The January 6th Investigation

 

“…It’s hard to describe the Justice Department’s handling of the insurrection on January 6, 2021, as anything other than appalling. Nearly a year and a half later, despite more than 800 indictments of individuals involved in the assault on the Capitol, no charges have yet been filed against either former President Donald Trump or any of his close allies who helped plan, fund, and execute the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“Instead, Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to have thrown up his hands in defeat, as if to suggest that the controversy around holding Trump and his associates accountable has simply been more than he can handle.

“From law schools, lawyers, and legal theorists have called for the Justice Department to face that threat to democracy and act have only grown louder. In March, for instance, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe and former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut urged Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the former president based on evidence already presented in other lawsuits. No such appointment has yet been forthcoming.

“To underscore the mounting evidence in the public record against those former officials, Ryan Goodman, Mari Dugas, and Nicholas Tonckens at Just Security played prosecutor (as Garland hasn’t) and laid out their own timeline of dozens of incriminating acts, beginning a year before the riot, that could collectively justify charges against Trump and crew of incitement to violence.

“In April, according to New York Times reporters Michael Schmidt and Luke Broadwater, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol had ‘concluded that they have enough evidence’ to make a criminal referral about the former president to the Justice Department, though they have yet to vote to do so. Meanwhile, a federal judge in California ruled in a civil suit that Trump ‘likely attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress’ meant to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory, adding that ‘the illegality of the plan was obvious.’
 

“Sadly, the Teflon coating on Trump and his associates has been striking. After all, in January, the House Select Committee voted to back contempt charges against former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for refusing to comply with a subpoena for his testimony. To date, however, Attorney General Garland hasn’t followed up. More recently, the House Select Committee voted to hold in contempt former White House advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino for a similar refusal to comply with subpoenas. The results will likely be the same.

“Even where there has been some willingness to indict, the courts have been remarkably stymied when it comes to forward momentum on cases involving Trump’s crew. In November, for instance, Steve Bannon, one-time senior aide to the president, was indeed indicted on contempt of Congress charges for his refusal to respond to subpoenas from the House Select Committee. Bannon promptly pushed back, arguing that longstanding Justice Department memos held former presidential advisers immune from such congressional subpoenas. In March, a federal judge finally asked to see those memos. And so it goes — and goes and goes. And as time passes, so, too, does the likelihood that justice will ever be done.

“As for the former president’s business affairs involving the Trump Organization, the process has faltered in a remarkably similar fashion. Earlier this year, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped an investigation of the former president. He was reportedly convinced that, in the end, he wouldn’t be able to prove that Trump and his closest employees were motivated by theft when they lied about the value of his businesses.

“Bragg decided not to pursue charges against Trump despite the aggressive efforts of his predecessor, Cyrus Vance, to uncover just such a record and the opinion of a respected lawyer brought in to shepherd the investigation through who, in an outraged letter of resignation, insisted that Trump had indeed committed ‘numerous [financial] felony violations.’  (It had taken Vance years and a Supreme Court decision just to get the company tax records for his case against Trump.)

“In early May, a grand jury that had been convened to consider charges against Trump expired. Now, it seems that New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s efforts to bring charges of fraud could crumble as well. Of course, even a president who tried to mount a coup to cancel the results of an election should be able to avail himself of the American system’s legal protections and defenses.

“That said, in failing to hold Trump accountable for more or less anything, a message is being sent about justice in this century: that accountability is just not in the cards for American officials who commit crimes. (Of course, one can still hope that the special investigative Georgia grand jury just seated to look into Trump’s possible attempts to disrupt the 2020 election in that state might prove more effective, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.)…

“At the moment, we find ourselves at an all-too-dangerous crossroads. Without our courts and the system of law they represent being truly functional, citizens could be left to settle things for themselves in true Trumpian fashion. In the international context, war defies the courts and the rule of law. In the domestic context, unregulated violence plays a similar role. As it stands now, when it comes to our system of justice, its veneer of effectiveness is wearing ever thinner. Merrick Garland and other Americans would do well to consider that it’s not just the cases before our courts that are at issue, but the future viability of the institutions of justice themselves…”

-Karen J. Greenberg, Portside.org

308-Year-Old Violin Estimated at $20 Million

 

If you have ever heard The Wizard of Oz’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” you may have experienced the emotional tones of the 1714 “da Vinci, ex-Seidel” violin.

