Friday, May 6, 2022
Not Much Change in Midterm Elections Outlook After Supreme Court Leak, Poll Finds
I've been saying this to folks on Twitter since Monday.
Come November, inflation and the economy will remain the number one issue. Abortion rights may play a factor in a few tight races in competitive districts, but if anything, the outrage at the leak just reinforces existing political polarization. Coastal, urban districts aren't likely to be Republican in any case, and deep red rural areas are likely to be Democrat.
I'll have more on this, of course.
At CNN, "The Supreme Court’s draft opinion on Roe v. Wade hasn’t shaken the midterm landscape":
Republicans hold a narrow edge over Democrats on the generic ballot test, 49% to 42% among registered voters, a slight improvement for Republicans compared with the poll conducted immediately before the ruling. On the economy – the issue most likely to be a driving factor for voters this fall – nearly half of adults (46%) in the latest poll say the Republican Party’s positions are more aligned with their own, compared with 31% for the Democratic Party. About three-quarters say that which party controls Congress makes a real difference – a figure that did not shift between the two polls – with more Republicans saying so than Democrats (88% vs. 78%). Those findings suggest the overall picture for the midterm elections is little changed after this week’s news, at least in the short term. Only about half of the country say they have heard a great deal or a good amount about the draft Supreme Court opinion thus far (49%), with 51% saying they’ve heard just some or nothing at all about it. The poll conducted after the draft ruling became public also finds a small increase since January in the share of Americans who say they would only vote for a candidate who shares their views on abortion; that view increased more among Republicans (from 15% in January to 26% now) than among Democrats (24% in January to 29% now). On this measure, though, the ideological divide tells a different story, with liberals’ commitment to a candidate who shares their views on abortion rising 12 points; among conservatives, it’s up 6 points...
RTWT.
Fresh Rescue Efforts Under Way at Ukraine's Azovstal Steel Plant (VIDEO)
Some news out of Ukraine.
At the Wall Street Journal, "Russia wants to seize the last part of Mariupol by Monday, Ukrainian presidential adviser says":
A third group of civilians was being evacuated from the labyrinth of bunkers beneath Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant Friday, officials said, as Ukraine’s military counterattacked against Russian forces in the east. For weeks the Mariupol defenders’ dogged stand tied down Russian forces there, reducing the units available elsewhere. Now, Ukraine says it has largely blunted Russia’s offensives in other areas in the east and is hoping to use heavy weapons to push them back. On Friday, Ukrainian and Russian officials said a total of 50 civilians, including children, were evacuated from the plant during the day. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the evacuees were handed over to representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross for delivery to temporary accommodations. The evacuation operation at Azovstal will continue on Saturday, the ministry said. The United Nations said almost 500 civilians were evacuated in two previous operations with its assistance. Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the evacuations proceeded slowly because Russia was violating a cease-fire. Moscow has previously repeatedly denied targeting civilians. The Azov Regiment stationed at the steel plant said one fighter had been killed and six wounded as a car was struck while moving toward some civilians to evacuate them. Azovstal, a sprawling Soviet-era complex of warehouses, furnaces, tunnels and rail tracks in the southeastern city of Mariupol, has become a focal point in the war in recent weeks. Ukrainian soldiers have continued to hold out as Russia stepped up its bombing of the plant. Russian ground forces had blockaded Azovstal and assaulted some parts of it in the past 24 hours, supported by warplanes, the Ukrainian General Staff said Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday called for Russia to release or exchange those remaining at Azovstal in comments via videolink with Chatham House, the U.K. think tank. “If they kill people who can be exchanged as prisoners of war or just released as civilians or be helped as wounded or injured, civilian and military alike, if they destroy them, I don’t think we can have any diplomatic talks with them after that,” he said. Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky, said Russia was seeking to seize the last part of Mariupol by Monday, when Moscow celebrates the anniversary of the victory over the Nazis in World War II. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Thursday that the Russians were besieging Azovstal primarily through airstrikes and that the majority of Russian ground forces that had been dedicated to Mariupol had been withdrawn. The Kremlin has declared victory in Mariupol and said it is aiming to seal the remaining defenders in Azovstal until they surrender. Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces were counterattacking around the northeastern cities of Kharkiv and Izyum, said Army Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, chief of the Ukrainian General Staff. Ukraine’s military has pushed Russian troops back to the east of Kharkiv, curbing the shelling of the country’s second-most-populous city. Russia has sought to thrust south from Izyum, which is southeast of Kharkiv, but has encountered stiff Ukrainian resistance. Gen. Zaluzhniy’s comments, which came after a phone call with the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army Gen. Mark Milley, reflect optimism among Ukrainian officials that Russia’s offensives are running out of steam and that the deployment of heavy weapons systems from the West could turn the tide of the war in the east of the country in the coming weeks. Other officials cautioned, however, that the counteroffensive was localized. “Western weapons are not yet arriving at a rate that would allow Ukrainian forces to go on a counterattack,” Mr. Arestovych, the presidential adviser, said late Thursday. He characterized Ukraine’s capture of some villages in the east around Kharkiv and the south around Kherson, which is occupied by Russia, as small movements that could lead to a broader counteroffensive. “It’s too early to talk of serious successes,” he said. President Biden said Friday the U.S. is sending another round of security assistance to Ukraine that will include artillery munitions, radars and other equipment. An administration official said the equipment is valued at up to $150 million. Mr. Biden said the Ukraine funding authorized by Congress is nearly depleted, and he has asked Congress for $33 billion more to fund weapons and provide longer-term economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Russia, meanwhile, claimed that its aircraft hit 24 Ukrainian military assets overnight, including weapons depots and an artillery battery. The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that its high-precision air-based missiles had destroyed an ammunition depot in the eastern city of Kramatorsk. The ministry said that Russian forces had shot down two Ukrainian warplanes, an Su-25 and a MiG-29. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in a commentary Thursday that the Ukrainian counteroffensive “may disrupt Russian forces northeast of Kharkiv and will likely force Russian forces to decide whether to reinforce positions near Kharkiv or risk losing most or all of their positions within artillery range of the city.” The Ukrainian advances to the east of Kharkiv could develop into a broader counteroffensive, ISW said...
