Biden has said that he is not in favor of expanding the Court. No surprise there. This is a long shot, but I think it is our only chance. First, we must weaponize the outrage at the Supreme Court decision so as to hold the House and win two more seats in the Senate in the midterms. (I did not say this would be easy.) Then the Democrats must use these wins to pass legislation writing the Roe decision into law. This will almost certainly be challenged by opponents of abortion and my guess is that the right wing majority on the Court would use the occasion to prohibit all abortion as in violation of the Constitution. This would then generate a political uprising that would compel Biden to support expanding the Court. We are in for some hard times, pretty clearly.
Apropos my last post about Gregory of Tours, I am going to
stop trying to write humorous or witty blog posts. Apparently there is
something about the medium that makes humor impossible. Oh well, as Michael
Sandel demonstrates, there is always stand up
Prof. Wolff,
ReplyDeleteIf Congress were to enact a law codifying Roe v. Wade, the S. Ct, as currently constituted would just rule that the statute is unconstitutional, because it would prohibit some states from enacting laws which prohibit abortion within those state. The Court could not use its overturning of the statute as a vehicle for holding that abortion is itself unconstitutional. In order to do that, it would have to be reviewing a federal law which made abortion illegal in every state and sustain the constitutionality of that statute. The Republicans are in fact considering drafting such a statute.
There is still room for good jokes. Here is a sexist joke.
Fran, who often nags her husband, tells her husband Stan that she is going grocery shopping. Stan accompanies her. In the grocery store, Fran takes a can of peaches and places it in her shopping bag. She then goes to another aisle and places a can of peas in her shopping bag. Fran starts to leave the store without paying, and she is stopped by a security guard, who accuses her of stealing. She is prosecuted for stealing and does not request a jury. At the trial, the judge asks her what did she put in her shopping bag. Fran answers, “I put a can of peaches in my shopping bag.” Judge: “How many peaches were in the can.” “Six peaches, your Honor.” The judge (a Republican) responds, “I am sentencing you to one year in prison for each peach.” He lifts his gavel and is about to close the hearing when Stan pipes up and says, “Your Honor, she also took a can of peas.”
Yesterday’s NT Times has a long article headed “Roe’s Fall Started in 2010 With G.O.P. Wave.”
ReplyDeleteDemocrats went into those elections controlling 27 state legislatures; Republicans controlled 14. Nine were split between the parties.
After those elections, Democrats controlled 16 and the Republicans 25. Democrats haven’t had a majority since. Today Democrats control 17, Republicans 30, with three split.
This is where Republicans enact legislation to restrict or prohibit abortions, allow all kinds of guns, put religion in schools and other public arenas, and gerrymander Congressional districts.
It’s vital, in the coming midterms, not only that Democrats not lose control of the House and Senate, but also that they begin the long climb back to control of a majority of state legislatures. It will not be easy.
When it comes to fundraising, state legislatures are an orphan. The money goes to the big races: Presidential, Senatorial, and Congressional. That’s fine, but if you’re a small contributor like I am, your contribution to a nation-wide or even state-wide race is at most a drop in the bucket. It will not be missed if doesn’t arrive, and will have little impact on the outcome.
The impact of your small contribution to a state legislative race will be far, far greater. A worthy recipient of your small donation is the DLCC—the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Biden has to say that because we have a too often clueless media that would start talking "court packing" and asking stupid questions that can't be answered in a sound bite which would only further confuse them. That and not the radical Court would become the story. The Court's polling is already dropping. It's up to regular folks to continue to attack the legitimacy of the court, our failing Constitution, and the need to reform the Article Three courts top to bottom. Playing tit for tat with calls to merely add a few new members to just the SC is a losing game. Expanding the Court will require more then just two additional democratic Senators.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, Josh Barro (I know) did have a good idea: While the Senate is hopeless, Schumer should break down the House bill into separate parts and force the Republican members to vote down week after week items that have widespread popular approval.
The danger with a law codifying Roe is that this Court would use it as an opportunity to put personhood at conception and that would be hard to undo.