Crafted in Italy by Antonio Stradivari, the famous instrument is estimated to sell for around $20 million by Tarisio, an auction house that specializes in bows and string instruments, on June 9. Before the auction, it will be exhibited with special private viewings in London, Berlin, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York.

This Stradivarius violin is expected to surpass the previous sale record for a Stradivarius; eleven years ago, the auction house sold another of the rare instruments in a charity auction that raised $16 million for victims of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Unlike its predecessor, the “da Vinci, ex-Seidel” is not only meant to be collected—it can also be played.

The violin’s unusual name refers to both its signature sound and its most famous player. The instrument “has a luscious, deep and powerful sound and is something that really carries you,” Carlos Tome, director at Tarisio, tells Bloomberg.

“da Vinci” has been part of its nickname since the 1920s, and was inspired by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. According to Tarisio’s Jason Price, one of the auction houses that sold the violin during the 1920s, Caressa & Francais, “baptized” the violin with the artist’s name. This was not the only time owner Albert Caressa christened a violin after an Italian Renaissance artist; he named another two Stradivari “Titian” and “Michelangelo.”

The other part of the name, “ex-Seidel,” refers to the instrument’s previous owner, Russian American virtuoso Toscha Seidel. The violin belonged to Seidel for around 40 years. Seidel originally paid $25,000 for the violin—the equivalent of over $400,000 today.

When Seidel, known as one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century, acquired the violin in 1924, it appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Asked about the violin, Seidel told the Times that “...we precisely suit each other, and I am convinced it is one of the finest examples of the famous violin maker.”

Seidel was correct—it was one of Stradivari’s finest creations. The “da Vinci” was more refined than other violins at the time, as the purfling, or decorative edge, is narrower and more compact, writes Price.

Armed with his “da Vinci,” the musician made an indelible mark on how Americans hear violin music. He performed with major orchestras and had a prolific recording career. He had his own CBS Network radio show and eventually moved to Hollywood. There, he played violin for films such as 1939’s Intermezzo, in which Leslie Howard, a violinist, falls in love with Ingrid Bergman, his accompanist, and 1941’s Melody for Three.

“That we largely associate love scenes or depictions of the less fortunate in films—or any scene evoking tears or strong emotions—with the sound of the violin is largely due to Seidel,” writes Adam Baer for the American Scholar. “ … he laid the groundwork for mainstream America to deepen its love affair with the violin.”

But did he play on the soundtrack of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz? Historian and Oz expert John Fricke says that although it is possible, he was unable to confirm whether Seidel was the film’s violin soloist, reports Jon Burlingame for Variety. Nonetheless, it is likely, as Seidel was working for the studio in February 1939 and most of the film was recorded in May of that year.

Seidel’s works echo across different disciplines. He even gave violin lessons to Albert Einstein in the 1930s and performed with him after the scientist emigrated to the United States in 1933. In return, writes Einstein biographer Walter Isaacson, the physicist explained his new theory of relativity to Seidel and “made him some drawings of moving rods contracting in length” to illustrate one of the key facets of his theory.

The renowned violinist died in 1962. Though he was one of his era’s most famous musicians, today he is all but forgotten. But Seidel’s musical legacy lives on—along with his fine violin.

“… It is our tremendous pleasure to present this instrument, whose exquisite voice still speaks to us through many classical recordings and film scores performed by the incomparable Toscha Seidel,” said Tome in a statement. “We can only imagine the thrill that this instrument has generated for countless musicians and audiences over the centuries.”

-Antonia Mufarech is an intern for Smithsonian magazine.

 

The Mental Health Crisis That’s Causing Teachers to Quit (New Republic)

 

“…Teaching is a demanding job at the best of times. Before the pandemic it was among the most stressful occupations, on par with nursing. But there are indications that it has only gotten worse since Covid-19 entered the profession... According to a RAND survey from June 2021, which found, among other things, that teachers were almost three times more likely to report symptoms of depression than other adults. Clearly, teachers haven’t just reached their breaking point but surpassed it, further imperiling a profession that has long struggled with low pay and declining morale. 