Ending Roe Threatens Abortion Rights
Remember, if you're libertarian (and I'm not), you're for abortion rights.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, at Reason, is hear to remind you, "Ending Roe Threatens More Than Abortion Rights":
In discourse about Roe v. Wade being overturned and states severely restricting or limiting abortions, much of the discussion is (rightly) focused on the potential fallout for those with unwanted or unsustainable pregnancies. It's girls and women of childbearing age on whom such prohibitions would fall the hardest, or at least the most directly. But banning abortion would bring many second-order effects that merit consideration, too. Some children, families, and medical professionals may suffer grave consequences. We're also likely to see a drastically expanded state. Today I want to devote a little attention to some of these often-overlooked consequences...Keep reading.
Wednesday, May 4, 2022
Do We Need a Capitalist Civil War?
From Joel Kotkin, at UnHerd, "The working class suffer when elites agree":
We Americans like to think of ourselves as a thoroughly modern people — living proof of what, with enough toil and grit, the rest of the free world can one day hope to be. And yet for all our progressivism and idealism, America’s political culture finds itself unable to escape the past. We may be living in a 21st century democracy, but that “democracy” increasingly resembles something that could have been plucked out of feudal Europe or, perhaps more accurately, feudal Japan. For much of its history, Japanese politics was characterised by conflicts among its ruling daimyo, and later between the great industrial zaibatsu who replaced them as dominant powers. Similarly, America’s politics is now being shaped by a civil war not between classes, but within the ruling capitalist elite. As the 2022 congressional elections approach, two sides are polishing their armour and fletching their arrows. In one corner stand the daimyo of the gentry corporate elite, largely drawn from the ranks of tech oligarchs and much of Wall Street. Their focus lies in the creation of a capitalist utopia rooted in paternalistic state control, much along the lines of the corporatist “Great Reset”. In the other corner, meanwhile, stand their opponents to the Right, largely made up of those who own private capital and are therefore anxious not to see their activities curbed. These divisions reflect profound differences in industry, reminiscent of the 19th-century conflicts between aristocratic merchants and British manufacturers, or the one that broke out between the daimyo who embraced industry and those samurai who stubbornly hewed to traditional ways. Drawing on this, the French economist Thomas Piketty aptly divides our capitalist class into what he calls “the Brahmin Left” and the “merchant Right”. One side, as its caste association assumes, tends to see itself as more spiritually enlightened, as priests of the progressive secular religion. The merchant side, however, is more concerned with market competition (particularly from China), the cost of goods, and the impact of regulatory policies on their core businesses. Today, the Brahmin Left has its base in large corporations and investors, and has allied itself with the academic and media establishments, financing non-profits and generally supporting increasingly intrusive government. By contrast, the merchant Right draws its natural support from the traditional middle class — skilled workers, high-street businesspeople, and small property owners — who also have become the bulwark of the Trumpian Republican Party...
Still more.
Leaked Draft of Supreme Court's Abortion Rights Ruling Fires-Up the Left Ahead of Midterm Elections
Things certainly have changed a bit since Monday night. That said, I'm certain that bread-and-butter issues --- especially crime, the economy, education, and inflation --- will be the electorate's biggest concerns when voters cast their ballots in November.
I'll be posting regular updates on that, for sure.
