The sad thing about this headline, which certainly applies in the state of Arizona after its Supreme Court decision yesterday, is that we are already in the 1800’s in some important ways. Justice Thomas took us back to the founding of the country in his decision in
How is it possible, that this Country of Ours has a shadow government ? One man, who is currently a holder of NO government office, is dictating to the puppet branch named The House of Representatives Republican majority.
Johnson the Meek and Powerless speaker, is going to Florida, to raise his own status and defend His office from rabid GOP hyenas circling, of which the 4 times indicted coward is Prime.
The Party of bullies have gone Overt with their intentions. Scotus, Potus and the House in 2024. Treason and Bribery. It began with Citizens United, the Tea Party, election deniers and liars, Dobbs (!!!)
My only hope is a 90% voter turnout this November, repudiate the naked emperor and his coterie of conspirators.
Thanks for Your voice LT, in this wilderness of devolution.
I ask because some ancestors of mine were wandering around there helping to instigate resistance to the Intolerable Acts, "feeding the poor of Boston," all of that Committees of Correspondence "no taxation without representation" maneuvering (that STILL is on the agenda, over 250 years later, just think of it!) and in on that revolution we celebrate every 4th of July, well, indirectly that along with the Declaration...
I live in a town that celebrates July 3rd. In the 1770s and before, the town government were loyalists to the Crown. Plymouth and Boston were hotbeds of independence fervor. Scope out Marshfield on Wikipedia. History Facinates, and seems to repeat itself !!
Yes! One very lucky happening in my life was Grandfather Turnbull delving in himself, and then hiring a genealogist, led back even further than Major Eleazer Curtis, the ancestor I mentioned:
And Lastly, rebellion against the Crown was the highest crime, treason. To be hanged and gibbetted, or drawn and quartered. Both punishments meted out in the British Colonies up to the 1750s. Hence, "No cruel or unusual punishment" written into Our Constitution. It was only 270yrs ago.
Matthew Hale was quoted approvingly by Justice Alito in the Dobbs decision, he was quite a piece of work:
"The trial is recorded in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1682. (It can be found online here.) In a brief foreward, the author explains that he chose to make the story public so that people could see the awkward situation it created: on the one hand, many people at the time of the pamphlet’s writing doubted that witchcraft was real, and implicitly that it should form the basis of any criminal charge; on the other hand, several highly influential men were involved in this trial – namely Hale, who was the Chief Baron of the Exchequer at the time of the trial; the medical doctor and philosopher Thomas Browne; and Sir John Kelyng, who became Chief Justice of the King’s Bench only three years after the trial. Was the trial an embarrassment? Or on the contrary does the weight of tradition force conclusions such as the ones Hale arrived at in that courtroom? Or both?
In the pamphlet’s record of his instructions, Hale explained crisply that the jury must consider only “first, whether or no these children were bewitched, [and] secondly, whether the prisoners at bar were guilty of it.” He stated that the question of whether witchcraft is real was not under discussion, since its existence was recognized in the Bible, and Parliament had already recognized its reality in several criminal statutes. He pointed out that, “the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons [witches], which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.” (A Tryal of Witches, p. 55)"
This was considered a precursor of Salem 1692, and some historians go so far as to posit
classic "but for" causation seen in the law in torts suits etc., "But for" the 1662 Bury St. Edmunds witch trials, they doubt the Massachusetts Salem events would have unfolded as they did. As you know, the authorities eventually had to "read the Riot Act" to the fervent pastors and judges involved!
That is exactly what my thoughts are. It is against federal law to conduct government policy if you're not authorized. And the orange traitor is not authorized.
If a shadow gov't run by a depraved mind-addled lunatic who holds no official office can openly exist and control the actions of our gov't, then why the hell can't Biden just trump that shit and arrest the whole damn Freedom Caucus for their treasonous behavior that is putting the world at risk and jail them just long enough to get Ukraine the weapons and ammunition they need? If not that, then do something equally as radical so we can live up to our word and show the world and ourselves who we really are.