“Two years ago, when the pandemic first hit, teachers were heralded as first responders, heroes. Celebrities such as Patton Oswalt and Dave Grohl heaped praise on them, echoing the amazement of harried parents everywhere. Their stock had seemed to shoot up overnight. Respect for the profession was momentarily restored, but it was fleeting. As the pandemic drags on, the pressure has piled up from all sides. In the past year, teachers have endured culture-war attacks, worsening student behavior, and endless health and safety regulation changes...

“For months, advocacy groups—including the National Education Association, the country’s largest union—have been driving home the point that teachers are not OK. In January, when the NEA polled more than 3,000 of its teachers, nearly all of them said burnout is a serious problem, and more than half indicated plans to leave teaching earlier than expected. The last time the association surveyed its teachers, back in August, only 37 percent were looking to leave. Most favored simple fixes like hiring more teachers, adding more mental health support for students, and, of course, raising pay, which is generally abysmal for teachers…

“Researchers have even coined a term—the “teacher pay penalty”—to refer to the fact that the average teacher earns about 20 percent less than accountants, journalists, inspectors, and computer engineers—professions that require a similar skill set and education. In a RAND survey of nearly a thousand former public-school teachers, nearly two-thirds of those who left during the pandemic said their salary was a factor.

“‘School staffing shortages are not new, but what we are seeing now is an unprecedented staffing crisis across every job category,’ NEA President Becky Pringle said when the survey results were released. ‘If we’re serious about getting every child the support they need to thrive, our elected leaders across the nation need to address this crisis now.’

“The fear that burnout will contribute to a mass exodus of teachers isn’t overblown—but it isn’t supported by enough data yet. During the pandemic the public teaching workforce appears to have shrunk by nearly 7 percent, according to federal jobs data crunched by the Economic Policy Institute. Unfortunately, neither the federal government nor states reliably keep records on teacher turnover, making that figure hard to confirm. 

“Many districts aren’t seeing much change compared with any other year, though the data varies by region. In Austin, Texas, midyear resignations are up about 11 percent. In Illinois, three-quarters of superintendents say the teaching shortage is getting worse. On LinkedIn, the number of teachers who left their jobs last year for a new career is up by two-thirds too.  

“In other words, the worst may be yet to come. Researchers who track shifting demographics in the teacher workforce have found that the profession is becoming less experienced and more unstable compared with during the 1980s, a phenomenon that predates the pandemic. ‘My prediction is that we’re going to see a big surge,’ says Richard Ingersoll, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who conducted that research. ‘And it’s going to be turnover- and attrition-driven shortages.’ 

“Luckily for schools, not everyone who thinks about quitting will actually leave. But some of them will, and their colleagues who stay will suffer an even greater blow to morale. What this means for the next generation of teachers is unclear, but even in 2019, just before the pandemic, teacher preparation programs were graduating about 25 percent fewer students than they were a decade ago, according to federal Title II data.

“As recently as a few years ago, researchers were sounding alarm bells about declining enrollment and interest in the profession, and some colleges of education have already reported double-digit enrollment declines since the pandemic began. All this indicates that prospective teachers are starting to rethink their options—and have been for a while—which is a troubling prospect for a field where more than 40 percent of new teachers leave within the first five years. 

“If conditions are so bad for teachers, why don’t more of them quit, instead of just thinking about it? The short answer may be that to quit a job at all—even one that ravages your mental health—is a privilege that you may not be able to afford if, say, you’re a teacher who is behind on bills, a single parent, or caring for a loved one with a health condition. In a country where nearly one in five teachers work second jobs, quitting requires a backup plan, especially for those without a safety net. 

“Other teachers, especially those who have never worked outside education, simply get used to the high levels of stress and difficult working conditions, explains Michelle Kinder, a licensed professional counselor who co-authored a book, WHOLE, about how schools can help lower chronic stress for teachers. ‘Your baseline shifts,’ she says. ‘You start to feel like what you’re experiencing day to day is normal. And for some people, the idea of shifting into a circumstance where they could better take care of their mental health is scarier because it’s unknown.’

“But those who don’t quit—even when they want to—put themselves at risk for any number of mental and physical problems. That’s what Jennifer Moss found when researching her book The Burnout Epidemic, which examines a broad spectrum of professions, including teaching, and identifies the condition as a sort of workplace depression. 