At the Los Angeles Times, "‘Barreling at us.’ Leaked Supreme Court draft turbocharges abortion activism for midterms":
Activists on both sides of the abortion debate have spent months planning for a blockbuster Supreme Court ruling this year on Roe vs. Wade. None of those plans anticipated the particular jolt on Monday night, when a leaked draft opinion signaled a decisive end to the decades-long precedent. The disclosure accelerated plans already in the works for the upcoming midterm elections, especially in states holding marquee gubernatorial and Senate races, such as Georgia and Arizona. While Republicans have been more effective in rallying supporters around abortion in the past, Democrats believe the reality of Roe’s seemingly imminent reversal may galvanize their voters to avoid steep losses in November. Still, supporters and opponents of abortion access took care to hedge their messaging on Tuesday, mindful that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.‘s proposed revocation of nationwide abortion protections telegraphed where the conservative court was leaning but was not its final say. “This is a draft opinion. It is not yet a done deal, and we want to continue to raise our voices and fight like hell to make sure that everyone, including the court ... understands how horribly unpopular this is going to be,” said Kristin Ford, vice president of communications and research at NARAL Pro-Choice America. But she added: “This is coming. This is barreling at us.” Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, sounded a similar note of caution but said her group was proceeding with its long-standing strategy in preparation for the end of Roe: working to outlaw abortion in every state. Without the national protections articulated by the Supreme Court, abortion would likely become illegal in roughly half of the states — either through bans on the books before Roe was decided in 1973, trigger laws that go into effect if the landmark decision is overturned, or state constitutional amendments explicitly rejecting protections for the procedure. Conservative states have passed a slew of antiabortion laws in recent years in anticipation of the matter being left to individual states. Heading into the midterms, Concerned Women for America will, at a minimum run voter registration and poll worker drives in Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, Nance said. But she said antiabortion activists plan to raise the issue in every state. “Seven men chose for every state in 1973,” Nance said, referring to the justices who backed the ruling in a 7-2 vote. “That’s why we have had this ongoing unrest and divisiveness, our Marches for Life — because we haven’t been able to advocate for our positions on a state-by-state level.” The possibility of a ruling ending abortion rights has loomed over the political landscape for nearly a year, after the Supreme Court agreed to consider a Mississippi law banning the procedure after 15 weeks, which would go against the precedent set by Roe. A sweeping decision seemed even more likely in December, when the conservative majority declined to block a six-week ban in Texas. But after Politico reported on the leaked opinion and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. confirmed its authenticity, the most ardent opponents stopped well short of a jubilant celebration. Initially, some had little to say at all. Susan B. Anthony List, an influential antiabortion group, tweeted Monday evening that it would “not be commenting until an official decision is announced by the Court.” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, followed up an hour later with a longer statement “wholeheartedly applaud[ing] the decision” — if, she noted repeatedly, it holds. Abortion rights backers say conservatives’ circumspection hints at the political danger that would come with a sweeping decision that would open the door for expansive state bans even in cases of rape or incest...
J.D. Vance, 'Hillbilly Elegy' Author, Wins Ohio GOP Primary, Demonstrating Donald Trump's Continuing Hold on the Party (VIDEO)
I see so much criticism of Vance on Twitter. It's probably mostly the Lincoln Project perverts. I mean, MAGA-loving Ohioans came out for the Trump-endorsed candidate after all.
Who knows? I don't know Vance beyond the book and the movie, but if he helps Republicans take back the majority in the Senate, he's okay by me.
At the New York Times, "A Trump Win in Ohio":
Most one-term presidents recede from the political scene, with their party’s voters happy to see them go. But Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican Party a year and a half after he lost re-election. Yesterday’s Republican Senate primary in Ohio confirmed Trump’s influence. J.D. Vance — the author of the 2016 book “Hillbilly Elegy” — won the nomination, with 32 percent of the vote in a primary that included four other major candidates. Vance trailed in the polls only a few weeks ago, running an uneven campaign that suffered from his past negative comments about Trump. But after apologizing for them, Vance received Trump’s endorsement two and a half weeks ago. Vance quickly surged in the polls and will now face Representative Tim Ryan, a moderate Democrat, in the general election this fall... Finishing second, with 24 percent of the vote, was Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer who has drifted toward the far right since Trump’s election. Matt Dolan, a member of a wealthy Ohio family and the least pro-Trump candidate in the race, finished third with 23 percent. Vance’s victory continues his own shift toward a Trumpian far-right nationalism. After Vance’s book came out six years ago, detailing his family’s struggles in rural southern Ohio, he became a conservative intellectual whom liberals liked to cite. More recently, he has turned into a hard-edged conspiracist who claimed President Biden was flooding Ohio with illegal drugs — a blatantly false claim. (This Times essay by Christopher Caldwell explains Vance’s rise in an evenhanded way.) The winner of the Vance-Ryan contest will replace Rob Portman, a fairly traditional Republican, who served in both the George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush administrations. In the coming campaign, Ryan will likely emphasize Vance’s time as a Silicon Valley investor and celebrity author. (My colleague Jazmine Ulloa recently wrote about Ryan.) Ohio is obviously only one state, and other primaries over the next few months will offer a fuller picture of Trump’s sway. More than two-thirds of Republican voters in Ohio yesterday did not back Vance, which suggests — as Blake Hounshell notes — an appetite among many Republicans to make their own decisions. Still, Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, argues that endorsements understate his influence. “He has remade the Republican Party in his image, and many Republican voters now crave his particular brand of combative politics,” Longwell writes in The Times. Even Republican candidates whom Trump has not endorsed mention him frequently...
Inside the New Right, Where Peter Thiel Is Placing His Biggest Bets
Well, considering how J.D. Vance won the Ohio GOP Senate primary last night, perhaps folks might be interesting in this.
At Vanity Fair, "They’re not MAGA. They’re not QAnon. Curtis Yarvin and the rising right are crafting a different strain of conservative politics."
Tuesday, May 3, 2022
Addison Rae at the Met Gala (VIDEO)
I'm enamored of this woman, as you can tell.
She spread her wings at the big event.
Rae of light: @whoisaddison wears custom #MichaelKorsCollection at the #MetGala. pic.twitter.com/X6B9Nr2gZ3
— Michael Kors (@MichaelKors) May 3, 2022
Addison Rae is a glittering goddess at the #MetGala. https://t.co/7pfrLBlt8g pic.twitter.com/36l6v1OilN
— Variety (@Variety) May 3, 2022
Dreams do come true. pic.twitter.com/PAjpQYldL8
— Addison Rae (@whoisaddison) May 3, 2022
How Politico Pulled Off the Scoop
Well, if this wasn't an extraordinary scoop, there's no such thing then.