Screw the fall out. We gave Ukraine our word and now we're gutlessly allowing this bloated fool to make us look like immoral, untrustworthy fuckheads? Who the hell are we? Them?
Take the fucking gloves off and face that this despicable cowardice of turning our collective backs on Ukraine is as real as life gets, happening on our watch, and being done in our name.
Do we just wring our hands and say gee-whiz? Is that who we are? Totally disenfranchised by thumb sucking morons like Boebert, Green, Hawley Jones and the rest as they do the bidding of the most selfish, evil minded man-child on the planet? Really? Are we that weak?
Trump will croak or what's left of his addled brain will simply leak into his diaper soon enough. Of course, the sooner, the better. What happens then? What happens to all the currently empowered scum in his entourage? Do they crawl away back into their holes when there is no larger than life horror of a "human" to slink behind?
Does this deplorable phase we're in the midst of just fade away when the head is cut off the beast? Is Trump a one off? I think so. He seems irreplaceable. He's been groomed as a false idol since stepping past his brother as a kid. Thankfully it takes a lifetime of dedication to become as depraved as he is. I doubt there is a replacement out there with the same training. He'll be dead, jailed, lose the election, or revert to a drooling infant soon enough.
Then what happens with what we're left with? At least if he wins we pretty much know what happened next thanks to Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Knocks on our doors and all the rest. There's no doubt that this group will be high on that list. It's the other options that are the wild cards.
So on point. Have a preference for truncating conservative down to con because they are closer to confederates than to any actual political ideology.
Adding here, not subtracting. Wait 'til the supermajority on SCOTUS finds out the actual meaning behind being an originalist and states' rights advocate is a return of the 1st Constitution aka Articles of Confederation and those 6 are without a job/position. Then Thomas can fulfill his lifetime goal of mixing with real people by being a greeter at WalMart.
A return to the original Constitution (ain't going to happen however the wet dreamers want just that) would 86 the Federal Courts as well as the other co-equal branches of the USG.
The expansion of the Circuit Courts to the current 13 were nevah met with the matching of 1 new Justice for 1 new Circuit. That situation is not unique. That said, a single leap to 13 ain't goin to happen. Nor should it. For example we have minimum ages for Representatives, Senators, and President w/o its mathematical match (balance) of a maximum age. A maximum age is a far better way to go than term limits and the nation would have to deal w/the foreseeable ageism argument both for national office and Federal Judges. (a max-age for President is not as ageist as it might first appear. The Framers ensured continuity by having a VP.) Another example was the drop in the voting age to 18 w/o lowering the age for Representatives to age 18. Yes, 18. As it stands today the age range of 18-24 is NOT represented in Congress yet some folk whine the young don't vote. Go figure.
If you follow some big time #nevertrumpers, 4eg Tom I am the smartest Guy in the room Nichols, you would find most Rs want the voting age to begin at 25.
Next up: contraception, same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, a return to segregation, and stripping women of the right to vote. They're just getting started.
The problem is that this Supreme Court is going to be around for quite some time and can do even more profound damage. If we can re-elect Biden, keep the Senate and flip the House, we can work on expanding the Court. I would like to see Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett and Gorsuch and even Roberts impeached for corruption and for lying to Congress, but I ain't holding my breath. We have a long and difficult struggle ahead but it can be done.
While trying to wrap my aching head around the idea that in 2024 a woman's right to bodily autonomy could be taken away with a law written in 1864 I came across this article describing how Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was publishing recipes for at home medicinal abortions in the 1700s:
how about lobbyists, dark money, corporations as people? those didn't exist either. When are they going to address the grievous harm those institutions have done to our democracy? oh, never mind - those are predominantly wealthy white male enclaves. What was I thinking?