“Drawing on the work of the Swedish psychiatrist Marie Åsberg and others, Moss concluded that burnout often starts small and builds over time. As burnout snowballs, so do its effects. ‘You can suffer from high levels of anxiety, depression, PTSD,’ she says. ‘You see increases in suicide rates at that point. It’s pretty catastrophic. It’s a serious, consequential thing. It’s not a whiny, ‘I want more work-life balance’ problem.’

“In a study published last year of more than 300 current teachers, researchers identified the top factors contributing to pandemic-era burnout, including anxiety over getting sick, communicating with difficult parents, and dealing with overdemanding administrators. Burnout was prevalent—and consistent—across demographics including ethnicity, location, years of experience, and whether you taught face-to-face or virtually.

“‘It didn’t matter if you were a brand-new teacher or a veteran of 30 years, we saw no difference between those teachers when it came to their burnout scores,’ says the study’s author, Tim Pressley, an assistant professor of education at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. ‘Covid just put everyone on the same playing field to say, ‘This is tiring. This is burning us out.’”

“For teachers, burnout looks a little different than it does for other professions. In fact, one of the nation’s foremost experts on teacher dissatisfaction, Doris Santoro, who chairs the education department at Bowdoin College, rarely uses the term at all. She prefers ‘demoralization.’ Since teachers don’t enter the profession for the pay, they require other rewards to sustain them, and lately they’ve been dealt precious few wins. ‘Many teachers are going into the work looking for a kind of moral satisfaction,’ says Santoro, whose pre-pandemic book Demoralized profiled more than a dozen teachers who found themselves caught in an unforgiving system resistant to change. ‘If we can’t find a way for them to pursue it through teaching, they’re going to find a way to pursue it elsewhere.’…”   -by Stephen Noonoo, K-12 editor at EdSurge

 

May 8, 2015: The Day the Illinois Supreme Court Ruled Against Legislative Theft and Lies

"…As this opinion has previously observed, our economy is and has always been subject to fluctuations, sometimes very extreme fluctuations. Throughout the past century, market forces have periodically placed significant pressures on public pension systems. The repercussions of underfunding those pension systems in such an environment have been well-documented and were well-known when the General Assembly enacted the provisions of the Pension Code which Public Act 98-599 now seeks to change.

"The General Assembly had available to it all the information it needed to estimate the long-term costs of those provisions, including the costs of annual annuity increases, and the provisions have operated as designed. 13 The General Assembly understood that the provisions would be subject to the pension protection clause. In addition, the law was clear that the promised benefits would therefore have to be paid, and that the responsibility for providing the State’s share of the necessary funding fell squarely on the legislature’s shoulders.

"Accordingly, the funding problems which developed were entirely foreseeable. The General Assembly may find itself in crisis, but it is a crisis which other public pension systems managed to avoid and, as reflected in the SEC order, it is a crisis for which the General Assembly itself is largely responsible.

"Moreover, no possible claim can be made that no less drastic measures were available when balancing pension obligations with other State expenditures became problematic. One alternative, identified at the hearing on Public Act 98-599, would have been to adopt a new schedule for amortizing the unfunded liabilities. The General Assembly could also have sought additional tax revenue. While it did pass a temporary income tax increase, it allowed the increased rate to lapse to a lower rate even as pension funding was being debated and litigated.

"That the State did not select the least drastic means of addressing its financial difficulties is reinforced by the legislative history. As noted earlier in this opinion, the chief sponsor of the legislation stated candidly that other alternatives were available. Public Act 98-599 was in no sense a last resort. Rather, it was an expedient to break a political stalemate.

"…Adherence to constitutional requirements often requires significant sacrifice, but our survival as a society depends on it. The United States Supreme Court made the point powerfully nearly a century and a half ago when it struck down as unconstitutional President Lincoln’s use of executive authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War, a period of emergency that, by any measure, eclipsed the one facing our General Assembly today. In rejecting the government’s argument that wartime concerns justified the curtailment of the constitutional protections, the Supreme Court employed language which seems appropriate to this case:

"'Time has proven the discernment of our ancestors; for even these provisions, expressed in such plain English words, that it would seem the ingenuity of man could not evade them, are now, after the lapse of more than seventy years, sought to be avoided. Those great and good men foresaw that troublous times would arise, when rulers and people would become restive under restraint, and seek by sharp and decisive measures to accomplish ends deemed just and proper; and that the principles of constitutional liberty would be in peril, unless established by irrepealable law. The history of the world had taught them that what was done in the past might be attempted in the future. The Constitution *** is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism ***.'" (Emphasis in original.) Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 120-21 (1866).