Previously, "Majority Says Supreme Court Should Uphold Roe v. Wade ABC News Poll Finds."
At the New York Times, "Inside Politico’s Historic Scoop":
Politico’s top editors and executives spent Sunday morning sipping Bloody Marys and nibbling bite-size waffles and wienerschnitzel as they chatted with top Washington officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, at an annual brunch hosted at the opulent Georgetown home of Robert Allbritton, a Politico founder. What wasn’t discussed: Politico was onto a giant scoop, one that would rattle the country fewer than 36 hours later. By the time of the brunch, Politico was working on a story about a leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would strike down Roe v. Wade, according to two people with knowledge of the process inside the newsroom. Awareness of the document and the article about it was contained to a very small group. The article, published Monday night, immediately put Roe v. Wade and the direction of the court front and center in the nation’s political debate. But it also put a spotlight on Politico, an organization that has reshaped coverage of Washington with its blanket reporting on all things politics since it was founded 15 years ago. Politico’s top editors and executives spent Sunday morning sipping Bloody Marys and nibbling bite-size waffles and wienerschnitzel as they chatted with top Washington officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, at an annual brunch hosted at the opulent Georgetown home of Robert Allbritton, a Politico founder. What wasn’t discussed: Politico was onto a giant scoop, one that would rattle the country fewer than 36 hours later. By the time of the brunch, Politico was working on a story about a leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would strike down Roe v. Wade, according to two people with knowledge of the process inside the newsroom. Awareness of the document and the article about it was contained to a very small group. The article, published Monday night, immediately put Roe v. Wade and the direction of the court front and center in the nation’s political debate. But it also put a spotlight on Politico, an organization that has reshaped coverage of Washington with its blanket reporting on all things politics since it was founded 15 years ago. The news organization is now at the center of a debate about who leaked the document and why, including rampant speculation about the motives of Politico’s sources. It is extremely rare for an important draft opinion inside the Supreme Court to leak to the press. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed that the draft opinion was authentic. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said in a statement that he had directed the marshal of the court to investigate the leak, which he described as “a singular and egregious breach” of trust. Politico has said little about the reporting behind the article, written by the reporters Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward, or deliberations before publication. Its spokesman declined to comment for this article. Politico’s editor in chief, Matthew Kaminski, has said that he would let the article speak for itself. The article said that the document was provided by “a person familiar with the court’s proceedings,” and that the person had provided additional details that helped authenticate the document, but it didn’t say what those details were. In the hours before publishing the article, Mr. Kaminski and Politico’s executive editor, Dafna Linzer, called senior editors to let them know the article was coming and that a memo about it would go out to the newsroom, according to one of the people with knowledge of the process. Moments after publishing the article, Mr. Kaminski and Ms. Linzer alerted the newsroom in an email, defending their decisions. “After an extensive review process, we are confident of the authenticity of the draft,” they wrote. “This unprecedented view into the justices’ deliberations is plainly news of great public interest.” News organizations around the world, including The New York Times and The Associated Press, quickly followed Politico’s reporting. In an interview with Mr. Gerstein on “The Rachel Maddow Show” Monday evening, Ms. Maddow told Mr. Gerstein that he would “always in your entire life be the reporter that broke this story.” Although the views of individual justices have occasionally been disclosed publicly before the Supreme Court has announced a decision, the leak of an important draft opinion is unusual, said Lucas A. Powe Jr., a professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin, and a former Supreme Court law clerk who has been studying the high court for more than 50 years. “Your loyalty is to your justice and to the court, and you just don’t leak things,” Mr. Powe said of the standard practice among employees of the Supreme Court. Politico was justified in writing about the draft opinion, which is newsworthy and relates to a matter of national public concern, said Marty Baron, the former executive editor of The Washington Post who oversaw the publication of several high-profile stories, including the documents leaked in 2013 by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor. “This seems pretty simple,” Mr. Baron said. “They were provided a document. The document was authenticated to their satisfaction, and they published.” The publication provoked swift reaction from supporters and opponents of abortion rights, who demonstrated at the Supreme Court in Washington. On Tuesday, Traci Schweikert, Politico’s chief talent officer, sent an email to workers detailing safety measures the company “proactively” put in place for its offices, such as restricting access to certain floors, “given the heightened visibility to Politico following our reporting on the Supreme Court last night.” “Be aware of anyone accessing our elevators with you and the possibility of ‘tailgating’ to our floor,” the email said. Employees were also advised to consider the privacy settings on their social media accounts to avoid potential online harassment. “If you choose public settings, we strongly encourage you to consider removing any personal information if your social media accounts identify you as a Politico employee,” the email added...
Majority Says Supreme Court Should Uphold Roe v. Wade ABC News Poll Finds
At ABC News, "With Supreme Court poised to reverse Roe, most Americans support abortion rights: POLL":
Majorities also reject six- and 15- week abortion bans.