In the Bruen gun case, discussed in the first paragraph, the Supreme Court declared that when a law addresses a “general societal problem that has persisted since the 18th century, the lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation addressing that problem is relevant evidence that the challenged regulation is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.” Law professor Andrew Koppelman explains why it is absurd to conclude that the lack of a regulation in the 18th century was ever evidence that such a regulation would violate the Constitution:
"At any given time, an infinite number of laws are not enacted. The question of why they are not enacted is an incoherent one. Just as the number of non-enacted laws is infinite, so is the number of reasons why the legislature decides not to enact them, starting with the obvious possibility that no one thought of it. Congress has never required that the Capitol building be painted with big red polka dots. This is not evidence that it thought such a decorative choice would be unconstitutional."
It seems possible to me that the framers of the Constitution in 1787 did not think to enact a ban on the private possession of automatic weapons that didn't exist. But the Republicans on the Supreme Court concluded that they didn't enact it because they thought that it was unconstitutional.
Back in the good old 18th and 19th centuries hypocrites like Alito and Thomas would be seen as aliens and not equal to white Protestants. Wasn’t the prevailing fear of Catholics and Papist Italians rather prominent? And how can Thomas forget the original sin and stain of slavery and Jim Crow? Mind boggling hypocrisy and massive historical denial.
These really fanatical ideologues here in the USA are like Putin, and like Hitler before him: they will not stop until they are forced to stop, their appetites grow on what they devour.
And, remember this, dictators rise from the minority party, then grasp power by fear, death and intimidation. Think Secret Police, One Party government.
Republicans' increasing recognition that the party's thrust is too unpopular to win elections makes them deadly. To them power is all, and they have no legal, peaceful way to regain it.
A J.D. identifying an MD problem! M for metastazing, A for aggressive, G for growth, A for affliction on our body politic. Wait, just like in 1915 with that "Mother" song, put them all together, they spell MAGA, a word which spells the world to them.
"At this point we all know they include prosecution for miscarriages suspected of being abortions, let alone for actual abortions, and lack of timely care from medical providers, who, fearful of prosecution themselves, sometimes wait for miscarrying patients to go critical from infection or loss of blood before offering care. As the law journalist Mark Joseph Stern tweeted on 27 March, “The anti-abortion movement’s end goal is to let doctors refuse treatment – including life-saving emergency care – for patients whom they deem to be sinful and morally impure.” The patients, largely women, are supposed to die for their sins.
As if that weren’t enough, in May 2023, the Heritage Foundation declared on social media, “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” It’s a fanatical statement: the vast majority of sex had by the vast majority of human beings does not have reproduction as its goal, though the term recreational disparages what can be a joy, a profound connection, or a transcendence of self, among other things.
The far right the Heritage Foundation belongs to is, nevertheless, driving toward this goal by striving to take away birth control and abortion to make sex punitively risky for anyone who might get pregnant. Taking away women’s reproductive freedom takes away other freedoms, social, economic and educational, and rebuilds a society of gender inequality, which is clearly the goal. The right has also made noise about ending no-fault divorce and marriage equality, and introduced hundreds of anti-trans bills this year and last."
Women who have grown up with sexual, educational and professional opportunities will not go back. We aging Boomers remember the days before birth control pills, legal abortion, with few opportunities for professional education (MD, MBA, JD) and few professional opportunities other than nurse, dental hygienist, social worker or teacher. Today’s women who enjoy rewarding professional careers and sexual freedom will not go back.
They are gonna find that out in November..... And Biden is not fooling around - for once the Dems are bringing a gun to a gunfight - watch this ad.....
Wow. I've heard that several times on MSNBC audio. Affecting and effective, but the video enhances it infinitely. You'd almost think somebody from the Lincoln Project is lending a hand.
Aside from everything else, isn't this decision good for Biden? Trump is flip-flopping like a fat tuna on land and all Biden has to do is say, I told you so.
I am so f-ing depressed right now. I desperately need a glimmer of hope and light. It seems that the women of Arizona will bring this matter onto the next ballot. God bless them for their hard work. May good sense and decency prevail.
