING.

    mg (8cbc69)

  144. Burn Loot and Murder was all ready to go but they found out someone blew all their dough on mansions.

    mg (8cbc69)

  145. Nic: “I imagine that it’s nice to live a life where you never had to consider any situations in which you might become pregnant”

    How many attitudes would adjust if with every abortion prevented came a $10k bill or a little bundle of joy deposited at the doorstep? Before getting to flip, there are many wonderful people out there adopting babies and supporting non-profit agencies helping unexpected single mothers. And there is an undeniable noble moral principle at play. But the demand for abortion is not going to evaporate…..because birth control and humans are imperfect. And though we like to moralize about accepting responsibility, is the cost proportional to the perceived misdeed?

    I doubt many women seeking an abortion do it joyfully or frivolously. I can imagine that it is gut wrenching and embarrassing. It’s an unenviable choice and many are just too glib about what they are asking….demanding…..that a woman do, without any guarantee of health care, financial, or emotional support. There are great people trying, but there are simply no guarantees. Yes, commercial abortion seems gruesome, but what is the alternative? A return to back alleys and coat hangers and other do-it-yourself procedures? Should safe abortions only be available to those financially well off and able to travel to pursue them?

    It’s easy to be morally certain when it’s not your body or your future and there’s no real personal cost. The challenge with all of this is on one hand we have a judicial process that created a compromise with little actual foundation. The 14A is an imperfect and controversial vehicle. On the other, the legislative prohibitions only seem to address a small part of the situation. And the majority of people…over 70%….consistently side with women having some access to abortion in the earliest stages of pregnancy….even if they themselves morally oppose the practice.

    So maybe some are right here that the discussion will finally be open in each state. I just wonder if we might still converge on the compromise that was Roe in the end. I guess we might be poised to see soon.

    AJ_Liberty (a36eed)

  146. There might be some dyed in the wool pro-abortionists of a decidedly different stripe in the other corner of said tent,mg…Paul Gosar probably comes to mind.

    Probably a fair amount of Tuckerites as well.

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  147. After watching and reading the news cycle on this topic for almost a day now, one of the more interesting things for me is watching how Democrats throw off their pro-trans garbs when panicked about abortion rights.

    It’s all about women’s rights.

    When will the trans wing of the Democratic party start fighting back against these bigots?

    Hoi Polloi (121542)

  148. Hoi, they may have pounced on one of their “anti-trans” targets last night.

    urbanleftbehind (666267)

  149. Kings County Democratic position on abortion opinion:

    BK Dems statement on draft SCOTUS opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade

    (Brooklyn, NY) — The Supreme Court majority has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to Politico, which published an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. The breaking news also marks the first time in modern history that a draft decision in a pending case has been published. Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn issued the following statement:

    “The Supreme Court majority decision draft is confirmation of our worst fears come true. This will reverse all of the progress of the last five decades on abortion rights. The threat the decision poses is not just an attack on women’s rights: it’s a blow to democracy. Americans across the political aisle oppose this ruling and support the right to choose. As Democrats, we must raise the alarm. We must play offensively. We must unite to ensure every person and family can access safe and affordable abortion. We support the codification of Roe v. Wade and remind all Brooklynites that abortion remains legal.”

    Notes:

    1. The idea that five justices will a sign on to this opinion is a separate, and possibly wrong, leak. This could be a concurring opinion. Chief Justice Roberts seemed to hint at that. There may be no opinion that gets five – and that may be the hope of the Roe proponents.

    Justice Thomas, by the way, may have a stronger opinion. Roberts has been rumored to want to keep chipping away at Roe but not overrule it. He is probably hoping to get at least one of Trump’s appointees.

    If it splits 1-3-2 plus three dissents what’s the controlling law? One issue can be what do you do with the carelessly enacted laws recently passed?

    2. Unlike Biden, the Kings County Democrats are limiting the effects they say this will have to abortion. No talk of other possible ‘rights” being taken away. Biden did this also in his 2012 vice presidential debate.

    3. Somebody may have wanted to condemn or deplore the leak. There’s a sentence that starts out like it was going there, but it abruptly ends.

    4. Codifying Roe (and more!) has been done on the (New York) state level, but to say this can be done on the federal level is typical of the increasing tendency of many activists and some politicians )not just Democrats now) to ignore law.

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  150. When will the trans wing of the Democratic party start fighting back against these bigots?

    Obviously, Hoi Polloi, the trans wing of the Democratic party has been intimidated into silence by the symbolic violence of the cis-gendered who want to classify only birthing persons as women.

    nk (24001b)

  151. The other thing about wokes is that if they did not invent it, it’s not woke. Roe v. Wade itself is an anachronism from 1973 and it never took into account that sex and gender are two different things, so how important is it, really?

    nk (24001b)

  152. Kevin M:

    As Alito wrote (and the anti-Roe side has argued), Roe short-circuited a political process that will now restart.

    I think credit should be given to Justice Scalia for this argument.

    This is an argument that can reach people who are on opposite sides of the abortion question itself.

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  153. Text of the draft opinion:

    https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-874f-dd36-a38c-c74f98520000

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  154. @131

    If the fertilized egg is a human, then what’s to stop states from outlawing the morning-after pill subsequent to the repeal of Roe?

    norcal (3f02c4) — 5/3/2022 @ 8:32 pm

    Nothing.

    But I doubt very much many red states would go that far.

    whembly (7e0293)

  155. The idea that five justices will a sign on to this opinion is a separate, and possibly wrong, leak. This could be a concurring opinion. Chief Justice Roberts seemed to hint at that. There may be no opinion that gets five – and that may be the hope of the Roe proponents.

    And that may be what the true story is, given the nearly three months between the date of the draft and the leak. And the leaker of course knows it. So there’s a lot of hullabaloo and the pro-abortionists declare victory for something that had already happened.

    nk (24001b)

  156. Alito’s apparent opinion is exceptionally well written.

    DRJ (03cb91)

  157. #156

    If that’s the case, the Supreme Court, in its investigation of the leak, needs to make that very clear. The effect of a leak like this is that kills the ability to negotiate and maneuver, because the presumption (by the justices) is that they agreed to all that. Alito’s decision reads great — and illustrates why excellent writing can make bad law. (Griswold v. Connecticut also makes for a nice poli sci kind of essay)

    Appalled (1a17de)

  158. The idea that five justices will a sign on to this opinion is a separate, and possibly wrong, leak. This could be a concurring opinion. Chief Justice Roberts seemed to hint at that. There may be no opinion that gets five – and that may be the hope of the Roe proponents.

    Indeed, that’s an intriguing conjecture. But I believe that the leaker indicated to the reporters that Alito’s opinion was at least initially joined by four others (sans Roberts), so again, I think the most likely scenario is that the leaker hopes to scare at least one of them away from it.

    JVW (020d31)

  159. This is an argument that can reach people who are on opposite sides of the abortion question itself.

    I should point out that I believe that an adult woman should have the right to abort a fetus in the first trimester, or for serious birth defects that show up later.

    But that does NOT mean that I think that it is a right embedded in our Constitution. Perhaps it should be, but it isn’t.

    I invite Congress to propose such an amendment.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  160. I think the most likely scenario is that the leaker hopes to scare at least one of them away from it.

    I think it is about as likely that a second justice moved to Roberts’ “15 weeks is long enough for the abortion right” position, which would control the 6-3 ruling. The leak then makes this seem moderate when it comes out.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  161. Then again, Biden speaks of “aborting a child” so maybe the battle is done.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  162. The decision is the correct one and will allow for a further sorting of society.

    Ny fiancee and I are looking for warmer climates, both temperature and politically.

    NJRob (6f044e)

  163. The threat the decision poses is not just an attack on women’s rights: it’s a blow to democracy.

    This is the argument that needs to be mocked. How is allowing legislatures to make laws a “blow to democracy”?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  164. I think that both parties will nominate candidates under 60. Maybe under 50.