Amid reports of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that majorities of Americans support upholding Roe, say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and -- by a wide margin -- see abortion as a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor, not by lawmakers. The national survey was completed last week, in advance of a report by Politico Monday night that a proposed first draft of an opinion, apparently by Justice Samuel Alito, called for reversing Roe in a case challenging Mississippi's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In this poll, by contrast, 57% of Americans oppose a ban after 15 weeks; 58% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases; and 54% say the court should uphold Roe, compared with 28% who say the ruling should be overturned. Support for upholding Roe is 6 percentage points lower than it was in an ABC/Post poll last November. Preference for reversing it is essentially unchanged; instead, more in this survey express no opinion, 18%. Moving the question outside a legal framework, 7 in 10 say the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to the woman and her doctor; this also is down from November, by 5 points. Twenty-four percent instead say abortion should be regulated by law. Even among those who say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, a substantial share, 41%, also say it should be left to the woman and her doctor. Trends are not consistent.
While support for abortion rights is down slightly in the two items noted above, it's higher than previously (up 12 points from 2011) "when the woman cannot afford to have a child," and unchanged in other measures.
Legal or illegal? Basic views on whether or not abortion should be legal have been more or less stable in polling going back 27 years. The 58% who say it should be legal in all or most cases is very near the average, 56%, in nearly three dozen ABC/Post polls since mid-1995, ranging from 49% to 60%. This includes 26% who now say it should be legal in all cases, exceeding the average, 21%; and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases. Thirty-seven percent in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, instead say abortion should be illegal in most cases (21%) or all cases (16%). That's less than the long-term average, 42%, with a range from 36% to 48%. (Five percent have no opinion on this question.) Circumstances Considering specific circumstances, substantial majorities say abortion should be legal when the woman's physical health is endangered (82%), when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest (79%) and when there's evidence of serious birth defects (67%). The public divides on another circumstance: When the woman cannot afford to have a child, 48% say abortion should be legal, 45% illegal. Support for legal abortion in this case is its highest in six polls dating back to 1996. On another front, the poll finds most Americans are unaware of new abortion restrictions in their states. In the 22 states that have passed abortion restrictions since 2020, just 30% of residents are aware that this has occurred; more, 44%, think not, with 26% unsure. An open question is how people who favor legal abortion may react if and when they learn their state has taken a different tack...
Still more.
Leaked Draft Overturning Roe v. Wade Plunges Supreme Court Into Disarray
Well, that was the plan along, right?
Previously, "Abortion Fight Takes Center Stage on Capitol Hill, Campaign Trail."
And at the New York Times, "A Supreme Court in Disarray After an Extraordinary Breach":
The leak of a draft majority opinion overruling Roe v. Wade raises questions about motives, methods and whether defections are still possible. WASHINGTON — Sources have motives, and the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade raises a question as old as the Roman Empire. Cui bono? Who benefits? Not the Supreme Court as an institution. Its reputation was in decline even before the extraordinary breach of its norms of confidentiality, with much of the nation persuaded that it is little different from the political branches of the government. The internal disarray the leak suggests, wholly at odds with the decorum prized by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was a blow to the legitimacy of the court. Relations among the justices, too, on the evidence of questioning at arguments and statements in opinions, have turned fraught and frosty. “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked when the challenge to Roe was argued in December, as it became clear that five justices were ready to overrule the decision. The fact of the leak cannot be separated from its substance. Only a move as extraordinary as eliminating a constitutional right in place for half a century could transform the court into an institution like any other in Washington, where rival factions disclose secrets in the hope of obtaining advantage. “Until now, a leak of this kind would have been unthinkable,” said Peter G. Verniero, a former justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. “The protocol of our highest court has been seriously ruptured. The leaking itself reflects another sad step toward casting the court as a political body, which, whatever your preferred jurisprudence, is most unhealthy for the rule of law.” The court sustained collateral damage in March, when it emerged that Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had sent incendiary text messages to the Trump White House in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack and that Justice Thomas not only had failed to disqualify himself from a related case but also had cast the sole noted dissent. The harm from the leak was more direct, raising questions about whether the court is capable of functioning in an orderly way. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion is dated Feb. 10, or almost three months ago. Under the court’s ordinary practices, additional drafts have circulated since then, as Justice Alito refined his arguments, made changes to accommodate his allies, responded to criticisms in one or more draft concurrences or dissents — and, crucially, worked to make sure he did not lose his majority. The draft was marked “opinion of the court,” meaning it was intended to reflect the views of at least five justices. Politico, which obtained the document, reported that five members of the court had voted to overrule Roe soon after the argument in December: Justices Alito and Thomas and the three members of the court appointed by President Donald J. Trump — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Those five votes were in keeping with the questions those justices asked at the argument. They were also consistent with Mr. Trump’s vow to appoint justices who would overrule Roe, which established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973. That lineup remains unchanged as of this week,” Politico reported. Still, Justice Alito was no doubt worried that Chief Justice Roberts, who sketched out a middle-ground position at the argument, might threaten his majority. The chief justice suggested that the court could uphold the Mississippi law at issue in the case, which bans abortions after 15 weeks, but stop short of overruling Roe outright...
Abortion Fight Takes Center Stage on Capitol Hill, Campaign Trail
Following-up, "BREAKING! Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey."
It's going to be an intense day, a busy and intense day.
Reap the whirlwind, people.