Marc Susselman,
ReplyDeleteParts of that 12:47pm post of yours get a rare thumbs up from me.
It should be obvious to anyone with half a functioning brain cell that the anti-choice members of the courts are planning to strike down any laws guaranteeing access to abortions. All of the commentary over the need for congressional legislation that would codify the protection of Roe is just a lot of hot air (and an opportunity for the shameless Democrats to fundraise off of).
That joke about the peaches and the peas is hilarious. You shouldn't have said that it's a sexist joke, because there's no reason to read it as such.
RPW: This is a long shot, but I think it is our only chance.
ReplyDeleteWith this kind of thinking, formal slavery would still exist in America. I can't even say slavery would still exist in the United States because there wouldn't even be a United States. The colonists would have convinced themselves that their only option was to find a way to make do under the existing political relationship with the Crown and the British Parliament.
If you haven't seen it, this editorial from the editors of The New England Journal of Medicine is worth a read.
ReplyDeleteLawmakers v. The Scientific Realities of Human Reproduction
I don't understand why apparently some people in the Dem party seem incapable of grasping that a Sup Ct majority has just ruled that, because there is no constitutional right to an abortion, states may do whatever they want wrt abortion, assuming it passes a minimal rationality test (which such legislation almost always will).
ReplyDeleteWhat that means is that, as long as the Dobbs ruling stands, legislation "codifying Roe" will be held to be an unconstitutional infringement on states' authority to regulate in this area. Having just spent 60 pp, or however long the maj op was, giving states authority to do what they want here, the Dobbs majority is not going to let Congress take away from the states what it has given them.
There are various paths of action that might make sense, but congressional legislation codifying Roe is not one of them.
Also, the Dobbs majority is not going to outlaw abortion. Anyone who has read Kavanaugh's concurrence, whatever one thinks of it (and I don't think much of it), knows he is not on board for that.
The world or the public needs more comic relief, not less and outsider philosophers like Raymond Geuss who want to change the subject of philosophy are careful to avoid being systematic, using humor to break up their encrusted world views, conceptual ruts or routines. Comedy is a hit and run or hit and miss business, and experimental so it often fails to get the right laugh or meet the occasion in retrospect. It is an antidote to obsession with systematicity because of its emphasis on surprise endings and the absurd or illogical.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are thinking this is not the time for comedy or distraction or entertainment, I suppose most of what you worry about is gallows humor dragging us down further (George Carlin), not uplifting, idealistic comedy as in Kierkegaard or Plato's "feast of words" in Republic, Book 1 according to Thrasymachus' sarcasm.
Feminist comedians such as Margaret Cho will find a way to joke about the Supreme Court and Roe vs. Wade conflict, including actions such as the new #sexstrike based on Aristophanes, Lysistrata. Cho was mentored by Joan Rivers and does vulgar queer jokes including about rape and abortion or other transgressive subjects (she is an extremist stand up comedian).
Maybe you associate comedy with lying or exaggeration. This is what Adorno says: "To identify culture solely with lies is more fateful than ever, now that the former is really becoming totally absorbed by the latter, and eagerly invites such identification in order to compromise every opposing thought. If material reality is called the world of exchange value, and culture whatever refuses to accept the domination of that world, then it is true that such refusal is illusory as long as the existent exists. Since, however, free and honest exchange is itself a lie, to deny it is at the same time to speak for truth: in face of the lie of the commodity world, even the lie that denounces it becomes a corrective." Minima Moralia, Part 1, #22
I thought the news story about President Biden's simple-minded speaking notes / child-like script usage was absurdly funny during an extremely complex world crisis, and the Russians must be laughing too. American political life is imploding with absurdity.
That's also why having some notion of what the Justices actually wrote is useful. Kavanaugh would not have spent 4,000 words or whatever babbling about "neutrality" if he wanted to outlaw abortion. He even says, with italics, that the Dobbs ruling does not outlaw abortion. (Which, strictly read, is a completely accurate statement.)