The Republicans in the Arizona Legislature were trying to run away from the AZ Supreme Court ruling at the same time they refused to repeal the 1864 statute the Court upheld. How about that hypocrisy?
Shameful. I was at a senior center today. I sat waiting and saw people of every hue walking by and greeting each other and being decent, happy even. Why is that so hard to emulate? Why all the hate? If you are a believer then you must know that Jesus didn't hate. He preached love and acceptance. These "Christians" are an abomination in God's eyes.
I'm 74 years old, and in the course of a long life I have come to the conclusion that for all too many people, hate is easy and cheap and requires no thought at all. It's simple to blame other people for one's own failures and to elevate oneself.
The Seniors that You witnessed today were raised on good manners towards all, and respect for their elders. Manners are the true grease on the axles. Smooth, steady, safe, kind.
Lucian! Another tater! (For moderately sane non-baseball readers, a "tater" is a home run in baseball jargon.) Strongly recommended additional reading, Monica Hesse in the Washington Post on Willam Claude Jones, Speaker of the Arizona House when that law was passed. The ages of Jones' second, third and fourth wives when they married? Twelve (possibly abducted by him), fifteen, and fourteen.
Let the AI in your RI (Real Intelligence, i.e. brain) imagine a vintage photo, like the one in "The Shining," in which William Claude Jones and one of the teenys he was bopping have been added to the famous photo of Melania Knauss, her boyfriend Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell.
OMG…wake me up. I’m stuck in a nightmare where damn time machine is speeding in reverse. Sweet mother….I AM awake. Why is this happening? And …if TFG and company get their way then what? I have my sister’s garden shed in Dublin, and I am abandoning my family. Sorry! My fight is waning as I age.
Promising poetry is like having an Irish passport…beer and language are Ireland’s major exports! Ergo, you’re in. My sister even promised throwing some scraps at me!
It's referencing the popes command during the Inquisition While holding out the cross. I actually can't remember what "triggered" me to post that. I see this morning I've posted it elsewhere And am probably going to delete them. The pope been in the news lately once again trying to take the flock back to premodern times as you probably have read. Recovering catholic here for 48 years. Probably was Arizona or whatever.
My take is that Pope Saint Francis is doing his best to PREVENT the Cardinals and papal money changers from taking the chiurch back to premodern times. He is dealing with his own magates ("Playing God" by Mary Jo McConahay).
How is it possible, that this Country of Ours has a shadow government ? One man, who is currently a holder of NO government office, is dictating to the puppet branch named The House of Representatives Republican majority.
Johnson the Meek and Powerless speaker, is going to Florida, to raise his own status and defend His office from rabid GOP hyenas circling, of which the 4 times indicted coward is Prime.
The Party of bullies have gone Overt with their intentions. Scotus, Potus and the House in 2024. Treason and Bribery. It began with Citizens United, the Tea Party, election deniers and liars, Dobbs (!!!)
My only hope is a 90% voter turnout this November, repudiate the naked emperor and his coterie of conspirators.
Thanks for Your voice LT, in this wilderness of devolution.
Alan South of Boston
We do have a shadow government and there are even envoys meddling in international affairs. Sinister stuff.
Speak of the Devil!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort
THE Devil.
Laughing out loud
Effing simpson death is sucking up all the oxygen dammit
Darn.
Well spoken. How a man like Trump can control Congress and make a mockery of our Justice system is beyond me.
The extreme anti abortion laws being passed is sickening. Hopefully this will bring down what is left of the Republican party.
South like Quincy or Scituate?
I ask because some ancestors of mine were wandering around there helping to instigate resistance to the Intolerable Acts, "feeding the poor of Boston," all of that Committees of Correspondence "no taxation without representation" maneuvering (that STILL is on the agenda, over 250 years later, just think of it!) and in on that revolution we celebrate every 4th of July, well, indirectly that along with the Declaration...