    In ’24? So you are of the belief that President Biden ambles off (shambles off) into the sunset? Kamala Harris turns 60 two weeks before Election Day ’24, so are you ruling her out too?

    I don’t think either will be the nominee-Biden for “health reasons” and Kamala because of her unpopularity.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  165. The rationale behind this decision should also weaken the rationale behind Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, and Griswold v. Connecticut, as all of the issues addressed by these decisions should have been left to the states.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  166. I would also include Loving v. Virginia, though Justice Thomas might disagree.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  167. Part of the challenge is that it’s been 50 years….and it’s awkward at best to un-recognize a right, however contestable that right was at its inception. And I think that is the fear with Gay Marriage and that a future enterprising court will unilaterally reverse. But I agree in part with Kevin that the problem is that the legislative branch can’t find workable compromise…..and it’s only getting worse. However, these questions are naturally polarizing….and is probably the reason the court felt it needed to act to break the stalemates. Certainly our Constitutional order screams for some amendments….but that is an even higher hill to climb than 60 votes in the Senate. I’m cool with matters going back to the states but in these polarizing times, my expectations are pretty low in terms of reasoned compromise….as here, splitting the baby is literally the problem

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  168. Newsmax Host Suggests Ketanji Brown Jackson, Who Isn’t On Supreme Court Yet, Leaked Draft

    Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield suggested on Tuesday — without evidence or logic — that future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson may be responsible for the leak of a draft ruling that would dismantle abortion rights.
    ……..
    ……..Stinchfield acknowledged that she’s not a justice yet. But he still posited that she may have hired clerks and they may have started work already. He has no evidence this is true; he’s nonetheless “sure” of it.

    “I find it suspect that the first leak coming out of the Supreme Court in history comes shortly after Judge Jackson is confirmed,” Stinchfield said. …… “I want to know if her law clerks, who I am sure have already been hired, possibly even working at the high court already before her swearing in, have access to these draft decisions.”

    “She would be my first suspect when it comes to the leak because Ketanji Brown Jackson is a radical left-wing activist, more radical than any other justice in the history of the Supreme Court,” he continued. “I believe she is capable of undermining the court this way.”
    ……..

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  169. @168. Part of the challenge is that it’s been 50 years….and it’s awkward at best to un-recognize a right, however contestable that right was at its inception.

    Said the Russian Putin about an independent Ukraine, AJ. =eye-roll=

    DCSCA (5ffe7f)

  170. Ny fiancee and I are looking for warmer climates, both temperature and politically.

    Houses in New Mexico are cheap, and it is about 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix, but still dry.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  171. Said the Russian Putin about an independent Ukraine

    =eye-roll= indeed.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  172. It has been 48 hours; where’s the leaker, SCOTUS. What’s the new excuse for molasses in winter government incompetence, bureaucratic paper jockeys?

    This is why citizens ‘storm the castle.’ Get your arcane, black-robed-butts in gear.

    DCSCA (5ffe7f)

  173. The rationale behind this decision should also weaken the rationale behind Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, and Griswold v. Connecticut, as all of the issues addressed by these decisions should have been left to the states.

    Disagree. There are privacy and liberty rights inherent in the 9th Amendment, and equality and portability rights inherent in the 14th.

    Abortion is different because it ignores that “to do what!?” is part of the analysis. None of these other things have victims, either actual or virtual. They only challenge religious teachings, which the State cannot enforce without additional reasons (e.g. victims).

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  174. Kevin, the problem is the *existing* decisions were decided on 14th amendment substantive due process grounds. This draft undermines those grounds.

    It’s pretty hard to imagine a legislature rebanning sodomy, so I think Lawrence is probably fine because we can’t get a test case on it, but I don’t see how Obergefell and/or Griswold survive if a state legislature chooses to make an issue of it.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  175. >This is the argument that needs to be mocked. How is allowing legislatures to make laws a “blow to democracy”?

    Kevin M, would a legislature banning any public speech or writing which criticizes the government be a blow to democracy?

    aphrael (4c4719)

  176. > I guess we might be poised to see soon.

    In the short term we end up with a system where California allows abortion at any time for any reason, but Texas makes it a criminal act to abort a fetus which is going to kill its mother (and then die) before term. Poor people in Texas will die from botched under the table abortions, and wealthy people will simply travel out of state. Meanwhile, some states will make it a crime to leave the state for the purpose of obtaining an abortion, and the new supreme court majority will uphold those laws.

    It’s a generation or more before everything shakes out into a stable system.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  177. Kevin M, would a legislature banning any public speech or writing which criticizes the government be a blow to democracy?

    Not if the Supreme Court didn’t “incorporate” the First Amendment to the states. Otherwise they would have been free to do so.

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  178. Kevin M, would a legislature banning any public speech or writing which criticizes the government be a blow to democracy?

    I can point to black letters in the Constitution that says that the federal government cannot do that. Extending htat to the states is not a big stretch.

    The pile of wishes and maybes that Blackmun erected his smoke & mirrors on top of is not as convincing. Simply calling something a right does not make it so.

    Shortly, there will be no abortion right, taken away by the same hand that asserted it. Why do you find one act democratic and the other not so?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  179. @177. Wear a condom; wear a mask’ wear a black robe… that the SCOTUS/POTUS government solution to everything now. These bureaucrats can’t even keep track of their own paperwork within in a small pool of people, yet they presume to dictate how everybody else is supposed to live. This is why American Populism is rooting deeper and deeper– and ‘folks’ “storm the castle.”

    DCSCA (5ffe7f)

  180. Clearly such a thing would violate the constitution, absolutely. But would a legislature *taking away the right to free speech* be a *blow to democracy*?

    My point is that as we understand democracy, it is not identical to the concept of absolute legislative power. There are limits on the power of the legislature, to preserve the rights of the *people*. A legislature taking away the rights of the people is a blow to democracy, even if it’s an act of legislative supremacy.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  181. Kevin M, would a legislature banning any public speech or writing which criticizes the government be a blow to democracy?

    I can point to black letters in the Constitution that says that the federal government cannot do that. Extending htat (sic) to the states is not a big stretch.

    Been there, done that-the First Amendment’s freedom of speech was assumed to apply to the states in 1925 (GITLOW V. NEW YORK, 268 U.S. 652, 45 S. Ct. 625, 69 L. Ed. 1138 (1925).

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  182. “liberty rights inherent in the 9th Amendment”

    Reference to the 9th is always controversial: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Because how do you test and decide what qualifies? This would seem to give the Court carte blanche to create whatever rationale it wants and strip issues from the purview of the state. It was used in Griswold to argue marital privacy wrt contraception. What’s the generalizable principle and should it apply to abortion regardless of what the history says about states regulating abortion?

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  183. I don’t see how Obergefell and/or Griswold survive if a state legislature chooses to make an issue of it.

    On what grounds? Leviticus? As I said in 174, abortion is unique as there is a victim. One may disagree about whether that victim is actual or virtual, or even about the degree it matters, but it is hard to deny that there is one.

    Marriage laws or laws banning consensual sexual practices have no victims other than shocked prelates.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  184. State legislature asserts that in order to protect the life of unborn children (a legitimate state interest) they are banning contraceptive devices. Contraceptive devices aren’t deeply rooted in the nation’s history or fundamental to the concept of ordered liberty, so the current supreme court says “rational basis review”, there’s a rational basis, we’re done.

    > laws banning consensual sexual practices

    trumped up lies about protecting the health of people from unhealthy sexual practices are sufficient to pass rational basis review. opponents would have to demonstrate that there is *no conceivable rational argument*.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  185. AJ,

    I read the 9th Amendment as incorporating English Common Law and those practices that were part of a person’s liberty in 1789, whether of not that liberty was expressly recognized. It is not the inkblot that Bork suggested, and it is not the blank check that some would have it be.