At the Wall Street Journal, "Roe v. Wade Abortion Case Takes Center Stage on Capitol Hill, Campaign Trail":
After Supreme Court draft opinion leaks, Democrats see ‘five-alarm fire,’ seek federal legislation, while Republicans embrace news. WASHINGTON—The publication of a draft opinion that suggested the Supreme Court may be preparing to throw out Roe v. Wade put the question of abortion rights at the center of the nation’s political debate, with Democrats calling for new legislation to enshrine existing protections and Republicans welcoming the news while criticizing the leak. The draft opinion was published Monday evening by Politico, which said it was written by Justice Samuel Alito and was the opinion of the court, implying a majority supported it. The draft, dated from February, couldn’t be independently confirmed, but legal observers said it appeared authentic. The Supreme Court’s spokeswoman declined to comment. The court is expected to issue its opinion by the end of June or early July, and if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned it would leave the question of access to abortions to individual states. Democratic senators as well as Democratic candidates in closely watched races this year called for Congress to try again to pass a federal law codifying Roe v. Wade, after a previous effort failed and drew no Republican support. Democrats are aiming to use federal legislation to try to override GOP-backed laws in states, including Texas, that place limits on women’s ability to terminate their pregnancies. “If this is true, this kind of outcome is exactly what I’ve been ringing alarm bells about—and this is a five-alarm fire,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.). “We cannot sit back and allow the Supreme Court to gut Ohioans’ most fundamental rights,” said Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who is running for Senate in the Buckeye State. In a statement, President Biden said that “basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that [Roe] not be overturned.” He said that the leaked draft underscored the need to elect more pro-abortion-rights senators and keep the House majority in order to pass legislation codifying Roe, which he said he would sign into law. The Supreme Court is considering whether to allow a 15-week ban passed in Mississippi. The court has previously established the right to an abortion until a fetus is able to sustain meaningful life outside of the womb, which generally occurs at weeks 22 to 24 of pregnancy. Many Republicans said they welcomed the prospect of Roe being overturned, as the draft opinion suggested, while also decrying the leak, which they blamed on liberals trying to pressure the court. Politico said it received a copy of the draft from a person familiar with the proceedings in the Mississippi case. “If this report is true, this is nothing short of a massive victory for life and will save the lives of millions of innocent babies,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), while adding he was “appalled by the shocking breach of trust posed by this leak,” characterizing it as a “blatant attempt to intimidate the Court.” “The next time you hear the far left preaching about how they are fighting to preserve our Republic’s institutions & norms remember how they leaked a Supreme Court opinion in an attempt to intimidate the justices on abortion,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.). Access to abortion has been a central concern of both the political right and left for decades and has been the subject of partisan battles over high-court nominees. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in late 2020 allowed then-President Donald Trump to nominate a sixth conservative to the bench, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and prompted states to pass laws challenging the Roe precedent. Now, abortion access is likely to figure prominently in November’s midterm elections, where Democrats are defending slender control of the Senate and House and face weak poll numbers both for President Biden and the party. Some political analysts have said a ruling striking down or restricting abortion rights could motivate Democratic turnout. On Monday morning, ahead of the Politico report, abortion-rights backers Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Emily’s List said they planned to spend $150 million on the midterms. After the Politico article published, some Democrats again called for ending the filibuster—the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance most legislation—to enable them to pass a federal abortion bill with just a simple majority. But even obtaining a majority may be difficult, as Senate Democrats failed to garner 50 votes for an abortion bill earlier this year and failed to get a majority to back ending the filibuster after their agenda of voting reforms stalled. “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. If there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), who caucuses with Democrats. Among the Democratic Senate candidates who called for ending the filibuster Monday night were Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is running to be the Democratic nominee for Senate and challenge GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, and Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat. In a joint statement Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said any ruling overturning Roe “defiled both precedent and the Supreme Court’s reputation.” But they didn’t immediately suggest a legislative plan...
Monday, May 2, 2022
BREAKING! Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey
As President Barack Obama once said, "elections have consequences," and boy was he right. Democrats and leftists everywhere are ruing the day Hillary Clinton was nominated as the party's 2016 standard bearer --- or at least they should be.
This is seriously explosive news, and if folks think the culture wars have been bad so far this year, well, buckle your seat belts. Elon Musk might as well have blasted the entire hardcore Democrat extremist-left abortion rights ayatollahs into upper orbit.
Needless to say, the forthcoming ruling will make President Trump one of the most consequential presidents in the last half-century, if he wasn't already, damn!
Leftist heads will be exploding for weeks and months, frankly right into the November midterm elections. Just wow.
*****
Even the New York Times has the story now. This is happening. See, "Leaked Supreme Court Draft Would Overturn Roe v. Wade."
Kathy Boudin, Weather Underground Terrorist of 1960s and 1970s, Dead at 78 (VIDEO)
She was the mother of Chesa Boudin, the radical San Francisco District Attorney who's up for recall on June 7. She pleaded guilty in 1984 to first-degree robbery and second-degree murder in the shooting death of Brink's security guard Peter Paige in the Weather Underground's 1981 armored truck robbery, in Rockland County, New York.
Chesa was raised by the notorious, violent Weather Underground militants Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Kathy Boudin, a "model prisoner," served 22 years behind bars at New York's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. She was paroled in 2003.