I live in a town that celebrates July 3rd. In the 1770s and before, the town government were loyalists to the Crown. Plymouth and Boston were hotbeds of independence fervor. Scope out Marshfield on Wikipedia. History Facinates, and seems to repeat itself !!
Btw Sir, I just noticed Your surname. On My maternal side were the Hale's of NH.
I love New England, old barns and family trees !!
Yes! One very lucky happening in my life was Grandfather Turnbull delving in himself, and then hiring a genealogist, led back even further than Major Eleazer Curtis, the ancestor I mentioned:
https://archive.org/stream/curtisfamilyreco00pres/curtisfamilyreco00pres_djvu.txt
And Lastly, rebellion against the Crown was the highest crime, treason. To be hanged and gibbetted, or drawn and quartered. Both punishments meted out in the British Colonies up to the 1750s. Hence, "No cruel or unusual punishment" written into Our Constitution. It was only 270yrs ago.
And to hook those fiendishly sadistic execution methods back to the Supreme Court's astounding bilge:
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2021/10/sir-matthew-hale-and-evidence-of-witchcraft/
Matthew Hale was quoted approvingly by Justice Alito in the Dobbs decision, he was quite a piece of work:
"The trial is recorded in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1682. (It can be found online here.) In a brief foreward, the author explains that he chose to make the story public so that people could see the awkward situation it created: on the one hand, many people at the time of the pamphlet’s writing doubted that witchcraft was real, and implicitly that it should form the basis of any criminal charge; on the other hand, several highly influential men were involved in this trial – namely Hale, who was the Chief Baron of the Exchequer at the time of the trial; the medical doctor and philosopher Thomas Browne; and Sir John Kelyng, who became Chief Justice of the King’s Bench only three years after the trial. Was the trial an embarrassment? Or on the contrary does the weight of tradition force conclusions such as the ones Hale arrived at in that courtroom? Or both?
In the pamphlet’s record of his instructions, Hale explained crisply that the jury must consider only “first, whether or no these children were bewitched, [and] secondly, whether the prisoners at bar were guilty of it.” He stated that the question of whether witchcraft is real was not under discussion, since its existence was recognized in the Bible, and Parliament had already recognized its reality in several criminal statutes. He pointed out that, “the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons [witches], which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.” (A Tryal of Witches, p. 55)"
This was considered a precursor of Salem 1692, and some historians go so far as to posit
classic "but for" causation seen in the law in torts suits etc., "But for" the 1662 Bury St. Edmunds witch trials, they doubt the Massachusetts Salem events would have unfolded as they did. As you know, the authorities eventually had to "read the Riot Act" to the fervent pastors and judges involved!
Sparkling facts. My Mom's Father had a family book "The History of Rindge NH." Thomas Hale stepped onto the pier in Marblehead, 1635. Ayeee!!
Not to mention miles of stone walls in the woods. Once fields, overgrown by 2-300 years of neglect...
That is exactly what my thoughts are. It is against federal law to conduct government policy if you're not authorized. And the orange traitor is not authorized.
If a shadow gov't run by a depraved mind-addled lunatic who holds no official office can openly exist and control the actions of our gov't, then why the hell can't Biden just trump that shit and arrest the whole damn Freedom Caucus for their treasonous behavior that is putting the world at risk and jail them just long enough to get Ukraine the weapons and ammunition they need? If not that, then do something equally as radical so we can live up to our word and show the world and ourselves who we really are.
Screw the fall out. We gave Ukraine our word and now we're gutlessly allowing this bloated fool to make us look like immoral, untrustworthy fuckheads? Who the hell are we? Them?
Take the fucking gloves off and face that this despicable cowardice of turning our collective backs on Ukraine is as real as life gets, happening on our watch, and being done in our name.
Do we just wring our hands and say gee-whiz? Is that who we are? Totally disenfranchised by thumb sucking morons like Boebert, Green, Hawley Jones and the rest as they do the bidding of the most selfish, evil minded man-child on the planet? Really? Are we that weak?