    For example, I don’t think that Obergefell could rely on the 9th Amendment. Certainly Raich or Wickard could.

    But again, abortion is different as it has a necessary victim, and extending arguments against it to those without victims seems a stretch.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  186. sexual practices are sufficient to pass rational basis review.

    arguments about “not killing” will pass higher orders of scrutiny.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  187. Rip–

    1) I try to correct typos when quoting them back, as a courtesy. The (sic) thing is unnecessary.

    2) Yes, I know that it was incorporated, and the thing I was responding to said it was. I was just saying that it wasn’t a stretch, unlike getting to Roe from “privacy rights.”

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  188. 1) I try to correct typos when quoting them back, as a courtesy. The (sic) thing is unnecessary.

    Sorry

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  189. There are limits on the power of the legislature, to preserve the rights of the *people*. A legislature taking away the rights of the people is a blow to democracy, even if it’s an act of legislative supremacy.

    There are also limits on judicial power, to preserve the rights of the People and their Representatives to make Law. A judicial panel usurping the Legislature’s rights with with a made-up new “Right” is a blow to democracy, even if it’s an act of judicial supremacy.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  190. > There are also limits on judicial power, to preserve the rights of the People and their Representatives to make Law. A judicial panel usurping the Legislature’s rights with with a made-up new “Right” is a blow to democracy, even if it’s an act of judicial supremacy.

    and somehow this happened with Roe but not with Lawrence and Griswold? I don’t understand the argument which holds that *abortion* was a made up new right while *contraception* was not — it strikes me as drawing arbitrary lines that are based not in either history or law, but in the moral preferences of the person drawing the lines.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  191. Admittedly, this is the Daily Mail, but it paints Biden as coming completely unhinged.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10782537/Biden-calls-MAGA-extreme-political-organization-American-history.html

    President Joe Biden called the ‘MAGA crowd’ the ‘most extreme political organization in American history’ in a full-throated attack on Republicans and their ‘ultra-MAGA’ agenda in a speech from the White House on Wednesday.

    He also warned that the GOP could ban LGBT children from classrooms if Roe v. Wade is overturned and signaled they could even reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case that struck down a state law banning the use of contraceptives by married couples.

    It was a ramp-up in rhetoric from Biden following the Supreme Court leak that caused a firestorm and protests across the country and a further condemnation of Florida’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill that bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity before third grade.

    ‘What happens if you have state changes the law saying that that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that is that legit under the way this decision is written?’ Biden questioned, referencing a Florida law that bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity before third grade.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  192. > What happens if you have state changes the law saying that that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that is that legit under the way this decision is written?

    That feels like an equal protection question. Do we still accept that separate is by definition not equal in the educational context?

    > signaled they could even reverse the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case

    I think the common view on the left now is that this is inevitable.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  193. Were there laws against contraception in 1868 or 1789? I believe that condom-like devices were available, particularly before antibiotics cured venereal diseases. So, 9th and 14th cme into play for originalists. Also, the privacy rights in the 4th.

    Abortion is, again, not just an issue of privacy, just as kiddie porn is not. There are victims. Privacy invites the question “to do what?”

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  194. I think the common view on the left now is that this is inevitable.

    Well, lots of common views on the left are wrong.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  195. What basis, sufficient to overcome privacy rights and basic liberties, do laws against sodomy, interracial or same-sex marriage have? Or contraception, which has a stronger historical basis.

    Who do they hurt?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  196. > sufficient to overcome privacy rights and basic liberties, do laws against sodomy, interracial or same-sex marriage have?

    what privacy and basic liberty right are you talking about here?

    *prior to Lawrence*, courts *repeatedly* held that sodomy laws were justified by rational basis, because they were at least purportedly justified by the desire to protect people from diseases that are more likely to spread via anal sex.

    if the fourteenth amendment only protects things that are deeply rooted in historical tradition, then it *doesn’t protect sodomy*. sodomy laws were common in colonial times.

    so if substantive due process doesn’t protect sodomy, *what in the constitution does*?

    you want to root it in the 9th amendment, and i can get behind that, but courts almost never root anything in the 9th amendment because allowing that opens up the door to judicial activism.

    so where does *this court* find a right to sodomy when idaho bans it (claiming to be doing so to protect people from the risk of disease)? the draft means they can’t *consistently* root it in substantive due process. so where do they find it?

    aphrael (4c4719)

  197. similarly for contraceptives, contraceptives *prevent the creation of a life*. if a state bans contraception in order to protect the life which the contraception is preventing from being created, how can a federal court say that the ban has *no rational basis*?

    and if it’s using a standard of review higher than rational basis, why is it doing so? the “right” isn’t deeply rooted in the historical tradition, so this draft says substantive due process doesn’t protect it.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  198. Trump endorsed j.d. vance won ohio senate primary. Yet never trumpers will say trumps influence in the party is waning. Maybe not!
    asset (4f7826) — 5/3/2022 @ 9:00 pm

    “Every Trump-endorsed candidate in Ohio’s Republican primary won tonight.”
    Jeremy Pelzer

    scrutineer (04559a)

  199. It doesn’t matter what the specifics are about. It’s just another indication of failure. All these government bureaucrats cannot manage themselves– yet they try to manage us– and presume to be capable of policing the world- we pay for the abuse. Hell, they can’t even keep track of a few pages of paper– anbody check to see if Joe left the nuke codes in a bathroom? This is why American Populism is growing stronger; why populist Trump’s endorsed candidates swept Ohio; why going back to the calmer, ‘traditional’ swamp-creature methodologies of 20th century pols like Joe, Chuck, Nancy, Steny, Mitch, Mitt and the rest of the old school Katzenjammer Kids was a fit of pique mistake by out of favor righties and wacko lefties and been a 24 month domestic and international disaster. It’s why citizens ‘storm the castle.’ And will do it again.

    “I trust his judgement.” – Nancy Pelosi, 8/25/21

    DCSCA (c85854)

  200. *prior to Lawrence*, courts *repeatedly* held that sodomy laws were justified by rational basis, because they were at least purportedly justified by the desire to protect people from diseases that are more likely to spread via anal sex.

    Prior to AIDS (and possibly after) this is not even rational. Perhaps colorably so, but still…

    similarly for contraceptives, contraceptives *prevent the creation of a life*.

    So does abstinence. Can they ban that?

    You keep bringing up the rational basis test, which is no real bar to anything. Any higher degree or scrutiny would set these apart. As it would *some* abortions (e.g. those to prevent serious injury or death to the mother, and possibly in cases of rape).

    Near as I can tell EVERY example in your parade of horrors is quite different from abortion. Or do you see abortion as simply a form of birth control, and the fetus as just “waste”?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  201. you want to root it in the 9th amendment, and i can get behind that, but courts almost never root anything in the 9th amendment because allowing that opens up the door to judicial activism.

    I really do think there are originalist cases for some things based on history, and that the 9th amendment can play a role there. For example, the right to unarmed self-defense really only has a constitutional home in the 9th amendment, and even the use of arms for self-defense needs some recourse to historic rights protected by the 9th amendment.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  202. That the 9th amendment can be abused by liars does not mean it cannot be used by truth-tellers.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  203. > You keep bringing up the rational basis test, which is no real bar to anything.

    that is exactly my point. the draft opinion says that rational basis applies to abortion because abortion is not deeply rooted in our nation’s tradition. i am saying — neither are sodomy or birth control, so rational basis (which is no real bar to anything) clearly applies to them.

    you’re saying “but abortion is different!”, which — while true — strikes me as being irrelevant *because the reasoning in the draft does not depend on that difference in any way*.

    so fundamentally you strike me as saying “the court is actually basing its decision on something which it isn’t articulating, but i’m absolutely convinced it’s there and it will guide future decisions.”

    aphrael (4c4719)

  204. “For example, I don’t think that Obergefell could rely on the 9th Amendment. Certainly Raich or Wickard could.”

