Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It has become more clear that there is some sort of split within the conservative side of the Court about whether to overrule Roe dramatically or to eat away at it by pieces. Alito wants to do the former. Roberts wants to do the latter. Alito would not have been drafting a majority opinion if Roberts were in the majority, so it appears that in February, Alito had five votes, so presumably Roberts was trying to win at least one, maybe most likely Kavanagh, back. The best guess is that the draft was leaked by Alito or someone close to him to try to mobilize pressure on the five to stick with his approach.

Or maybe this.

So it's Barret who's the other possible swing vote with Kavanagh? I read the original story (TPM was subscription walled) and the author so stated as though it were an obvious fact, but he never explained why. I'd think she'd be one of the definite votes for Alito's opinion. I wonder why she's considered a swing and not Gorsuch.

If I had to bet, I'd lean toward a liberal employee of the Court having done this. If you're a conservative and you do a cost/benefit analysis, keeping it quiet seems the safer route. Why potentially imperil the win?

But then again... If you're a hyper-right-wing(nut) SCOTUS employee and you think Roberts is close to breaking the 5-4 majority for striking down Roe, maybe you're pretty sure Roberts will prevail and feel like you have to throw the Hail Mary. Seen from that angle, the leak could be a desperation move, and we're all worried about adoption of a crazy opinion that would otherwise never have seen the light of day. One can hope.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

My activist lawyer daughter is of the opinion we are entering a world where major cases will be reversed over and over the tides depending on the majority at any one time.

Great. That's a recipe for stability.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I saw a suggestion that Kavanagh and Gorsuch recuse themselves given their senate confirmation testimony. That would allow them to back the fuck out of this insanity without having to join a position they don't want to take.

I'd love that. It's one of many results that could gift us a reprieve from a total fucking nightmare. Can you imagine what legislatures will devolve into if abortion is given to state govts?

State govt has many smart capable people within it. But it's also equally filled with idiots and craven opportunists. Even dumber and more coarse than most of the idiots we have in Congress.

Every state bill will be held up by an opponent using an abortion rider of some sort. Nothing will get done. Lunatics will put out bills criminalizing morning after pills, we'll see endless pandering to the extremes on this issue, and all the necessary boring policies that keep govt running will grind to a halt. Shitshow doesn't do it justice. Think a demolition derby of clown cars, with all the jesters in them on meth and armed to the teeth.

BUT... I don't see how a huge fucking mess is avoided even if this shitrag opinion ultimately finds its appropriate home in the shredder. If Roberts succeeds and Roe is upheld, the right will cry that it was fixed. The Court will be delegitimized to them, and these people are suicide bombers. The divisions of the past decade or so will explode from fissures into a goddamn canyon. To these crazy fuckers, this won't be a culture war anymore. It'll be a fucking holy war, a crusade.

And if that sounds nuts, well, read what GGG wrote a few posts ago. I had never heard of Integralism before. Catholic Natural Law is bad enough, and it was shocking to hear Alito and Bill Barr, despite seemingly being educated, adhere to such depraved concepts. But Integralism... Fuck. That's the bleeding edge of batshit crazy. That summons visions of the hyper-papist albino assassin in The Da Vinci Code.

It's best for all, by miles numbered too high to count, that Roberts succeeds. But I shudder to imagine the five alarm dumpster fire that follows in the wake of such reversal.

"We live in insane times." One would previously say a thing like that as rhetorical hyperbole. It'd mean nothing. But whatever the outcome of this decision and what's coming this fall, and after, to say we live in insane times is no longer an ironic expression. It's a clinical, technical, and inescapable observation.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Can you imagine what legislatures will devolve into of abortion is given to state govts?

I’m trying to imagine …

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/u...-homicide.html

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I saw a suggestion that Kavanagh and Gorsuch recuse themselves given their senate confirmation testimony. That would allow them to back the fuck out of this insanity without having to join a position they don't want to take.

And what crazy church lady is chopped liver?

[Icky Thump]

but while I have always been for mitigation, this poor white boy living in Shanghai ain't exactly livin the dream.

I guess that's why if I want a new MacBook Pro, I have to wait until July.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

My activist lawyer daughter is of the opinion we are entering a world where major cases will be reversed over and over the tides depending on the majority at any one time.

That's an optimistic view, in that it assumes a world in which there could be a non-conservative majority on the Court.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'd love that. It's one of many results that could gift us a reprieve from a total fucking nightmare. Can you imagine what legislatures will devolve into if abortion is given to state govts?

This Court could use the Fourteenth Amendment to decide that fetuses are persons deserving of equal protection. Everyone is just going to forget about conceptions of judicial restraint. Conservatives didn't spend the last five decades organizing to control the Court to turn around and not use that power.

[LessinSF]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

but while I have always been for mitigation, this poor white boy living in Shanghai ain't exactly livin the dream.

I guess that's why if I want a new MacBook Pro, I have to wait until July.

Adder likey.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

but while I have always been for mitigation, this poor white boy living in Shanghai ain't exactly livin the dream.

I guess that's why if I want a new MacBook Pro, I have to wait until July.

I’m surprised the government hasn’t shut Twitter down.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

This Court could use the Fourteenth Amendment to decide that fetuses are persons deserving of equal protection. Everyone is just going to forget about conceptions of judicial restraint. Conservatives didn't spend the last five decades organizing to control the Court to turn around and not use that power.

That's civil war. Turn out the lights, folks. Republic's over.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

So it's Barret who's the other possible swing vote with Kavanagh? I read the original story (TPM was subscription walled) and the author so stated as though it were an obvious fact, but he never explained why. I'd think she'd be one of the definite votes for Alito's opinion. I wonder why she's considered a swing and not Gorsuch.

If I had to bet, I'd lean toward a liberal employee of the Court having done this. If you're a conservative and you do a cost/benefit analysis, keeping it quiet seems the safer route. Why potentially imperil the win?

But then again... If you're a hyper-right-wing(nut) SCOTUS employee and you think Roberts is close to breaking the 5-4 majority for striking down Roe, maybe you're pretty sure Roberts will prevail and feel like you have to throw the Hail Mary. Seen from that angle, the leak could be a desperation move, and we're all worried about adoption of a crazy opinion that would otherwise never have seen the light of day. One can hope.

We're all probably excessively discounting the possibility that someone left it on a train or something.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

That's civil war. Turn out the lights, folks. Republic's over.

The draft ... could open the door to claims of “fetal personhood,” a position that would not only permit states to prohibit abortion but would prevent states that choose to allow abortion from doing so. A footnote cites an amicus brief by legal scholars John Finnis and Robert George, who argue that “unborn children are persons within the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses” — a conclusion they say would make “prohibitions of elective abortions constitutionally obligatory.”

Two people I don't know in the WaPo

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Two people I don't know in the WaPo

True. You will see loads of states start challenging freedoms and rights by distinguishing between liberties and “ordered liberties.” And having read the difference between the two offered in the opinion, I think I can define them:

Ordered liberties are those Alito likes, while mere liberties are those he doesn’t.

His distinction between the two is so facile, so invented of whole cloth (and hidden between cherry picked out of context musings on the subject by Ginsburg, smugly offered) that definition is accurate. He took those categories, blurred the meaning, and simply lumped what he didn’t like into the mere liberties bucket.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Two people I don't know in the WaPo

Usually I feel something between mildly nauseated and slightly amused when someone mentions a "podcast", but Strict Scrutiny is one of the few I will occasionally listen to.