Trump will croak or what's left of his addled brain will simply leak into his diaper soon enough. Of course, the sooner, the better. What happens then? What happens to all the currently empowered scum in his entourage? Do they crawl away back into their holes when there is no larger than life horror of a "human" to slink behind?
Does this deplorable phase we're in the midst of just fade away when the head is cut off the beast? Is Trump a one off? I think so. He seems irreplaceable. He's been groomed as a false idol since stepping past his brother as a kid. Thankfully it takes a lifetime of dedication to become as depraved as he is. I doubt there is a replacement out there with the same training. He'll be dead, jailed, lose the election, or revert to a drooling infant soon enough.
Then what happens with what we're left with? At least if he wins we pretty much know what happened next thanks to Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Knocks on our doors and all the rest. There's no doubt that this group will be high on that list. It's the other options that are the wild cards.
I miss Nixon and the good old days.
So on point. Have a preference for truncating conservative down to con because they are closer to confederates than to any actual political ideology.
Adding here, not subtracting. Wait 'til the supermajority on SCOTUS finds out the actual meaning behind being an originalist and states' rights advocate is a return of the 1st Constitution aka Articles of Confederation and those 6 are without a job/position. Then Thomas can fulfill his lifetime goal of mixing with real people by being a greeter at WalMart.
Yeah, no. They won't lose their jobs. I will have to change our government so that the court can be expanded and then, maybe, the people will prevail.
A return to the original Constitution (ain't going to happen however the wet dreamers want just that) would 86 the Federal Courts as well as the other co-equal branches of the USG.
The expansion of the Circuit Courts to the current 13 were nevah met with the matching of 1 new Justice for 1 new Circuit. That situation is not unique. That said, a single leap to 13 ain't goin to happen. Nor should it. For example we have minimum ages for Representatives, Senators, and President w/o its mathematical match (balance) of a maximum age. A maximum age is a far better way to go than term limits and the nation would have to deal w/the foreseeable ageism argument both for national office and Federal Judges. (a max-age for President is not as ageist as it might first appear. The Framers ensured continuity by having a VP.) Another example was the drop in the voting age to 18 w/o lowering the age for Representatives to age 18. Yes, 18. As it stands today the age range of 18-24 is NOT represented in Congress yet some folk whine the young don't vote. Go figure.
If you follow some big time #nevertrumpers, 4eg Tom I am the smartest Guy in the room Nichols, you would find most Rs want the voting age to begin at 25.
Yes, court packing "is a thing" but too slow to halt the oncoming train, not enough time to barricade the tracks that way.
A blue wave could impeach the criminal justices.
Biden blew that of course.
Next up: contraception, same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, a return to segregation, and stripping women of the right to vote. They're just getting started.
Cameras monitoring bedrooms?
They'd just love that.
Next, take my credit card and my credit score...
The problem is that this Supreme Court is going to be around for quite some time and can do even more profound damage. If we can re-elect Biden, keep the Senate and flip the House, we can work on expanding the Court. I would like to see Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett and Gorsuch and even Roberts impeached for corruption and for lying to Congress, but I ain't holding my breath. We have a long and difficult struggle ahead but it can be done.
Balls and strikes my ass.
Ah yes, the Chief Justice for the ages. What a pig he is.
Yes he is pig along with the Divine right of Kings Complex. Belongs in a muddy sty with not enough to eat.
My favorite number is 13. It is supreme!
The sad thing about this headline… is, of course, that we even need to ask the question.
The sad thing is that a significant minority of our citizens are letting themselves be led down such a dark path.
Thank you, Lucian, for another great column.
While trying to wrap my aching head around the idea that in 2024 a woman's right to bodily autonomy could be taken away with a law written in 1864 I came across this article describing how Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was publishing recipes for at home medicinal abortions in the 1700s:
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-franklin-roe-wade-supreme-court-leak
I guess that's just too original for originalists like Alito. Insanity.
Thank You for this. Shared.
