We're All Handmaidens Now 🌻🌻🌻

The DSA: Welcome to the Divided States of America, or Gilead, pick your poison.  Unless you spent the weekend hiding under a rock, you know that by a 6 to 3 vote in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, plunging the country back into that swell and nifty time fifty years ago when women, regardless of their age or the circumstances of their pregnancy, who weren’t lucky enough to be living in or have the means to travel to certain states or out of the country were forced to go to term with unwanted and/or unsafe pregnancies.  Bottom line: hangers are back in vogue and in far too many places women’s lives and futures are now jeopardy.  The Court’s decision, written by Justice Alito contained just about all of the horrible text previewed in the leaked draft released a few weeks ago. His science was outdated and wrong, his citations reached back to the days when witches were publicly burned and, significantly, he rejected that idea that the writers of the US Constitution, those white male slave owners, ever intended to grant us a right to privacy.  As to privacy, while Alito wants us to believe that the majority opinion only eliminates abortion rights, in a concurring opinion Justice Clarence/Ginni Thomas wrote that in “future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” and by that he means contraception, same sex sexual activity and marriage. Notably the Thomas duo have no interest in applying their reactionary views to Loving v Virginia, the case that legalized interracial marriage because that would infringe upon them and they wouldn’t want that.  That said they don’t seem to care that Dobbs will likely impact the poor and disenfranchised, many of them women of color who lack the funds to travel to the welcoming arms of Canada, France or even Mexico, the most. Chief Justice Roberts who voted with the majority would have preferred to thread the needle, upholding Mississippi’s 15 week abortion ban while leaving the rest of Roe v Wade, and the somewhat more restrictive Casey v Planned Parenthood in place but he no longer controls the court so his views are no longer worth much, except of course that it’s his opinion in Shelby v Holder, the ruling that dismantled voting rights that helped turn the country into a hellscape governed by a minority’s fundamentalists views.  Not that he is solely responsible, every single person who couldn’t find it within themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 or who went for Ralph Nader over Al Gore in 2000 shares some responsibility too because votes matter and staying home or voting for a third party presidential candidate in a fit of pique has consequences.

The State of Play: As to those consequences, abortion is now illegal or heavily restricted in at least 11 states and likely to be so in at least 11 more with restrictive laws that though not yet in effect probably will be shortly.  Also worth noting that in a few more states abortion rights dangle by a thread, held in place only through the efforts of Democratic governors fending off Republican legislatures. A few incongruities worth noting, though very red, for now, abortion remains legal in Montana because the state’s constitution guarantees a right to privacy, and a few Republican Governors including Massachusetts’s Charlie Baker, New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu, Maryland’s Larry Hogan and Vermont’s Phil Scott regardless of their personal views have stated that they have no plans to seek to outlaw abortion.  Then again there’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the mendacious former FG Press Secretary, who is expected to become the next Governor of Arkansas, she actually said that due to the marvelous Dobbs decision kids in the womb will be as safe as they are in schools and of course she didn’t get the irony.  And don’t get me started on Senator Susan Collins, who insists that she’s very distressed because she only voted for Justice “I Love Beer” Kavanaugh because he assured her that he would never override precedent.  Who is she kidding, she voted for him because Mitch McConnell sent boatloads of campaign funding and lord knows what else her way. As to Mitch, he stated what we all fear, that next on his agenda is a national ban on abortion, a view shared by former VP Pence, of course.

Vote, Vote, Vote: There may be a few things that President Biden can do on the fringes, like ensure that women in the military retain their reproductive rights, keep abortifacient drugs available, and maybe even support Native American’s interested in opening their lands to abortion providers but despite all those calls out there for enlarging the court, eliminating the filibuster to pass reproductive rights legislation, or even impeaching one or more of the newbie Justices who lied during their confirmation hearings, the most enduring and realistic solution to this current quagmire is to vote, vote and vote.  Tomorrow primaries will be held in New York, Oklahoma, Colorado and Illinois.  In New York most of the attention will be on the gubernatorial race.  Given the state’s screwed up redistricting process, House primaries won’t take place until late August.  On the Democratic side pro-choice Governor Hochuli, who stepped up to the plate after Andrew Cuomo was forced out, is expected to win her primary.  On the Republican side, the FG supporting Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin, who is the state party’s preferred candidate, is likely to win though as odd as it sounds Andrew Giuliani, Rudy’s son, whose most notable experience is that he was the FG’s paid golfing buddy, is actually in second place. With the exception of one outlier, investor Harry Wilson, all of the Republicans running are anti-abortion and mostly if not totally believe that the FG won the last election.  The FG who spent his weekend bragging about how he engineered the overturning of Roe with his SCOTUS picks, while privately ruminating that the Dobbs decision could doom the Republican party’s chances to retake the White House, hasn’t endorsed anyone because though Zeldin is Team FG all the way, the FG probably needs to maintain Rudy’s loyalty.  As to the FG’s need to keep his people quiet, his plans don’t seem to be working, not that any of that seems to matter when it comes to him and his Teflon shield.  There will be more January 6^th Committee hearings in July, including some with information that is just now coming to light. 

And: With the help of 14 Republicans who bucked House party leadership, gun reform legislation passed through the House last week by a vote of 234 to 193 and was signed in to law by President Biden over the weekend.  The Republicans voting yes were a mix of those leaving office, voting their consciences or just fed up with the killing.  They included: Michigan’ s Fred Upton and Peter Meijer; Ohio’s Steve Chabot,  Anthony Gonzalez, Mike Turner and David Joyce; Wyoming’s Liz Cheney; New York’s Chris Jacobs and John Katko; Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick; Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger; Uvalde Texas’ Tony Gonzales; Florida’s Maria Elvira Salazar; and South Carolina’s Tom Rice.  By the way though it was nice to see Liz aboard this train she kind of ruined it by announcing how happy she was about the Dobbs decision.  As to SCOTUS, they’re not done, this week they are expected to send pollution control back to the dark ages.

Vote like your and your children’s lives depend on it because they do.