For the Complete Ruling,

Click Here

and here: glen brown: ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST LEGISLATIVE THEFT! (teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com)

From Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade (Slate)

 

Since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade was leaked on Monday, it has been widely denounced as extremist to the point of being radical. The outcome of the opinion itself was not surprising to court-watchers, though. Many have anticipated that the conservative-packed Supreme Court would be issuing a ruling striking down the constitutional right to an abortion, or whittling it down to all but a dead letter.

What many did not anticipate, though, were the startling implications of the way in which Alito reached his opinion. The ultraconservative George W. Bush appointee’s opinion coarsened the abortion debate by vilifying “abortionists” and “murderess[es],” opened the door to the court abolishing other unenumerated rights rooted in the 14th Amendment such as the right to birth control and freedom to marry, and allowed for the possibility that legislators might punish people who don’t get an abortion but exercise basic freedoms—such as drinking coffee—during pregnancy in a way that might be harmful to “prenatal life at all stages of development.”

It’s worth considering the most extreme lines in Alito’s full 98-page opinion to fully understand just how much Alito has adopted the most extreme and dangerous views of the anti-abortion movement.

Constitutional rights not “rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition,” such as the right to an abortion, are not legitimate rights at all.

Alito repeatedly claims that his opinion only covers abortion and should not “be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.” But if you read the opinion in its entirety, it’s clear that Alito lays down the future groundwork for overturning any number of “fundamental” rights that purportedly do not have grounding “in our Nation’s history.” Alito lays out why such unenumerated rights grounded in “a right to privacy, which is … not mentioned” in the Constitution are bad:

The Court has long been “reluctant” to recognize rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution. … “Substantive due process has at time been a treacherous field for this Court,” … and it has sometimes led the Court to usurp authority that the Constitution entrusts to the people’s elected representatives. Sometimes the court has overstepped in accepting these rights, Alito notes:

On occasion, when the Court has ignored the “[a]ppropriate limits” imposed by “respect for teachings of history,” … it has fallen into the freewheeling judicial policymaking. … The Court must not fall prey to such an unprincipled approach.

Again, these statements implicate all of the “liberty-based” rights listed above. For good measure, Alito lets us know which other rights were not “mentioned in the Constitution” or allegedly grounded in our nation’s history: interracial marriage, contraception, the right not to be non-consensually sterilized, the right to reside with relatives, the right to make decisions about your children’s education, the “right to engage in consensual” and private “same-sex intimacy,” and the right to same sex marriage, just to name a few.

Alito justifies overturning nearly 50 years of precedent because he says women don’t have any real reliance on Roe.

Alito writes of the 1992 ruling Planned Parenthood v. Casey—which struck down a Pennsylvania law that would have required married women seeking an abortion to notify their husbands—that the court came up with a phony reliance interest to justify upholding Roe on the basis of stare decisis. In his draft, Alito notes that women’s reliance on abortion is of a lower order than the reliance interests that arise “in cases involving property and contract rights.” The court, he writes, is “ill-equipped to assess ‘generalized assertions about the national psyche,’ ” with respect to the way abortion figures in the lives of women across the country. It’s thus impossible to say, according to Alito, that women rely on Roe:

When a concrete reliance interest is asserted, courts are equipped to evaluate the claim, but assessing the novel and intangible form of reliance endorsed by the Casey plurality is another matter. That form of reliance depends on an empirical question that is hard for anyone—and in particular, for a court—to assess, namely, the effect of the abortion right on society and in particular on the lives of women.

Alito cites outdated science and questionable common law from the 17th and 18th centuries to justify abortion bans that would criminalize women for terminating their pregnancies.

Alito writes: an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.

In delving into this ahistorical analysis, Alito uses the creepiest possible terminology to describe what has been for the last 50 years a common and legal medical practice. He repeatedly refers to reproductive care providers as “abortionists.” He obsesses over pre-Victorian medical terms with contested meanings, such as “quickening.”

Sir Edward Coke’s 17th-century treatise likewise asserted that abortion of a quick child was “murder” if the “childe be born alive” and a “great misprision” if the “childe dieth in her body.”