Alito quoted the Massachusetts judge who burnt woman. That is how pathetic right wing America is.
how about lobbyists, dark money, corporations as people? those didn't exist either. When are they going to address the grievous harm those institutions have done to our democracy? oh, never mind - those are predominantly wealthy white male enclaves. What was I thinking?
To the extent that wealthy white male exclusivity has been threatened, so much more is their reflexive backlash.
They want to take us back to the days when women couldn’t vote, when there was no federal income tax and you fill in whatever else you want…OY GEVALT
In the Bruen gun case, discussed in the first paragraph, the Supreme Court declared that when a law addresses a “general societal problem that has persisted since the 18th century, the lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation addressing that problem is relevant evidence that the challenged regulation is inconsistent with the Second Amendment.” Law professor Andrew Koppelman explains why it is absurd to conclude that the lack of a regulation in the 18th century was ever evidence that such a regulation would violate the Constitution:
"At any given time, an infinite number of laws are not enacted. The question of why they are not enacted is an incoherent one. Just as the number of non-enacted laws is infinite, so is the number of reasons why the legislature decides not to enact them, starting with the obvious possibility that no one thought of it. Congress has never required that the Capitol building be painted with big red polka dots. This is not evidence that it thought such a decorative choice would be unconstitutional."
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/4571405-how-the-supreme-court-uses-tradition-to-take-away-the-rights-of-americans/
It seems possible to me that the framers of the Constitution in 1787 did not think to enact a ban on the private possession of automatic weapons that didn't exist. But the Republicans on the Supreme Court concluded that they didn't enact it because they thought that it was unconstitutional.
Back in the good old 18th and 19th centuries hypocrites like Alito and Thomas would be seen as aliens and not equal to white Protestants. Wasn’t the prevailing fear of Catholics and Papist Italians rather prominent? And how can Thomas forget the original sin and stain of slavery and Jim Crow? Mind boggling hypocrisy and massive historical denial.
These really fanatical ideologues here in the USA are like Putin, and like Hitler before him: they will not stop until they are forced to stop, their appetites grow on what they devour.
And, remember this, dictators rise from the minority party, then grasp power by fear, death and intimidation. Think Secret Police, One Party government.
Republicans' increasing recognition that the party's thrust is too unpopular to win elections makes them deadly. To them power is all, and they have no legal, peaceful way to regain it.
A J.D. identifying an MD problem! M for metastazing, A for aggressive, G for growth, A for affliction on our body politic. Wait, just like in 1915 with that "Mother" song, put them all together, they spell MAGA, a word which spells the world to them.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/02/the-republican-party-has-become-a-full-fledged-anti-sex-movement
Excerpt:
"At this point we all know they include prosecution for miscarriages suspected of being abortions, let alone for actual abortions, and lack of timely care from medical providers, who, fearful of prosecution themselves, sometimes wait for miscarrying patients to go critical from infection or loss of blood before offering care. As the law journalist Mark Joseph Stern tweeted on 27 March, “The anti-abortion movement’s end goal is to let doctors refuse treatment – including life-saving emergency care – for patients whom they deem to be sinful and morally impure.” The patients, largely women, are supposed to die for their sins.
As if that weren’t enough, in May 2023, the Heritage Foundation declared on social media, “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” It’s a fanatical statement: the vast majority of sex had by the vast majority of human beings does not have reproduction as its goal, though the term recreational disparages what can be a joy, a profound connection, or a transcendence of self, among other things.
The far right the Heritage Foundation belongs to is, nevertheless, driving toward this goal by striving to take away birth control and abortion to make sex punitively risky for anyone who might get pregnant. Taking away women’s reproductive freedom takes away other freedoms, social, economic and educational, and rebuilds a society of gender inequality, which is clearly the goal. The right has also made noise about ending no-fault divorce and marriage equality, and introduced hundreds of anti-trans bills this year and last."
