I never thought I would say this, but I would support BIden saying, vis a vis the EPA decision:

"Mr Roberts has made his decision. Let him enforce it".

What predictions? States with anti-abortion laws are already forcing people to use their bodies to save “individuals”, as Zig puts it, who aren’t even legally people.

Great... all the democrats have to do is overcome the gerrymandering and voter suppression taking place in various red states, limit the influence of "big money" campaign donors, deal with an electoral college that seems to give more preference to cows than people, and magically keep countries like Russia from interfering in future elections.

I'm sure the supreme court would be more than willing to help with some of those. Oh, wait, they already had their say, and their response was "go ahead and suppress all those minority votes and gerrymander away. We don't care."
At the risk of speaking for dudalb, I rather suspect he DOES believe in democracy. He just seems to have problems with elements of the American system that are currently being exhibited, which is no longer characterized as a 'full democracy' and is rapidly going down the toilet.

In related news, the SC didn't take up NY vaccine mandate order.

Clarence Thomas, on an abortion-related roll, diseented:

I seriously think Thomas has jumped the shark.

ETA: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...abor-rcna36156

First of all, the fact that the a hospital (an organization that probably has decent legal experts on staff) was concerned about dispensing the morning after pill should make a rational person a bit nervous, since it indicates a law that is vague.

Secondly... why should anyone trust the Attorney general? He's a Republican... a member of the party that has decided that women cannot control their own bodies. It certainly would not be out of character for them to change their opinion in the near future if the members of Y'all Quaeda raise a big-enough fuss.

Could you explain how he is wrong? The only quote they have from him in the article is "because they were developed using cell lines derived from aborted children". The article goes on to explain "The fetal tissue used in these processes came from elective abortions that happened decades ago. But the cells have since replicated many times, so none of the original tissue is involved in the making of modern vaccines.".

They add in a claim that the cells that are currently being used are from foetal tissue and debunk his statement based on that. Their quote from him doesn't make that claim though. They also equivocate from his statement of "developed using" to "manufactured from".

This is pretty typical of the way fact checkers operate where they debunk a claim that is more specific, or otherwise altered, from the statement that they are ostensibly debunking.

Does he actually make the claim they debunk anywhere?

WTF are you talking about?

Have you been living under a rock for the last 25 years? The GOP is the better marketers and horrible legislators. The Democrats are terrible marketers and they can't get much passed the party of 'blocking every ******* thing whether it was originally their idea or not and whether it is good for the country or not'.

Mitch McConnell has been as bad for the country as Drumpf.

Perhaps you could describe this magical democracy you believe is possible when the minority is running the country.

Yeah..no. Do you mean the majority just doesn't have a big enough super-majority to get past the minority?

That's good for the EPA crap but I believe it may be working for the Alito in charge of abortions too.

There is at least one prosecutor in TX balking at enforcing the abortion ban. Remember the sheriffs that wouldn't enforce mask mandates? Instead of a civil war what we might end up with are police departments selectively enforcing laws. With a disrespected SCOTUS we are closer to that kind of breakup of the country.

Think about it, his wife has come out publicly professing CTs. I'm not the least bit surprised to hear that he believes any number of ignorant things.

I see your point.

However, the plaintiffs were OK with vaccines developed in the same way; the cell lines were using in testing the mRNA vaccine, not in manufacturing it. So explain how this should qualify for a religious exemption?

Spoken like a true Stalinist. "How many battalions does the Pope have?"

Florida judge rules state's 15 week abortion ban violates the "privacy" clause of FL's constitution. He'll issue statewide injunction. DeSantis' office says it will appeal to state's conservative SC to reverse existing precedent regarding FL' right to privacy.

Looks like reversing he right to privacy has become the GOP's baby.

Because he's the attorney general. And by making this public statement, he has committed his office to that position. He cannot prosecute people for doing what he said was OK.

Because their "sincerely held religious belief something something."

Judgement in favor of the plaintiff.

Case dismissed.

many religious groups, Jews among them, have the sincerely held religious belief that they should be able to get an abortion if it's the best for the pregnant person.

The SC doesn't give a **** about any religion but their own.