Alito also approvingly cites language describing one woman who had received an abortion as a “murderess.” And he considers other random 17th century punishments for abortion: In 1732, for example, Eleanor Beare was convicted of ‘destroying the Foetus in the Womb’ of another woman and ‘there-by causing her to miscarry.’ For that crime and another ‘misdemeanor,’ Baere was sentenced to two days in the pillory and three years’ imprisonment

Alito lays out what he calls a “proto-felony-murder rule” categorizing failed abortions that kill the mother as criminal. As if these passages aren’t a disturbing enough foray into questionable science and morality from an era in which women and children were regarded as property of their husbands, he presses on into the 19th century to suggest that the reproductive health care practices of the time were somehow more “scientific” than modern practices. To do this he cites approvingly an 1848 case and terms like “in ventre sa mere”:

The Solicitor General offers a different explanation of the basis for the quickening rule, namely, that before quickening the common law did not regard a fetus “as having a ‘separate and independent existence.’” … But the case on which the Solicitor General relies for this proposition also suggested that the criminal law’s quickening rule was out of step with the treatment of prenatal life in other areas of law, noting that “to many purposes, in reference to civil rights, an infant in ventre sa mere is regarded as a person in being.”

Again, Alito leaves the door open for “personhood” legislation, or even a future ruling recognizing the “personhood” of a fetus: But even if one takes the view that “personhood” begins when a certain attribute or combination of attributes is acquired, it is very hard to see why viability should mark the point where “personhood” begins. What are Alito’s primary sources for this dubious framework? One is a 1732 journal called Gentleman’s Magazine.

Alito misleadingly cites court precedent to claim that banning abortion is definitively not sex discrimination. 

Alito argues: State’s regulation of abortion is not a sex-based classification and is thus not subject to the “heightened scrutiny” that applies to such classifications.

To make this claim he cites two cases, one post-Roe and another post-Casey. Those are 1974’s Geduldig v. Aiello and 1993’s Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic. But those cases were about disability rights for women who experienced complications during pregnancy and the First Amendment rights of anti-abortion protesters, not about abortion itself. Most notably, Alito claims that the Bray court decided the “ ‘goal of preventing abortion’ does not constitute ‘invidiously discriminatory animus against women.’ ” Again, though, that case was about protesters seeking to prevent women from having abortions, not the state mandating an abortion ban. What Bray actually says is this:

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the goal of preventing abortion, that goal in itself (apart from the use of unlawful means to achieve it, which is not relevant to our discussion of animus) does not remotely qualify for such harsh description, and for such derogatory association with racism. The key qualifier there is “apart from use of unlawful means to achieve it.” One year earlier, the court had upheld Roe in Casey and determined that abortion bans were an “unlawful means to achieve it.”

Alito frames himself as a champion of women, who can now decide these issues at the ballot box—without acknowledging those ballot boxes have been rigged by Supreme Court decisions eviscerating voting rights.

Our decision returns the issue of abortion to those legislative bodies and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office.

Alito compares Roe and Casey to some of the most abhorrent precedents in Supreme Court history, including the ruling that upheld segregation.

An erroneous interpretation of the Constitution is always important, but some are more damaging than others. The infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson … was one such decision. It betrayed our commitment to “equality under law.” … It was “egregiously wrong” on the day it was decided. … Roe was also egregiously wrong and deeply damaging.

Finally, Alito lays out a laundry list of reasons lawmakers can and have to ban all abortions, including such Orwellian straw men as “discrimination on the basis of … sex” and “the protection of maternal health”:

A law regulating abortion, like other health and welfare laws, is entitled to a “strong presumption of validity.” It must be sustained if there is a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that it would serve legitimate state interests. … These legitimate interests include respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development …; the protection of maternal health and safety; the elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; the preservation of the integrity of the medical profession; the mitigation of fetal pain; and the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability. 

-Jeremy Stahl

Read: Why Alito Can’t Find the Right to Abortion in the Constitution

Read more of Slate’s coverage on abortion rights here.

 

Overturning Roe v. Wade

 

The revelation of a draft Supreme Court decision gutting U.S. abortion rights has stunned an entire nation, setting off protests, sending political leaders scrambling, and igniting public debates about both the form and substance of the leaked draft ruling.