Women who have grown up with sexual, educational and professional opportunities will not go back. We aging Boomers remember the days before birth control pills, legal abortion, with few opportunities for professional education (MD, MBA, JD) and few professional opportunities other than nurse, dental hygienist, social worker or teacher. Today’s women who enjoy rewarding professional careers and sexual freedom will not go back.
That's the bottom line, and the other side had better get used to it.
They are gonna find that out in November..... And Biden is not fooling around - for once the Dems are bringing a gun to a gunfight - watch this ad.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wInNjr_9D28
Power-Full!
Wow. I've heard that several times on MSNBC audio. Affecting and effective, but the video enhances it infinitely. You'd almost think somebody from the Lincoln Project is lending a hand.
The good old days when men owned their wives children black and brown people. As property.
Aside from everything else, isn't this decision good for Biden? Trump is flip-flopping like a fat tuna on land and all Biden has to do is say, I told you so.
I am so f-ing depressed right now. I desperately need a glimmer of hope and light. It seems that the women of Arizona will bring this matter onto the next ballot. God bless them for their hard work. May good sense and decency prevail.
The Republicans in the Arizona Legislature were trying to run away from the AZ Supreme Court ruling at the same time they refused to repeal the 1864 statute the Court upheld. How about that hypocrisy?
Shameful. I was at a senior center today. I sat waiting and saw people of every hue walking by and greeting each other and being decent, happy even. Why is that so hard to emulate? Why all the hate? If you are a believer then you must know that Jesus didn't hate. He preached love and acceptance. These "Christians" are an abomination in God's eyes.
I'm 74 years old, and in the course of a long life I have come to the conclusion that for all too many people, hate is easy and cheap and requires no thought at all. It's simple to blame other people for one's own failures and to elevate oneself.
The Seniors that You witnessed today were raised on good manners towards all, and respect for their elders. Manners are the true grease on the axles. Smooth, steady, safe, kind.
Manners are based on respect. Of course that doesn't mean racists can't have good manners, they just aren't real.
I just invented chocolate chip and peanut ice cream. I will survive, a bigger woman, for it.
Lucian! Another tater! (For moderately sane non-baseball readers, a "tater" is a home run in baseball jargon.) Strongly recommended additional reading, Monica Hesse in the Washington Post on Willam Claude Jones, Speaker of the Arizona House when that law was passed. The ages of Jones' second, third and fourth wives when they married? Twelve (possibly abducted by him), fifteen, and fourteen.
Let the AI in your RI (Real Intelligence, i.e. brain) imagine a vintage photo, like the one in "The Shining," in which William Claude Jones and one of the teenys he was bopping have been added to the famous photo of Melania Knauss, her boyfriend Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell.
OMG…wake me up. I’m stuck in a nightmare where damn time machine is speeding in reverse. Sweet mother….I AM awake. Why is this happening? And …if TFG and company get their way then what? I have my sister’s garden shed in Dublin, and I am abandoning my family. Sorry! My fight is waning as I age.
Some time ago you mentioned your sister and Dublin to me, can I go with?
I can pay in dubloons 4 leaf clovers and poetry.
Promising poetry is like having an Irish passport…beer and language are Ireland’s major exports! Ergo, you’re in. My sister even promised throwing some scraps at me!
I'm Irish (obviously)! I'm in!
"Kill in This Sign".
I don’t understand this. Explain please.
It's referencing the popes command during the Inquisition While holding out the cross. I actually can't remember what "triggered" me to post that. I see this morning I've posted it elsewhere And am probably going to delete them. The pope been in the news lately once again trying to take the flock back to premodern times as you probably have read. Recovering catholic here for 48 years. Probably was Arizona or whatever.
16 years of Catholic school under the auspices of several vicious orders of nuns. Recovering Catholic is my moniker as well.
My take is that Pope Saint Francis is doing his best to PREVENT the Cardinals and papal money changers from taking the chiurch back to premodern times. He is dealing with his own magates ("Playing God" by Mary Jo McConahay).