The reference is to a remark attributed to Andrew Jackson.
https://quotes.yourdictionary.com/author/quote/567967

Jon Stewart's podcast was very informative today. His guests are three female law professors and they know a lot about the history, this court, the religious right, and more. It's close to 45min long. I found every bit of it interesting.
The link in case you want to watch it outside of the forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twb_v78C1q4

If you want to watch it here or just sample it, here you go:

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

As soon as RBG turned out to not be a highlander this is where it was heading. Packing the court was the best option, but that time has far passed in part because we listened to people who are way too emotionally invested in the sanctity of the Supreme Court and who failed to comprehend that it's now gone fully rogue and back and forth packing and repacking making the court way less coherent is still a win.

The only thing that requires the other branches to listen to the court are the same sort of norms the GOP has been using as toilet paper to their ends. Which is why they need to do this. They probably half-assed do this as to abortion in that abortion meds are FDA approved and there is some issue with state statutes that make FDA approved medicines illegal. They will be similarly cute with regulations somehow. Supremacy clause, etc.

This will eventually come to naught because we are effectively Iran; a political structure operating under the approval of a council of religious extremists mostly concerned with maintaining their group's hegemony over their people. It's just developing slowly but will speed up as dark money pacs ramp up and go full speed at manufacturing cases to get issues in front of the court.

This was always the danger of framing Supreme Court justices as priests handing down received wisdom as to the meaning of the constitution.

It's the lying media as usual. Thomas was quoting the petitioners:

And that particular claim isn't exactly incorrect, even according to NBC News:

So they were derived from abortions, just many years ago and they've since been replicated, so it doesn't really count?

There were some leaked emails way back in the pandemic where Pfizer were trying to keep exactly this secret because it did matter to people. This way the media and fact checkers lie is so tired and lazy, but why not if it works?

I read this, then I laughed and laughed.

If you quote someone else in a dissenting opinion, then yes, you are making the same argument.

My point is it only mattered for the COVID vaccine, not the other vaccines.

Really? Is this a requirement of dissenting opinions? If Sotomayor and the other dissenters to the overturning of Roe quoted Alito's opinion at all they are making the same argument? Fascinating!

Context DOES matter. Thomas was dissenting on the majority opinion, not the plaintiffs.

This is where they are heading: rig the system & if the rigging doesn't get the desired result, declare it null and void & substitute the desired result anyway. This "legal theory" gets you both.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/justices-will-hear-case-that-tests-power-of-state-legislatures-to-set-rules-for-federal-elections/

If it were just abortion, and then the court would stop there and do incremental changes like they are supposed to, we might recover. But no.


I have a couple of Finnish Americans telling me the politics is normal and he can't wait till the Nov election is over, we are freaking out too much. He will be happy for GOP taking the senate and he will just suffer the last two years under Biden, but in 2024 everything will be fine. Move along, nothing to see here!

No, it's not fine. A non-elected branch of government is basically writing law. Biden must act now. Election day will be too late. We will have no way to stop republicans at the state level in 2023 and 2024.

They aren’t writing law, but they aren’t protecting the rights of the people, either.

A blog ridiculing the sophisticated work of the court:
http://esapolitics.blogspot.com/2022...gged-cats.html

Radical liberals have only themselves to blame. The Dobbs decision resulted from a liberal Democratic legal challenge to Mississippi's perfectly sane, reasonable abortion law that allowed abortions up to week 15 but banned them after that point, with an exception for endangerment.

Sheesh, isn't 15 weeks enough time to figure out that you're pregnant and get an abortion? Never mind the moral issue of killing a 14-week-old baby in the womb.

As soon as you can get knocked up, I'll consider your opinion on this matter.

Until then, I don't really give a ****.

BTW, you don't have to be a "radical liberal" to think that someone should have bodily autonomy, and it's one of the worst violations of human rights to take that away. Let me guess: you're one of those people who think that the Fourth Amendment is unneeded, too. "Hey, if you got nothing to hide, why do you need privacy?"

Well, there are certain birth defects that render a pregnancy non-viable that don't show up that early, but the main reason was politics. Viability becomes possible at about 22 weeks (no premature baby in history before that has survived as far as we know), but the Mississippi law kicked in at 15 weeks in an effort to separate the idea of viability from the legality of abortion.