As the New York Times reports, "Kathy Boudin, Radical Imprisoned in a Fatal Robbery, Dies at 78":
She had a role in the Brink’s heist by the Weather Underground that left two police officers dead. But she became a model prisoner and, after being freed, helped former inmates. Kathy Boudin, who as a member of the radical Weather Underground of the 1960s and ’70s took part in the murderous 1981 holdup of a Brink’s armored truck and then, in prison and after being freed two decades later, helped inmates struggling to get their lives on track, died on Sunday in New York. She was 78. The cause was cancer, said Zayd Dohrn, whose family adopted Ms. Boudin’s son, Chesa Boudin. On a March day in 1970, Ms. Boudin was showering at a townhouse on West 11th Street in Greenwich Village when an explosion collapsed the walls around her. She and fellow extremists had been making bombs there, the intended target believed to have been the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. Three of them were killed on the spot. A naked Ms. Boudin managed to scramble away with a colleague and found clothes and brief refuge at the home of a woman living down the block. She then disappeared. Within a few years, so did the Weather Underground. A breakaway faction of the leftist Students for a Democratic Society, it called itself Weatherman, borrowing from “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” a 1965 Bob Dylan song with the lyric “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” The name evolved into Weather Underground. In that era of turbulence over civil rights and the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War, the group set off bombs at the United States Capitol, New York City Police Headquarters and other buildings. If anything, it was more adept at issuing long manifestoes, laden and leaden with references to Karl Marx, Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh, and asserting the world’s “main struggle” as being that “between U.S. imperialism and the national liberation struggles against it.” With the Weather Underground fading by the mid-1970s as the war ended, its leaders, one by one, emerged from hiding to face the legal consequences of having been on the F.B.I.’s most-wanted list. Not Ms. Boudin (pronounced boo-DEEN). “The very status of being underground was an identity for me,” she recalled years later in interviews with The New Yorker at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, N.Y., where she came to be imprisoned. She continued: “I was making a difference in no way, so then I elevated to great importance the fact that I was underground.” That ended in October 1981, when she teamed up with armed men from another radical group, the Black Liberation Army, to hold up a Brink’s truck in Rockland County, N.Y., making off with $1.6 million. During the stickup, the gunmen killed a security guard, Peter Paige. They transferred the cash to a U-Haul truck that was waiting roughly a mile away. Ms. Boudin was in the cab of the truck, a 38-year-old white woman serving as a decoy to confound police officers searching for Black men. The U-Haul was stopped by the police at a roadblock. Ms. Boudin, who carried no weapon, immediately surrendered, hands in the air. But gunmen jumped from the back of the truck and opened fire, killing Sgt. Edward J. O’Grady and Officer Waverly L. Brown. Though some accused her of surrendering as a tactic to get the police to lower their weapons before being attacked, Ms. Boudin insisted that that was not the case. Not Ms. Boudin (pronounced boo-DEEN). “The very status of being underground was an identity for me,” she recalled years later in interviews with The New Yorker at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, N.Y., where she came to be imprisoned. She continued: “I was making a difference in no way, so then I elevated to great importance the fact that I was underground.” That ended in October 1981, when she teamed up with armed men from another radical group, the Black Liberation Army, to hold up a Brink’s truck in Rockland County, N.Y., making off with $1.6 million. During the stickup, the gunmen killed a security guard, Peter Paige. They transferred the cash to a U-Haul truck that was waiting roughly a mile away. Ms. Boudin was in the cab of the truck, a 38-year-old white woman serving as a decoy to confound police officers searching for Black men. The U-Haul was stopped by the police at a roadblock. Ms. Boudin, who carried no weapon, immediately surrendered, hands in the air. But gunmen jumped from the back of the truck and opened fire, killing Sgt. Edward J. O’Grady and Officer Waverly L. Brown. Though some accused her of surrendering as a tactic to get the police to lower their weapons before being attacked, Ms. Boudin insisted that that was not the case. At her sentencing, she turned to the victims’ relatives. “I know that anything I say now will sound hollow, but I extend to you my deepest sympathy,” she said. “I feel real pain.” As for her motives, “I was there out of my commitment to the Black liberation struggle and its underground movement. I am a white person who does not want the crimes committed against Black people to be carried in my name.” She proved to be a model prisoner at Bedford Hills, mentoring other inmates, attending to those with AIDS, writing poetry and expressing remorse for her role in the Brink’s robbery deaths...
Shoot, she was *such* a model prisoner that even William F. Buckley, the august founder of National Review, wrote a letter to the parole board supporting her release.
The video at top is a "Brave New Films" hagiography. Searching in vain, I found not a single television news report on her death by any of the so-called mainstream broadcast, cable, or streaming outlets. I did find, miraculously, an old "CBS Sunday Morning" segment (here) on the 1970 townhouse explosion in Greenwich Village, which killed three Weather Underground bomb-makers, Diana Oughton, Ted Gold, and Terry Robbin. As reported at the Times' story here, Kathy Boudin was on scene, escaped, and went to ground after her three comrades blew themselves up. This television news blackout is no surprise: President Barack Obama was a known associate of Bill Ayers during the latter's post-Weathermen university professor's life; and indeed, Obama launched his 1995 Illinois state senate campaign at a meet-and-greet at Ayers' house in Chicago.Not a word of this will be brought up by our irretrievably corrupted legacy news outlets, lest the Democrats' chances in 2022 and 2024 be further deep-sixed by the "resurfacing" of "old news" reports on the party's most esteemed Democrat Party president in modern history, who was"palling around with terrorists."Shoot, the current Democrat-Media-Disinformation-Complex beats Winston Smith's "memory hole" operations seen in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four --- and that's no joke.