    I tend to agree on Raich…people should be able to grow stuff in their backyard and use it….it surprised me that Scalia bought into the aggregation and potential to enter the interstate market argument. Wickard I think is a little trickier because it wrongly gets reduced to Filburn being able to use his wheat to feed his animals. But the law in question gave Filburn a subsidy for his wheat with the proviso that he also procure his livestock feed from the market…so Filburn was cheating the system. If I recall, if Filburn doesn’t take the subsidy (if that was even an option) then he lost money.

    The problem is that the Court does not share your love and affection for the 9th which has created some precedent for not using it…and considering it the last resort for scoundrels (and libertarians like Randy Barnett).

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  205. Yeah where I disagree with Kevin is that the rational basis for contraception, abortion, and sodomy was based on community morality (i.e., contraception facilitated out of wedlock sex)….which is within the broad police power of the state (From Springs 1905, “…the sovereign right of the Government to protect lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people”). Blue laws are another example that may have a loose secular purpose but have more of a religious origin of keeping holy the Sabbath. These activities are wrong for the community where now we try to attach some health concern.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  206. Democrats running in primaries should be asked what will they do to protect a woman’s right to choose. They should be asked if they agree with Malcolm X “By any means necessary!” or will they just liberal whine about it instead of doing something about.

    asset (e150cd)

  207. There’s a contingent on the left whose reaction is “the Democrats didn’t prevent this, therefore i’m never voting for them again.”

    aphrael (4c4719)

  208. Does anyone get the feeling that the administration and/or the Democrats are calling for violent demonstrations?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  209. I think that no one knows how this will play out. There may be Republican leaners who now vote for Dems, or there may be Dem leaners who now vote GOP.

    The problem is that abortion has not been a mainstream issue for some time; only the activists and partisans have been invested. Frr most people it was abstract.

    Women who have had abortions may be affected by this, but that reaction isn’t clear either; I know women who have had abortions who deeply regret it and/or fear it was a mortal sin. I had one such woman tell me that, had abortion been illegal, she would have taken more precautions.

    If it actually does become a local political issue with real meaning, it is not clear how people will jump. I expect surprises, and some who presume too much will have their head handed to them. I’m looking at you, Kamala.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  210. @209 not in my feed. Mostly it’s full of people spreading information on how to self-manage an abortion and where you get what you need to do that.

    Nic (896fdf)

  211. There’s a contingent on the left whose reaction is “the Democrats didn’t prevent this, therefore i’m never voting for them again.”

    The mg’s of the Left. To be fair, the GOP had 12 SC appointments since Roe was decided, to 4 for the Democrats. What’s amazing is it took so long.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  212. They should be asked if they agree with Malcolm X “By any means necessary!” or will they just liberal whine about it instead of doing something about.

    “By any means necessary”? So, are you advocating the assassination of SC justices? Violent riots? Mob attacks on the Court itself?

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  213. aphrael,

    I don’t hold with a rational basis test for anything more than, say, zoning. If Alito went there, he didn’t have to, and it is an unforced error. I expect that the final opinion won’t have such a howler. Remember, this was (and is) unpublished so it is hardly the stuff of precedent.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  214. Houses in New Mexico are cheap, and it is about 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix, but still dry.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9) — 5/4/2022 @ 10:19 am

    Thank you Kevin. We were looking at Florida
    and Tennessee, but are open to more areas. She has a sister in Arizona so that’s a consideration as well.

    NJRob (fbe422)

  215. I wouldn’t put it past Pajama Boy Roberts as being the leaker.

    mg (8cbc69)

  216. Aphrael, I appreciate your input on this thread. You are a very reasonable voice of the center/left, as is Davethulhu.

    In fact, there have been so many great comments on this thread. Thanks all around.

    One of the things I love about this blog is the diversity of thought.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  217. njrob,

    Having gone though this in my escape form CA, we looked at FL, but the humidity was a showstopper — all those houses with glassed-in pools. TN might have worked, and it’s quite affordable and conservative, but allergies put an end to that idea.

    It’s not easy, and one always has the climate the are used to (at least the parts they like). So the low humidity was key for me, although nothing quite matches the SoCal coastal climate. Everywhere else they have seasons.

    Zillow was a big help to us.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  218. Question: What is it about all these websites that want to send notifications? Are there really people who cannot help but click “yes”? I don’t get it. Why do they want to annoy everyone who visits their site.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  219. @216. It’s been over 48 hours and still nobody caught for the leak- from a small, closed pool of people in the know. This is unacceptable– and Washington just shrugs.

    Heck, there’s only nine of them w/a staff. We entrust too much responsibility in the competence of these appointed for life bureaucrats. And that’s all they really are; paper jockeys dressed up in robes who stop work from June to October whereas the rest of the country who pay their salaries work 50 weeks and hope for 2 weeks vacation. They’re worse than Congress. If your kid lost their homework the way SCOTUS lost track of the Alito draft the kid would get a failing grade; if an executive at any private sector firm screwed up like this w/confidential corporate documents- they’d get fired. The SCOTUS needs some fresh, wise blood; one seat always for a non-lawyer who has basic, real world common sense. It’s hard to have much respect for any of them any more. But then, they work for the government, don’t they.

    “The telephone has no constitutional right to be answered.” – Dan Snow [Walter Matthau] ‘First Monday In October’ 1981

    DCSCA (229a53)

  220. Kevin and NJRob,

    I also crave a warmer climate. Reno is just too cold. I feel like I’m confined to the indoors for half the year. (I’m not a skier, which is embarrassing because I grew up in Utah.)

    Humidity doesn’t bother me. I don’t think sweat is “icky”, and something one has to get rid of as soon as possible. It’s a mindset, just like eating certain foods. For me, the objection to Florida is that it’s so far from my friends and family, virtually all of whom live in the west.

    Texas is ruled out because of its obscenely high property taxes. I don’t have kids, and I’m not about to pay through the nose to educate other people’s children.

    Recently, I took a trip to Arizona, and liked it. It’s not a no income tax state like Nevada, but I understand that taxes are relatively low (maybe lower than New Mexico, but I’m just guessing here). Also, Arizona is a constitutional carry state for firearms. NM isn’t.

    My only concern with Arizona is water. As in, it may not have enough of it. Any place that’s dependent on the Colorado River is concerning. I don’t want to be in a location where I can’t wash my cars (I’m a car guy) in my driveway because of draconian water rules.

    In the end, Arizona’s water issues may negate its constitutional carry benefit, thus tipping the scales toward New Mexico. Albuquerque isn’t quite warm enough for my taste, but I did see palm trees growing in Las Cruces when I drove through it last year.

    Besides, I’ve heard that New Mexico has the best Mexican food in the U.S. 😛

    No place can equal the low tax burden I have in Reno (less than $1400 a year property tax, and no state income tax), apart from Alaska, but I’m not about to freeze my ass living up there. Alas, there are no perfect solutions. There are only tradeoffs.

    California has a great climate, but it also has water problems. Besides, who has the money to burn, the time to wait in traffic, the tolerance for crime, the willingness to walk around without the ability to defend oneself, and the patience to put up with the overregulation, panhandling, and homelessness, all of which are required to live in California.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  221. OT:

    https://nypost.com/2022/05/03/bodies-of-apparent-russian-soldiers-arranged-in-z/

    Moran vs., Capone.

    Yeah, send Bugs more tommy guns, Joe.

    DCSCA (229a53)

  222. Rob, if you’re going to live in a blue state, New Mexico is about the only one I’d really consider, although it’s far too dominated by Santa Fe/Albuquerque neoyuppies at the moment for my taste. These guys tend to have the same type of insecurity complex about the state not being a national trendsetter like New York or California that I saw in Denver politicians in the 80s and 90s.