If viability is not an issue, why isn't 15 weeks enough? If 15 weeks is enough, why not 14? Why not 13? Why not 6? Politically speaking it was just another effort to chip away at abortion rights. You can either fight those or lose ground bit by bit by bit.

So it gets to the Supreme "Court" and the court said not only was a 15 ban OK, but there was no right to an abortion in the US. The court could have just said the first part, but they went all in on overturning Roe. Its not really liberals fault. With this "Court", if it had not been this case, it would have been another.

This is one of those uses of the words “perfectly sane” that show how words don’t mean anything to right-wing psychopartisans.

You have that backwards. Roe v. Wade was a non-elected branch writing law. Now that the decision has been reversed and that judicial law removed, the elected branches get to actually write the law on abortion.

That's basically just gaslightning.

Radical liberals, inasmuch as they even exist in the USA political landscape, have near zero influence. All of these lawsuits were, by design and intent, meant to be challenged. This was a feature, not a bug. If it had not been Dobbs that triggered the (de facto or, as it turned out, literal) repeal of Roe vs. Wade it would have been one of at least a dozen others waiting in the wings for their turn.

The 15 weeks might be workable. But it also excluded rape and incest. Those are time consuming cases in courts and not easy for the victims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_...h_Organization
Contains Mississippi law and back ground. A single clinic had to handle all cases.

Most women abort to save money, if you abolish money you would save millions of babies.

96.50% of all abortions are therefore performed for social or economic reasons.

https://www.hli.org/resources/why-women-abort/

Pro-forced birth propaganda that throws a multitude of legitimate reasons under a blanket "social" category. These would include:

1) I am not fit to be a parent.
2) I do not want to have children.
3) My Partner is not fit or willing to have children
4) I have already had enough children to handle
5) I am not ready in life to have children
6) etc. etc.

Money is a reason, but fact is a lot of folks just don't want to have a kid.

"Human Life International is a Catholic, Pro-Life Mission"

I'm sure they're not biased at all.

So of that 96.5%, how many are 'economic', and how many are 'social'?

From your link:
What about the rest (the vast majority) of the states?

Three quarter are economic others are for for social reason as to keep their work than you can say it is all economic anyway, the propaganda in media it because of rape is false, it is just a very small amount.

That's an intentionally disingenuous framing, to save money. It conjures up some some middle class woman finding it rewarding to clip a few coupons in her idle time to save a few bucks and... oh yeah, having an abortion will save money too.

It's like bringing into this world another human being is no big deal and not laden with all sorts of profound implications. Yes, you dismiss some of it as merely economic; but merely economic can have profound implications & can completely derail someone's life (including the child, I might add).

But yeah, it's no biggie. Carry on. Let's go back to a time when women could not legally make their own financial decisions.

Having a child profoundly changes not only a woman's economics, but her entire life. Ask any mother, especially a single mom. 'To save money' is the most egregiously dishonest POS excuse.

Citation, please. That breakdown does not appear on the page you linked.

Kinda changes a fathers life as well. How the hell am I going to pay for this was definitely something I thought before, but not after.

Really? I quote jackass arguments I intend to rebut or dismiss all the time. In fact I'm doing it right now. Only an idiot or a scumbag would read this post as agreement with you.

So tell me more about your take on a Supreme Court Justice's citations in their dissent.

You have to call a cat a cat, if you provide to women and family the economic way to have child, you have children, if not you don't.

What's the problem? No part ofvthe vaccine molecules comes from fetuses, as stated. Nothing to do with "long ago." There are enzymes and even cells in vaccine processes. None of those come from mammals.

A piece commonly used is called plasmid, of bacterial origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRNA_vaccine

Pfizer:Manufacturing the vaccine requires a three-stage process. The first stage involves the molecular cloning of DNA plasmids that code for the spike protein by infusing them into Escherichia coli bacteria. For all markets, this stage is conducted in the United States,[117] at a small Pfizer pilot plant in Chesterfield, Missouri[118][119] (near St. Louis). After four days of growth, the bacteria are killed and broken open, and the contents of their cells are purified over a week and a half to recover the desired DNA product. The DNA is bottled and frozen for shipment. Safely and quickly transporting the DNA at this stage is so important that Pfizer has used its company jet and helicopter to assist.[120]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfiz...VID-19_vaccine

"Would you kindly..."

:-)

So close and yet so far.