Chief Justice John Roberts has confirmed the authenticity of the opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito and published Monday by Politico in a leak of a Supreme Court document that is unprecedented in recent history. 

The outlet reported that at least four of Alito’s conservative colleagues — Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas — have joined him in forming a majority prepared to overturn the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.

If the leaked version becomes law, it would demolish the nationwide protections for reproductive rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years, opening the door for states to completely outlaw abortions. Here are the main takeaways on the draft opinion.

The ruling could change before it’s published

While the draft that became public this week has been confirmed to be authentic, it is still subject to change until it’s officially published by the Supreme Court. Until then, justices can freely change sides, write concurrences or dissents, and alter the opinion that prematurely entered the light of day.

As it currently stands, according to Politico, the three liberal justices are preparing one or more dissenting opinions, and it is unclear whether Roberts intends to join them. The news outlet reported that the current 5-3-1 divide has been in place since December.

But it’s unclear whether that will hold until the Supreme Court officially rules. Typically, the court doesn’t release its most high-profile decisions until the very end of its term, usually by the end of June, in part to allow time for the justices to win over their colleagues on divisive rulings. While the window of time in which the court usually issues such decisions is fast approaching, there’s little in Alito’s opinion that can be taken as final until it’s made official.

Democrats want legislation to enshrine abortion rights

Democrats have dreaded the end of Roe v. Wade as they watched Republicans solidify a conservative majority on the nation’s highest court over the past few decades and then pushed it further to the right during former President Trump’s term in office.

Now that the day when GOP-appointed justices upend the status quo for reproductive rights appears to be on the horizon, Democratic leaders calling for legislation that would codify Roe into law by establishing a federal right to abortions. 

“[If] the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose,” President Biden said in a statement Tuesday morning. “And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice officials this November. At the federal level, we will need more pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House to adopt legislation that codifies Roe, which I will work to pass and sign into law.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday promised to call a vote on such legislation in the near future, calling the publication of the draft opinion a “dark and disturbing morning for America.” But any bill to enshrine abortion rights into law faces long odds with a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, which has failed to reach 50 votes to eliminate the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote majority to pass legislation.

GOP is calling for leaker to be brought to justice

Meanwhile, Republicans have responded to the groundbreaking news by focusing their attention on the unknown leaker, saying whoever it is has damaged the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

GOP leaders on Tuesday called for an investigation into the leaker’s identity followed by criminal charges. “This lawless action should be investigated and punished to the fullest extent possible, the fullest extent possible,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said during a floor speech.

“If a crime was committed, the Department of Justice must pursue it completely,” he added. Roberts said Tuesday that he had directed the Supreme Court’s marshal to investigate the “singular and egregious breach” of the court’s trust.

Virtually nothing is known about the leaker’s identity or motive, and it’s unclear whether any crimes were committed in the process of turning over Alito’s opinion to the press. But Republicans, who largely support rolling back abortion rights, have made clear that they will try to make the leak itself a focus of the ongoing outcry.

Progressives call for action on court and filibuster reform

Progressive judicial advocates and lawmakers are calling for decisive action from the Democratic Party following the opinion’s publication, doubling down on their push to pack the court to nullify the conservative majority and eliminate the filibuster to protect abortion and other rights from being rolled back.

A ruling that overturns Roe would likely add fuel to the court-packing movement, which sees the current conservative majority as illegitimate, unaccountable and a threat to legal rights that are supported by a majority of Americans.

“Abolish the filibuster. Codify Roe. Expand the Supreme Court. Protect abortion rights by any means necessary. We need all of the above. This is an emergency,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) added in a statement, “Without urgent and sweeping reform, we will never have true freedom and justice in this country. The Senate must abolish the filibuster and pass the Women’s Health Protection Act to codify Roe immediately and we must reform and expand the Supreme Court.”

While Democrats who support packing the court or abolishing the filibuster make up a minority of the party, their calls for reform are likely to grow louder and more urgent if the conservative justices ultimately abolish a right considered fundamental among the liberal base.

Draft raises concern about court’s next targets

The conservative majority’s apparent willingness to overturn a landmark precedent despite popular opposition has also raised concerns among critics about what other rights might be in jeopardy. In the draft opinion, Alito stressed that abortion is the only issue that the majority is targeting with its reasoning.