    If you’re looking for schools, most of them are bottom of the barrel–there’s pockets in certain areas, but anyone who can afford it sends their kids to private schools, which are admittedly quite good (Sandia Prep in particular tends to churn out a lot of future big shots). Of course, if you’re homeschooling, this isn’t an issue.

    With all that said, the culture in NM is notorious for stubbornly resisting change. Even a fashion-chasing colony of California like Santa Fe maintains the same building design laws that were established 100 years ago. A few pockets aside, it’s largely a provincial, blue-collar state with a sizeable chip on its shoulder, and people who move out there and don’t understand that tend to get disillusioned and leave rather quickly. Also, New Mexico green chile stomps Colorado’s any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

    To be honest, Tennessee would probably be more your speed, especially in the eastern counties. Texas is fine as long as you stay out of DFW, Austin, or Houston–San Antonio is a Democratic city, but it’s comparative to New Mexico in a lot of ways, and the adjacent counties have some decent towns to look at (the state has MASSIVE property taxes, though). If you’re willing to consider colder climes, Montana has plenty of options, even after you cut out Bozeman, Missoula, and Helena. I could never live in Florida regardless of the politics–too humid, too many hurricanes, and too many flying cockroaches. I know people from my Air Force days who have lived there for years, though.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  223. My only concern with Arizona is water. As in, it may not have enough of it. Any place that’s dependent on the Colorado River is concerning. I don’t want to be in a location where I can’t wash my cars (I’m a car guy) in my driveway because of draconian water rules.

    The mountain areas in the state don’t have to worry about that as much, and there are some quite decent places like Payson and Show Low. It’s really Phoenix and Tucson that are going to be the most impacted by the 20-plus year drought the West continues to go through, and those cities are so overscaled at this point, they don’t really hold a lot of appeal to me personally anyway.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  224. @192. Admittedly, this is the Daily Mail, but it paints Biden as coming completely unhinged.

    Meh. ‘May Da Forth Be With You’:

    “Help me, Roe-Bi-Gone JoeKnowbi; you’re my only hope.” 😉

    DCSCA (229a53)

  225. @224

    Thanks, FWO. Unfortunately, I’m too attached to shopping and dining in the larger cities to live in those areas.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  226. I have a cousin who’s considering NM as a less costly alternative to California. She eliminated Santa Fe as too expensive, and Albuquerque as too dangerous. Whether Albuquerque is in fact dangerous I have my doubts, since I’m pretty sure she got the idea from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. (She denies it, but hasn’t produced a persuasive alternative explanation.)

    Anyway, where else in NM should she be looking? Her only means are Social Security and a very modest 401(k).

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  227. Aphrael, I appreciate your input on this thread. You are a very reasonable voice of the center/left, as is Davethulhu.

    norcal (3f02c4) — 5/4/2022 @ 5:41 pm

    Ditto.

    I share your frustration with the abortion debate generally. I can rationally defend the people on both sides who adopt a maximalist frame, but I’ve lost all patience for the ones who refuse to admit that anyone of good faith could possibly see it differently. My policy prescription is close to yours, though in line with my long-held view that Roe is terrible law but the least bad policy, I’d go with viability over your choice of arbitrarily splitting the pregnancy term down the middle. But whatever. Like you said, no sensible resolution would’t leave a lot of people furious.

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  228. Anyway, where else in NM should she be looking? Her only means are Social Security and a very modest 401(k).

    lurker (cd7cd4) — 5/4/2022 @ 8:23 pm

    Have her look at Rio Rancho, Los Lunas, Belen, Raton, Socorro, or Las Cruces if she’s dead-set on not considering Albuquerque.

    Albuquerque DOES have a high crime rate, and you really don’t want to be out driving around between around 10 pm-4 am because of the drunk driving rates, but most of the crime is actually property-related, and the really bad crime is largely limited to a few pockets near the highways and Kirtland Air Force Base.

    Factory Working Orphan (2775f0)

  229. Thanks, FWO! I’ll pass that along.

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  230. ABQ has more crime than I’d like, mostly of the car-break-in variety. There are a lot of meth heads looking for meth coupons. There are also drug disputes that end in violence. Home break-ins and burglaries not so much, since there are a lot of citizens with guns.

    I live in Rio Rancho, with is the next town north of ABQ, on the east bank of the Rio Grande. Intel has a fab here. Rio Rancho is right-of-center, with a good deal of development and caters to business. Quite a few housing developments, and quite a few places where you can buy a half-acre lot (for under 6 figures) and build to suit.

    Housing prices are up a bit, but if you are coming from California they seem quite the bargain.

    Social Security is not taxed in New Mexico. A modern two bedroom apartment in a large complex with amenities is about $1200/month, although this has been going up, too. New construction houses are in the 350-450K range. For Rio Rancho, use zip code 87124 or 87144 for a bit further north.

    Driving times are a minute per mile.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  231. FWO, when we were first here, looking for housing, we stayed in a caseta near Kirkland, maybe 10 blocks up Carlisle from Gibson. There were a few dodgy areas nearby, but every block can be different. We didn’t have a problem, even parking on the street.

    Still we live in Rio Rancho now, in the middle of a sea of houses with 3 cops living on the street. And we can still get into ABQ for restaurants and stuff.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  232. *Kirtland.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  233. Thanks, Kevin. That’s helpful. I’ll pass that along too.

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  234. On msnbc last night they pointed out that evangalicals were happy with the ruling. The southern babtist leadership thought it would cut down on undesirables (black babies) Jerry falwell and bob jones were fighting the courts to keep their schools segregated. evangelicals were mostly white supremacy back then as was the mormon church arguing blacks had the mark of cain and were filth. When they were forced to integrate or lose their tax except status paul weyrich suggested a switch to anti-abortion for fund raising.

    asset (152bcc)

  235. Massive fence erected around Supreme Court building in wake of leaked Alito abortion draft opinion

    Workers erected a large fence around the U.S. Supreme Court building late Wednesday night, two days after Politico published a leaked draft opinion striking down the abortion precedent Roe v. Wade (1973). Work crews erected “tall, non-scalable fencing” around the Court, as Fox 5’s Lindsay Watts put it.

    The typical Royalists response– which only serves fuels the fires of American Populism.

    DCSCA (f2d684)

  236. Pretty sad the Supreme Court cant take a leaker to the wood shed.
    Roberts is the one to hold accountable as he has proven to be above the law. {Obama Care rewrite}
    Besides he is no conservative, he is a Sorosbot.

    mg (8cbc69)

  237. Blue State living at its finest – The Big Island of Hawaii. It happens to be a conservative working island. 10 climate zones, fresh food everywhere, largest cattle ranch in North America, and plenty of Tuna. Go Tulsi.

    [Fished this one out of moderation; not she how it ended up there. Maybe you should type Little Aloha Sweetie rather than Tulsi. – JVW]

    mg (8cbc69)

  238. The Big Island of Hawaii is Blue state living at its finest. A conservative working island, with 10 climate zones, largest cattle ranch in North America, fresh food grown everywhere and plenty of fish. Go Tulsi.

    mg (8cbc69)

  239. It seems as though the democrats under the biden administration number one goal is to kill as many unborn babies as possible.
    Sick people.

    mg (8cbc69)

  240. The Bulwark has an article that confirms my electoral concerns for the GOP post-Roe

    https://www.thebulwark.com/the-politics-of-overturning-roe-are-bad-for-republicans/

    Now I acknowledge the Courts perogatives shouldn’t include the political party balance of power….especially since the GOP has been explicitly asking for this ruling for at least 40 years. The challenge is that there has not been that much movement in actually persuading people.

