Just a quick round-up of stuff related to Sammy’s he-man, woman-hater club decision.
Tiger Beat on the Potomac (thanks Charlie!) email thingie looks into, you know, repercussions of the leak (rather than the actual ruling, because this is TBotP, after all and what is more important than the process/horse race!) –
MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE STREET — There’s a hunt underway. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into how Justice Samuel Alito’s draft initial opinion got out.
But, as Kyle reports this morning, there are plenty of reasons why Roberts and other justices may stifle a deep and thorough investigation. A comprehensive probe of the small staff of the Supreme Court would expose justices, clerks and their families to questions about phone and email records that they rarely face.
Crime? Or no crime? It is not yet clear if the disclosure of the draft document was criminal in any way, no matter how explosive the response has been. Roberts tasked the investigation to the marshal of the Supreme Court, who is primarily in charge of operational security at the courthouse. An investigation would likely require seeking outside assistance from the FBI or a former prosecutor.
“But any significant Justice Department involvement would involve problems with the constitutional separation of powers, raising the uncomfortable prospect of an executive branch agency rifling through the communications of Supreme Court justices and their closest aides,” writes Kyle. Read this smart look at what could be ahead for the investigation inside SCOTUS: Supreme Court investigation of opinion breach faces multiple legal obstacles
This is one to watch because of what TBotP notes, but also: if SCOTUS suddenly goes silent, it means they may have found the leak, but for POLITICAL reasons, they won’t reveal who it was. (Clarence Thomas/Ginni?) And Dawg only knows the stuff that the FBI might find (like who paid the debts of the Virgin Mayor of Keg City Brett Kavanaugh).
The MIT newsletter thingie however is looking at some shocking technology developments around the issue.
Full disclosure: I am running late and have not read all of these:
- Brokers are selling the location data of people who visit abortion clinics
This is an old problem, but it’s taking on a new urgency in the light of the potential repeal of Roe v Wade. (Motherboard)- Overturning Roe v Wade could force tech companies to help states punish people seeking abortions. (Protocol)
- It could also criminalize women making even cursory online searchers linked to abortion. (Gizmodo)
- Amazon’s $4,000 abortion travel benefit does not extend to many of its poorest workers. (Motherboard)
Mock Paper Scissors 
Were they expecting a different reaction if they only waited one more month, or what? None of this stupid ass kabuki theater makes any sense at all.
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I had a thought today, I know god help us, but really here. Just suppose that this abortion retraction activates those down-home women as well as the business class, that actually depends on it. I read that 60 something percent of our country is pro-abortion already. I was thinking, daydreaming, hoping, that this really gets the vote out. If this works right we could win big in 2022 and 2024, after this kind of bull.
Just trying to be hopeful for once, now back to Debbie Downer mode.
w3ski
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60-70% (depending on the survey) claim they do’t support ending Roe. But weirdly, a fuckton of them keep voting for the people who want to kill it.
Again, I’m reminded that the only poll that ever counts for more than some dogskit scraped off your shoe is the on that happens on Election Day.
And even that is plummeting in value. (AZ Lege is still working hard on beang able to just decide who we voted for, because clearly we the dirty fucking hippies keep voting for the wrong things!)
Again, absent truly gargantuan turnout by angry fucking people who don’t want this shit to be happening, the GQP is going to keep cementing their dictatorship into place.
Dictatorships are almost never peacefully deposed.
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I am too cynical, I guess. I just don’t believe that many people are this way on religious grounds.
I could believe that almost this many people are acting this way because they are afraid of the power structures they live in.
Enmeshed in the cultural structures, more likely.
I am too cynical, I guess, or not realistic enough about the levels of realistic assessment that people should be capable of. Maybe it’s the mobs. I remember running with a mob once. I couldn’t help laughing the entire time although I still haven’t worked out why I was laughing. I mean, I was in the fourth grade at recess, and there was an earthquake, and I was pretty sure that we would not be able to run away from it, but so many other kids were screaming that standing there and laughing out loud might have gotten me trampled. And with all the screaming I don’t know if anyone realized I was laughing.
Ah, memories.
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Other than the Catholics, abortion was not an issue for religious people. The reason the Religious Right came to focus on abortion was because they knew that in the 1970’s “Maintaining White Supremacy and Jim Crow” was unpalatable, even to their flocks.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/
Now they have their win on abortion and can continue on to their real goals: re-subjugating minorities and women by force of law.
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Chris Hayes reported this morning on the comments and theories of an ex-clerk for SCOTUS. Her initial thought was a liberal clerk put the leak out there to raise the alarm.
She now suggests a conservative clerk may have put it out there because negotiations and discussions within the court were trending toward softening the decision, perhaps even changing the 5/4 vote to a 4/5 vote. According to this theory, leaking the draft makes it harder to change the voting results in the couple of months left before the results final drafts are published. The implication is that the dissenting opinions were persuasive enough to give the conservatives second thoughts.
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I guess this also explains why the court is a secret society.
“We’re busy making sausage, just wait out front until we’re done!”
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This makes a lot of sense. Overturning Roe v Wade is a revolutionary break with precedent — exactly the kind of thing the Supreme Court is supposed to avoid — and completely shreds any remaining pretense that the SC of today is anything other than a purely political institution. It wouldn’t be surprising if one or more of the five were wavering about taking such a step. Publicizing the draft decision and the support of the five in advance would make it harder for any such backslider(s) to switch sides.
A liberal could have done it to “raise the alarm”, but it’s hard to see the logic in that. Letting the bombshell detonate later, with the normal announcement of the ruling, would increase its impact by making it closer to the election.
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Ooh, they are very upset! When were they going to tell us? At the time they chose? This Supreme Court is corrupt. Now they are exposed and they don’t like it.
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