He wrote, “To ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

But that is unlikely to soothe critics who see court precedents such as the one legalizing same-sex marriage as equally vulnerable because they establish rights that conservative justices might believe don’t have “any claim to being deeply rooted in history,” as Alito wrote in the abortion opinion.

The Memo: Five consequences if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade Harris says women’s rights are under attack in forceful speech

Some progressives said that overturning Roe would be a preview of what is to come from the conservative majority. “PSA: if Roe falls, your constitutional right to birth control will also be in jeopardy,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said on Twitter. “This has never just been about abortion. It’s about controlling & criminalizing our bodies.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) added, “As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion – they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on, which includes gay marriage + civil rights.” 

-Harper Neidig, The Hill

 

"Reproductive rights have been under attack for more than 30 years" -Rebecca Solnit

 

How do you strip away cherished rights? The best strategy is incrementally and undramatically, a death of a thousand cuts. That’s how Republicans were hacking at voting rights until recently, when the rest of us woke up and began to pay attention to the cumulative impact of voter ID laws, the shuttering of polling places, restrictions on voting by mail, and all the rest.

Reproductive rights have been under attack for more than 30 years – by rightwing terrorism against abortion providers all through the 1990s and as recently as 2015 in Colorado Springs, but also by a sort of attrition, narrowing down access by shutting clinics, limiting how many weeks pregnant you can be, and other such measures.

Overturning Roe v Wade upends all this stealth and incrementalism. Judging by last night’s reaction, it may be exactly the kind of overstep that leads to a backlash. After all, the great majority of Americans support the right to choose.

There are many kinds of actions to take in response to this likely overturning of a fundamental right to bodily self-determination and privacy. (And it’s bitterly amusing that a court that wants to set policies reaching into the uteruses of women across the country apparently feels violated by having its own internal workings exposed with this leaked draft opinion.)

Direct support for the poor and unfree women who will be the most affected is already under way – and by unfree, I mean those who are under the domination of a hostile partner, family, church or community.

People have organized to offer travel to clinics for those far from them, access to abortion pills, and other forms of support. But by backlash I mean and am hoping for the kind of backlash Trump’s election and subsequent outrages provoked, the 2018 election that swept the Squad and many other progressives into office and took back the House of Representatives.

A Democratic majority in both houses could make abortion a right by law, and it’s worth remembering that Mexico, Ireland and Argentina are among the countries that recently did so.

What is striking this time around in the US both about the rightwing agenda and the response is that it is broad enough to build powerful coalitions. The human rights activism of the 1990s was siloed: though the same voters and politicians might support LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights and racial justice, largely separate campaigns were built around each of them, and the common denominators were seldom articulated.

This time around – well, as I wrote when the news broke last night: “First they came for the reproductive rights (Roe v Wade, 1973) and it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a uterus in its ovulatory years, because then they want to come for the marriage rights of same-sex couples (Obergefell v Hodges, 2015), and then the rights of consenting adults of the same gender to have sex with each other (Lawrence v Texas, 2003), and then for the right to birth control (Griswold v Connecticut, 1965). It doesn’t really matter if they’re coming for you, because they’re coming for us.”

“Us” these days means pretty much everyone who’s not a straight white Christian man with rightwing politics. They’re building a broad constituency of opposition, and it is up to us to make that their fatal mistake.

It’s all connected. If Texas wasn’t suppressing voting rights so effectively, rightwing politicians might not be running the state. If non-Republican turnout can overcome the restrictions, Texas itself – now leading the attacks on abortion rights and trans rights – could elect Beto O’Rourke governor in November and turn Texas Democratic. O’Rourke tweeted today: “If they want states to decide, then we must elect a governor who will protect a woman’s right to abortion.”

The right knows that it represents a minority and a shrinking minority as Americans as a whole become more progressive and as the country becomes increasingly non-white. They have made a desperate gamble – to rule via minority power, for the benefit of the few, which is why voter suppression is so crucial a part of their agenda. It cannot be a winning strategy in the long run.

But in the short run it can perpetrate immense damage to too many lives and to the climate itself. Last night’s revelations should strengthen our resolve to resist by remembering our power and strengthening our alliances, winning elections, and keeping eyes on the prize.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her most recent books are Recollections of My Nonexistence and Orwell’s Roses