ADDED: From Gail Heriot, at Instapundit, "THE BRINK’S ROBBERY/TRIPLE MURDER WAS ON THIS DAY IN [OCTOBER 20] 1981":
Please keep in your thoughts Brink’s guard Peter Paige and Nyack police officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown (who was Nyack’s first African-American officer). All three were murdered in the course of the 1981 Brink’s heist. Also remember Brink’s guard Joseph Trombino, who was seriously wounded, but survived, only to be killed twenty years later on 9/11. The perpetrators were six members of the Black Liberation Army and four former members of Weather Underground who had since formed the May 19th Communist Organization. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the trial of the first three defendants (one from the BLA and two from the M19CO)...
Still more at Instapundit.
International Workers' Day
Yesterday, actually, May 1st.
According to Wikipedia,"the date was chosen in 1889 for political reasons by the Marxist International Socialist Congress, which met in Paris and established the Second International as a successor to the earlier International Workingmen's Association."
Here's more, "Workers of the World Unite! May Day Celebrates Working-Class Solidarity":
The origins of a holiday celebrating workers can be traced back to labor and trade union movements in the late 19th century. As dreadful working conditions in factories became highly publicized during this period, particularly in meat packing plants, through works such as Upton Sinclar’s The Jungle, movements to improve working conditions (both for workers and for public health and safety) grew in size and intensity. On May 3, 1886, as workers rallied to demand an eight-hour workday in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, mass confusion erupted when a bomb exploded in the crowd and the police opened fire on the crowd. The Haymarket Affair, as this event is remembered, was used as pretext for widespread repression of workers and for the arrests of labor organizers, radicals and immigrants. Not coincidentally, as progressive organizations and labor parties around the world began to celebrate International Workers Day on May 1 in commemoration of the Haymarket Affair, Labor Day was established in 1894 in the U.S. on the first Monday of September with the support of the American Federation of Labor, in part to distance the labor movement from its more radical elements. May Day continues to be celebrated around the world; and in the US, it has taken on special significance for immigrants’ rights activists. The convergence of the demands of workers for better wages and working conditions, and the demands of immigrants for dignity and freedom from the violence imposed by the immigration enforcement regime, is a fitting tribute to the role that immigrants have played in the labor movement in the United States. The history of the labor movement is largely the history of human beings, living at the margins of mainstream society, uniting in solidarity, asserting their rights and fighting for a better, more fair world. It unfortunately remains true that racism, xenophobia and white supremacy redound to the benefit of those with economic and political power. From racist appeals to white supremacy that destroyed radical efforts during Reconstruction towards true multiracial democracy, to the xenophobic red scare that followed Haymarket and the repression of the Black Panther Party, racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric represent not only an existential threat of violence for marginalized people, but also a powerful weapon used by the ruling class to undermine solidarity among working people. Immigrants and marginalized people continue to be used as scapegoats for crime, poverty and other societal problems which can rightly be attributed to systems of exploitation that entrench privilege and power, and not those oppressed by these same systems. It is, in many ways, the time of monsters. The Trump presidency ushered in a new era of domestic repression of Black and brown people and brought violent white supremacist rhetoric back into American mainstream political discourse. President Biden was elected with broad progressive support but has largely failed to roll back the worst Trump-era immigration policies. The COVID pandemic laid bare the harsh reality facing American workers, forced to risk their health and livelihood, often without adequate workplace protections, while America’s billionaires added nearly $2 trillion to their net worth. The United States continues to spend more on its military than the next nine countries combined while millions of its people are unhoused. And yet, a new generation of the working class—union members and unorganized workers alike, students, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, Black, brown, and Indigenous people—stands ready to meet this political moment and organize to demand a better future. Workers at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island recently won the first union victory at any Amazon facility, led by a Black supervisor who was fired after organizing a walkout to protest unsafe working conditions at the start of the pandemic. Activists throughout the state are mobilizing to shut down the ICE Processing Center in Folkston in solidarity with detainees on hunger strike in the facility. And here in Athens, a coalition of organizations are demanding Community Benefits Agreements for large public projects, and United Campus Workers of Georgia are campaigning for a living wage for UGA workers. This May Day, let their struggles be our struggles. The only way forward is with solidarity among the multiracial working class of the United States and workers of the world.
Yes, because our pampered and privileged "students" and LGBTQIQ+ plus activists are taking all the assembly line-workers' jobs, low-skill manual laborers' jobs, fast-food and retail workers' jobs, and those in cleaning and janitorial services, the food industry, construction labor, longshoreman, parking lot attendants and car washers, truck drivers, and low-level white-collar worker positions, and more!
Down with the colonialist, racist, multi-phobic finance capitalists of the world!
Hey, hey! Ho ho! Late-stage capitalism's got to go!
Yes, these "industrious" purple-haired campus proletarians have joined in working class solidarity with all the world's expropriated and oppressed! *Yawn.*
More here, "Workers around the world mark May Day with rallies for better working conditions."
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