    Yes, a strong majority is uncomfortable with late-term abortions, but these are a really, really small number of abortions…..and often in quite tragic circumstances and rarely because a woman ignorantly waits. But the understanding of fetal development and the wonders of technology helping with premature births hasn’t moved voters as to who should decide.

    People can think abortion is wrong and that a life is being terminated, yet believe that the state should have little role before some gray point prior to viability. I think the reluctance comes from empathy with the woman and a hesitance to impose what many might consider a religious conclusion about personhood.

    As much as I’ve always thought I wanted Roe repealed for its legal ickiness, in the back of my mind I wonder if its imperfect compromise might be better than more fracturing of our society. I hate the Court legislating but we have zero chance of constitutional amendments or getting supermajorities in Congress to act on controversial issues. I’m just not sure I want to see more states swing Democrat because of this….

    AJ_Liberty (a36eed)

  241. Great article by Mona Charen on climate change. Couldn’t agree more

    https://www.thebulwark.com/climate-catastrophists-need-to-chill/

    AJ_Liberty (a36eed)

  242. So does abstinence. Can they ban that?

    Why not? It violates God’s very first Commandment: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth.

    And even in pagan Rome the early cavalry units were equipped through a tax on spinsters (one of the few taxes ever imposed on Roman citizens), and Augustus accused Rome’s bachelors, to their faces, of being “the murderers of [their] own progeny”.

    And aren’t our own various child tax exemptions and credits in essence a tax on those who lack the proper patriotic fecundity?

    nk (66033e)

  243. “Every Trump-endorsed candidate in Ohio’s Republican primary won tonight.”

    Maybe he should think about bringing back Trump Steaks, too. Here are the Ohio Senate primary results:

    J.D. Vance R 340,991 votes 32.2%
    Josh Mandel 253,051 votes 23.9%
    Matt Dolan R 247,042 votes 23.3%
    Mike Gibbons R 123,417 votes 11.7%
    Jane Timken 62,237 votes 5.9%
    Other candidates 32,375 votes 3.1%

    nk (66033e)

  244. Of bigger note is that R ballots spaced D ballots 70% to 30% only chance in hell for Ryan (355,000, Harper 94,000 Johnson 55,000) is if Dolan’s slice was a cockblock D “Kirk Dillard 2014” vote and the Mandelites are sore losers.

    urbanleftbehind (2179d9)

  245. French read the Alito opinion so I didn’t have to, and I can’t disagree with his take.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  246. BTW, I’ve actually read this draft opinion. Alito demolishes the supposed historical case for abortion, point out among other things that the first notion of a constitutional right to abortion dates back to about 1970 and that abortion was never an accepted procedure in America or England previously. The 14th Amendment (1968) occurred at a time when abortion was a criminal act in most US states.

    The MSM’s overwrought editorials all seem to talk about a draft different from what I read.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  247. London Broil, $6.25/lb., gas, $6/gal., empty store shelves; mask, no mask, $50 billion deeper in debt to send more tommy guns to Moran and Capone; open southern border; 8% inflation rate; crime soaring, fences arounds Congress, the WH and SCOTUS, the Making America Great Again as evil as Putin but gosh darn it all abortion is the number one issue Americans wake up to and worry about, eh, Anti-Christ Joe?

    DCSCA (cfbfd2)

  248. ‘We can’t wait on the Supreme Court’: In Louisiana, abortion could become a crime of murder

    A Louisiana legislative committee on Wednesday advanced a bill to make abortion a crime of homicide in which the mother or those assisting her in terminating the pregnancy can be charged.

    The measure cleared the House Appropriations Committee on a 7-2 vote despite at least one of the representatives voting in favor acknowledging the bill is unconstitutional.

    Rep. Danny McCormick said his House Bill 813 should move forward even though the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to overturn Roe v. Wade that guarantees abortion rights as soon as June, according to an opinion leaked from the high court this week.

    “We can’t wait on the Supreme Court,” said McCormick, a Republican from Oil City.
    ……….
    Opponents argued the bill would not only put the mother and doctor at risk of murder prosecution but criminalize in vitro fertilization and perhaps some forms of birth control.
    ……….

    And so it goes……

    Rip Murdock (d2a2a8)

  249. If folks really think that there should be a constitutional right to abortion, the method to guarantee that is found in Article V.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  250. @249. ‘Folks’ put that to bed 50 years ago. Pulling a half-century right back is what makes fellas like Putin and Xi genuinely smile, making it even harder to sell America around the world. Worse, yet another institution demonstrates it cannot manage itself, yet presumes to dictate how you how your life should be managed– then throws a fence up around itself late at night. Never shudda given women the right to vote– let’s yank that back, too. 😉

    Postscript to #247; typo: London Broil is $10.25/lb.

    DCSCA (cfbfd2)

  251. Yes, a strong majority is uncomfortable with late-term abortions, but these are a really, really small number of abortions…..and often in quite tragic circumstances and rarely because a woman ignorantly waits

    But the idea that a woman can elect to have an abortion while in labor is a hill that abortion supporters keep putting troops on. It’s like the NRA insisting that people be allowed to own working howitzers — it only makes them look fanatical.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  252. OT- Tip of the cap to the ol”Making America Great Again’ extremists: 51 years ago this morning, May 5, 1961– NASA lofts America’s first man into space; Alan Shepard, aboard Freedom 7 on 15 suborbital flight, sending ‘Jose’ on his way. Damn those pesky ‘making America great again’ folks, eh Anti-Christ Joey?!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm9ez-6Njgo

    DCSCA (cfbfd2)

  253. London Broil is $10.25/lb.

    Maybe at the Leucadia Gelson’s.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  254. @254. =yawn= Definitely at Ralph’s.

    DCSCA (cfbfd2)

  255. $6/lb here in NM at Smith’s (a Kroger store). Another reason to move here.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  256. @257. No kidding. Agree 1,000%. Alert to all; do not move to California.

    DCSCA (cfbfd2)

  257. Let’s see — looks in refrigerator — the last time I bought London broil, it cost $9.99 a pound. Except the local QFC (another part of Kroger) had a buy-one-get-one-free special, so by getting two as close in size as I could find, I paid just a little over $5.00 a pound.

    Not so incidentally, I am seeing more specials on meat in recent weeks.

    Jim Miller (406a93)

  258. Imperial Beluga Hybrid Caviar, $3,300.00/lb
    1966 Dom Perignon Oenotheque Rose Commande Speciale, $5,500.00/bottle

    Where will it all end?

    nk (66033e)

  259. @260. Reaganomics.

    DCSCA (cfbfd2)

  260. @249, I think Ginsburg would locate the right in the 14A EPC…and that of course abortion rights would not be “deeply rooted in our history and tradition” because of sex stereotypes and consideration of women as second-class citizens for significant periods (prohibited from voting, owning property, making legal claims, obtaining a divorce, etc.). 19th century women were expected to focus on housework and motherhood.

    Do the effects of laws prohibiting abortion fall disproportionately on women? That is, does the state upon coercing childbirth also cover hospital expenses, subsidize child care, help with the expenses and red tape of adoption, reimburse any lost wages, or compensate for adverse health problems due to the pregnancy? The answer is clearly “no” and in most cases “hell no”….the laws are premised on the sexual stereotype that women should be expected to take all pregnancies to term. Any serious analysis at least has to address this viewpoint….

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  261. AJ, of course she would, but the argument that women were discriminated against does not justify overturning all laws that affect women. Just those that allow men to do something that women cannot, but have no further implications.

    She’d have a great case if “aborting a male fetus” was a crime but “aborting a female fetus” was not. As it stands though, fetuses of both sexes are equally endangered.

    Oh, wait, she’d ignore that last part entirely (and this is the disconnect between the two sides).

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  262. Here’s the real argument against Roe: 50 years on and the debate is still going on, with opinions that occupy the spectrum. It is not yet settled law, except in the sense that the Court’s ukase is not openly ignored.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  263. So, the DoJ is making noises about the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and how that might trumo supersede state laws against abortion.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/05/abortion-contrasts-democrats-republicans/

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  264. AJ_Liberty (a36eed) — 5/5/2022 @ 3:51 am

    I read the article you linked. It’s persuasive. This part resonated:

    If the Court does overturn Roe, the most likely sequence is a series of punts. First the Court punts the issue to lawmakers. Then Congress punts it to the states. Then governors and state legislators punt it to their voters.

    What a bunch of pussies. How dare they call themselves “leaders”.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  265. Imperial Beluga Hybrid Caviar, $3,300.00/lb
    1966 Dom Perignon Oenotheque Rose Commande Speciale, $5,500.00/bottle

    Where will it all end?

    nk (66033e) — 5/5/2022 @ 10:22 am

    Too funny! You should get paid for the entertainment you provide, nk.

    I hope you realize that I love your comments, even if I don’t always acknowledge them.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  266. Democrats in primaries wont be able to punt their voters will ask what are you going to do about it? And liberal whining is not doing anything. the leftist running against them will ask Malcolm X said “By any means necessary!” do you agree or are you another corporate establishment wimp liberal?

    asset (4b223a)

  267. There you go again with the violent imagery, asset.

    I hope you like the tyranny that will result after you trade ballots for guns.

    norcal (3f02c4)

  268. Reaganoptics:

    There is no fence around the Russian Supreme Court.

    … and Putin smiled.

    There is no fence around the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China.

    … and Jinping grinned.

    There is a fence around the Supreme Court of the United States.

    … and Nancy/Joey/Chuckie smiled.

    DCSCA (cb6078)

  269. Yes, I agree with asset. Democrats should be pushed to support assassinations and insurrection.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  270. There are no fences in those places, but the guys with machine guns are not far away.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  271. If asset and mg ever met, this blog would be annihilated into radiation, like matter colliding with anti-matter.

    lurker (cd7cd4)

  272. Old version of the Hippocratc Oath

    Olf version

    New version of the Hippocratic oath (does not contain refusalto helpa woman abort a pregnancy (or the do no harm clause)

    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html

    THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH: MODERN VERSION

    I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

    I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

    I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

    I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

    I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

    I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

    I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

    I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

    I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

    If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

    Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  273. Old version of the Hippocratic Oath:

    https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html

    I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this contract:

    To hold him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to be a partner in life with him, and to fulfill his needs when required; to look upon his offspring as equals to my own siblings, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or contract; and that by the set rules, lectures, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to students bound by this contract and having sworn this Oath to the law of medicine, but to no others.

    I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgement, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.

    I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

    In purity and according to divine law will I carry out my life and my art.

    I will not use the knife, even upon those suffering from stones, but I will leave this to those who are trained in this craft.

    Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, avoiding any voluntary act of impropriety or corruption, including the seduction of women or men, whether they are free men or slaves.

    Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private.

    So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all men for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my fate.

    Translated by Michael North, National Library of Medicine, 2002.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  274. 244.

    Matt Dolan R 247,042 votes 23.3%

    Matt Doland gained more fromewhat he had in a recent poll than JD Vance.

    Vance gained 9 points.

    Trump’s endorsement would be most useful in a multi-candidate race and might also increase turnout.r

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  275. The Wall Street Journal had an Op-ed which said that Alito got history right (he did delve into it, but did not say afraud was played on the court in 2973)

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-alitos-originalist-triumph-supreme-court-draft-opinion-constitution-abortion-roe-v-wade-justices-11651695865

    Following from Rehnquist’s Glucksberg formulation, Justice Alito’s lengthy Dobbs draft opinion devotes extensive attention to detailing how almost all abortions were unlawful at the time of the 14th Amendment’s ratification in 1868. It also explicates how Roe’s account of abortion’s 19th-century legal status was largely based on two law review articles by the late Cyril Means Jr. , which even pro-choice scholars acknowledge were deeply flawed and Justice Alito calls “discredited.”

    The New York Timesmeawhile has a news pages article that tries to argue that Alito’sconclusions are questionable.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/arts/roe-v-wade-abortion-history.html

    The leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade also takes aim at its version of history, challenging decades of scholarship that argues abortion was not always a crime.

    …..The claim of an “unbroken tradition” of criminalizing abortion set off strong criticism from many historians, including some whose work was cited in an amicus brief submitted by the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, the two main organizations of professional historians in the United States.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  276. The US Marshalls don’t have subpoena power, so they, by definition, will not be able to get to the bottom of this. Thanks for nothing, No justice Roberts. Such a disgrace having ones legacy be the destruction of the Supreme Court.

    mg (8cbc69)

  277. It helps to understand Russia, comrades, if you think about pigs who took over the farm, learned to walk on two legs, and killed everybody who was a threat to their power.  And it does not go back to only 1917.

    nk (d0546e)

  278. @280. Any savvy, on-the-ball-office manager could track this down PDQ. 
    SCOUTS is a sloppy bureaucracy. The government can’t keep track of a few pages of paper in a closed system; wait till they dsump $50 billion worth of tommy guns into the hands of Moran and Capone. 

    DCSCA (fa0577)

  279. ^SCOTUS; dump. Typos.

    DCSCA (fa0577)

  280. @264, Kevin, I think you misinterpret the argument. The EPC argument is not predicated on past discrimination. It asks the basic question of whether abortion restrictions are shaped solely by the state’s interest in protecting potential life, or whether the laws also reflect constitutionally suspect judgments about women.
    If abortion restrictions were not premised on a stereotypical view of how women should react to pregnancies, then legislatures would bend over backwards to provide material support for the woman who must bear the non-trivial physical, emotional, and financial costs of pregnancy, childbirth, and, potentially, child rearing. The state’s interest in protecting potential life does not compel this indifference. It does follow if the legislature believes that this is a women’s stereotyped responsibility. This is her role in the natural order and it compels conscription.
    The state is imposing a role on the woman, assuming that the woman owes this duty to society. A duty that comes with significant costs. Equal citizenship would seem to require the ability to determine one’s course, with a central part of that determining when to have children. Government appears to want to treat women like children, unable to rationally make a decision that it obviously knows best about. It’s also part of the reason that on one hand, legislators can call abortion murder, yet on the other hand, not prescribe prison time for a woman who illegal obtains an abortion…..because, I guess,  she clearly was not in her right mind…being a woman and all.

    AJ_Liberty (a36eed)

  281. did not say a fraud was played on the court in 1973
    What he did say was that some of the information the Court relied upon in 1973 was from a partisan who fashioned his history to fit his bias, and that the source is no longer considered reliable.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  282. @284: 
    Even so, such an argument tends to ignore an historical argument regarding killing a fetus, which is certainly non-trivial.  No analysis that does not weight “death to the fetus” as a major consideration has put the cart before the horse.
    Yes, of course rules regarding child-bearing and abortion must fall most heavily on the pregnant woman, but that is not a social invention.  Today, we have laws that criminalize crack use while pregnant, and laws that treat an attack on a pregnant woman more harshly than those on a non-pregnant woman (or a man).  Neither of those laws are due to the sex of the, um, birthing person.
    Laws forbidding abortion are ancient, as seen in the original Hippocratic Oath and the numerous Common Law and colony law examples given by Alito.  It may be convenient to speak of social discrimination against women, but the laws about abortion are not rooted in that.  If anything, the laws giving women a, um, different status are rooted in the biological facts of child-bearing, which was a non-trivial issue in the pioneer culture of 1789.
     

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  283. The css has changed and vertical white-space is being murdered.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  284. Question:  Had the ERA been ratified, would this change the abortion debate?  Or has the ERA been added to the Constitution by judicial activism anyway?
     
    “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. “

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  285. Norcal and Lurker — thank you. 🙂

    aphrael (4c4719)

  286. “By any means necessary”? So, are you advocating the assassination of SC justices? Violent riots? Mob attacks on the Court itself?

     
    What I see on the left is more stuff like: pack the court, restrict the court’s jurisdiction to hear certain kinds of cases, replace lifetime tenure with 18 year fixed terms, etc. But my roots aren’t really in the bomb-throwing parts of the left.

    aphrael (4c4719)

  287. aphrael,
     
    You will agree that all of those ideas were popular on the right in the 1960s, when the liberals ruled the Court.  How soon we forget. 
     
    You also forget “impeachment” which has raised its head again, claiming that lies were told in confirmation hearings.  The harsher ideas are also current, but I would not expect you to be found in those circles.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  288. Excellent piece in Scotusblog, discussing the THREE leaks that happened last week:
     
    <blockquote>Start from the premise that there were actually (at least) two leakers, and three leaks. The first leak was to the Wall Street Journal editorial board last week. In substance, it was that the court had voted to overrule Roe v. Wade, but that the precise outcome remains in doubt because Chief Justice John Roberts is trying to persuade either Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Justice Amy Coney Barrett to a more moderate position that would uphold the Mississippi abortion restriction without formally overturning Roe.
     
    While not formally presented as relying on a leak, the editorial transparently does. The most obvious example is that it predicts that Alito is drafting a majority opinion to overrule Roe, but gives no explanation for that prediction and none is apparent. We now know that Alito did draft that opinion.
     
    The second leak was to Politico. Likely within the past few days, a person familiar with the court’s deliberations told them that five members of the court – Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – originally voted to overturn Roe and that remains the current vote. In addition, the position of the chief justice is unclear. The remaining justices are dissenting.
     
    The third leak was also to Politico. It was presumably – but not certainly – by the same person. Someone provided them with Alito’s Feb. 10 draft opinion.</blockquote>
     
    Note: blockquote is now gone from the formatting menu.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  289. Use a bullet?

    Used a bullet.

    Back to not using a bullet.

    nk (6b506d)

  290. Nope. Didn’t work.

    nk (6b506d)

  291. Malcolm X “By any means necessary!”
    Lysistrate?
     

    nk (6b506d)

  292. Kevin M (eeb9e9)5/5/2022 @ 12:10 pm <blockquote> She’d have a great case if “aborting a male fetus” was a crime but “aborting a female fetus” was not. As it stands though, fetuses of both sexes are equally endangered. </blockquote> Onwe of the more popular grounds around tre world for prohibiting abortion is when that is done for sex selection. I think in Dia is iss illegal to tell a woman the sex of the baby she is carrying, or something like that. (there may be exceptions and people lie)
     
    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/aug/21/selective-abortion-in-india-could-lead-to-68m-fewer-girls-being-born-by-2030  <blockquote> ….India is estimated to have 63 million fewer women since sex determination tests took off in the 1970s.
    In 1994, with the passage of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, the Indian government made it illegal to reveal the sex of an unborn child except for strictly medical purposes. However, enforcement of the law varied by jurisdiction, and in much of the country the sex ratio at birth continued to worsen.
    Indian police regularly arrest gangs who offer tests to pregnant women, often charging up to £400. The arrests usually follow a tipoff or the use of a pregnant woman as a decoy.
     

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  293. The quote box is too faint.
     
    I thought the problem with blockquote was less backward compatibility after yet another version of the software
     
    But  <blockquote> doesn’t work even if you type it in manually.

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  294. I mean the comment box.
     
    https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-overturning-roe-v-wade-unpopular-americans-1702983
     
    I think what people may be misinformed about is the soundness of the reasoning in Roe.

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  295. I think there was probably only one original leak (these things are supposed to be really tightly held) but several sub leaks.
     
    But ther leak about the votes and the leak of the opinion are separate leaks. They could come from the same ultimate source. 
     
    It may have been caution, it may have been that Politico wanted proof (the opinion <i> sounds like </i> Alito) it may have been the idea of preparing people for the news, and it may have been to allow people to send msil suggesting replies to Alito (they wouldn’t esnt to implicate themselves as having a tie to the leaker) that motivated the separation of the lleaks/

    Sammy Finkelman (b434ee)

  296. I think what people may be misinformed about is the soundness of the reasoning in Roe.
     
    What I see is that they are being misled.  Tomes and tomes (or is that “binders and binders”?) about the prevalence of abortion in past times (in the Dark Ages, I’m not making it up) which is conflated into  legality. A trick the druggies are also fond of.  “There were opium dens in San Francisco in 1906!”  “Yeah, so what?”  “Well, that means that it’s not right that opium should be illegal now.”

    nk (6b506d)

  297. “Concerns over CrowdStrike’s analysis reemerged after Special Counsel John Durham indicted former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to FBI General Counsel James Baker. That indictment and other documents filed in the Sussmann criminal case revealed that cyber-security experts assisted tech executive Rodney Joffe in crafting deceptive data and white papers to create the false appearance of a secret communication network between Trump and the Russian-based Alfa Bank. Sussmann then fed this ‘intel’ to the CIA and FBI.
    “After the election, Sussmann also provided the CIA with deceptively cherry-picked data to suggest a connection between Trump or his transition team and Russians, using cyber-tracking of a Russian Yota cell phone. To compile both the Alfa Bank and Yota phone hoaxes, according to the indictment, Joffe exploited proprietary information he had access to because of his positions in various tech companies. More troubling still was the revelation that Joffe used sensitive data from the Executive Office of the President in his attempt to frame Trump.”
    https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/06/exclusive-spygate-researchers-believed-democratic-firm-relied-on-spoofed-data-to-claim-russians-hacked-dnc/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=exclusive-spygate-researchers-believed-democratic-firm-relied-on-spoofed-data-to-claim-russians-hacked-dnc&utm_term=2022-05-06

    Colonel Haiku (4cd1a0)

  298. the soundness of the reasoning in Roe.
    Casey basically said “what a pile of hand-waving BS” then later “but we are stuck with it because of stare decisis.  So we will throw out all of Roe’s trimester crap and replace it with a prohibition on undue burdens.” 
     
    Roe was the imposition of a new law, with little regard to anything but “we say so!”.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  299. Casey was little more than a capitulation to stare decisis.
     
    It is said that Souter convinced Kennedy that he (Souter) would take a hard line on what was an undue burden in followup cases, but reneged and repeatedly joined the liberal block.  This apparently made Souter’s relations with several of the justices difficult.  It may be why he resigned early.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  300. You now need two whitespace lines to get one in the result.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  301. Biden and his administration refusing to condemn threats and intimidation against the Supreme Court justices is beyond the pale. He wants violence as those are his loyal constiuents and he’s more concerned about their support than the rule of law.

    NJRob (a52060)

  302. “Roe v. Wade must remain the law of the land. It’s wrong that my granddaughter might soon have fewer rights than my grandmother.”

     

    Sen Mark Kelly (D-Abortion)
     
    Given that the Senator was born circa 1960, his grandmother would have been in her twenties and thirties during 1920-1940.  It is hard to believe that abortion was legal in Arizona (or any other state) during that time.

    Kevin M (eeb9e9)

  303. They always exaggerate. Biden said (in his joke) that his first term in the Senate was a date or a time in the 1800s. Reagan used to joke about Lincoln.
     
    Senator Mark Kelly should have said mother an daughter but I guess talking about abortion in that context would have hit too close to home.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  304. Putin’s facts
     
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/06/technology/russian-propaganda-television.html
     
    “ussian television’s convoluted and sometimes contradictory narratives about the war are not solely intended to convince viewers that their version of events is true, disinformation experts say. Just as often, the goal is to confuse viewers and sow distrust so audiences are not sure what to believe.”I think they are intended to get people to believe it but it’s like Maxwell Smart:
    “Would you believe..?”
     
    Let’s no assume everything makes sense,
     
     

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)


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