ReplyDeleteEric, slavery ended in the British empire in the 1830s. I don't believe there is slavery in Canada.
ReplyDeleteThis is 28 USC 1:
"The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of a Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum."
That could be changed by the Congress to any number.
28 USC 371 could be tweaked to put Thomas, Alito, and Roberts on senior status and install term limits.
On the subject of hoping the Democrats will protect Americans' reproductive rights—here are a few gems you won't see being highlighted on MSNBC.
ReplyDeleteDemocratic Gov. John Bel Edwards "signed sweeping legislation Tuesday that would criminalize abortion in Louisiana and ban the procedure in nearly all circumstances from the moment of implantation if Roe v. Wde is overturned. The legislation does not include exceptions for rape and incest." [22 JUNE 2022]
https://www.wwno.org/2022-06-21/gov-john-bel-edwards-signs-abortion-bill-with-no-exceptions-for-rape-incest-into-law
"The Senate once again failed to advance abortion rights legislation Wednesday.... In a 49-51 vote, the Senate rejected the Democratic legislation, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and all Republicans voting against the measure." [11 MAY 2022]
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/11/senate-doomed-vote-roe-abortion-rights-00031732
Joe Biden (2006): "I do NOT view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it's always a tragedy."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v1tJBP0oYA
Nancy Pelosi (2016): "I don't believe in abortion on demand! I don't believe in abortion on demand!"
(says some abortions should be legal, but to be decided by women and their doctors, not politicians; tries to shift discussion to Republicans' opposition to contraception access)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXlgAgZ-7a0
Nancy Pelosi (2017): Abortion is fading as an issue within the Democratic Party.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX5HmyNNFm8
Barack Obama, asked as a presidential candidate speaking to Planned Parenthood what he would do as president to ensure Americans' abortion rights were protected (2007): "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'd do."
Barack Obama, as the US President (2009): "The Freedom of Choice Act is NOT my highest legislative priority."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiqUhqPwf_Y&t=137s
And of course this old favorite, which I've shared here before—
Hillary Clinton (2015): "I am where I have been, which is that if there's a way to structure some kind of constitutional restriction [on legal access to abortion] that takes into account the life of the mother and her health, then I'm open to [compromising with the Republicans on] that."
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/09/29/hillary_clinton_i_could_compromise_on_abortion_if_it_included_exceptions_for_mothers_health.html
On a completely different topic—
ReplyDeletePhilosopher Gabriel Rockhill has the guns out for the Frankfurt School, especially Horkheimer and Adorno, in an article that was just published at The Philosophical Salon.
For those of us who are Marxists and anti-imperialist, they come off looking really despicable, at least from my skimming of the article.
LFC, if the Congress flips and McConnell axes the filibuster to outlaw abortion nationally the Supremes will use that to do personhood from conception. I don't understand why you would trust K now anymore then during confirmation. Clever folks will always find a way. The state's rights thing is a one way street.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I've known blackout drunks with gambling issues. Don't trust them.
Tony, there's nothing complex here. Russia delenda est.
aaall
ReplyDeleteI suggest that you read Kavanaugh's concurrence. It's not very long.
More to the point, McConnell doesn't want to outlaw abortion nationally bc he knows it wd create a political firestorm that wd threaten to engulf everything he's devoted his career to, namely Repub ascendancy.
ReplyDeleteLFC, there are lots of variables but if the Rs take the House and Senate it will be with the election of quite a few Magats which will put his leader position in jeopardy. If a R House passes such a bill the pressure will be irresistible. Also, depending on how the coming election in the states go, some states will no longer be democracies (Wisconsin is already there) and a fair presidential election may not be possible in 2024. If that is the case then Republicans will do what they will.
ReplyDeleteRead the concurrence and I'm not impressed. There is nothing I saw that would prevent K from agreeing that a national ban based on personhood was allowable. Note that he allows the Congress has a role.
"...and does not sufficiently account for what Roe itself recognized as the
State’s “important and legitimate interest” in protecting fe-
tal life."
"After today’s decision, the nine Members of this Court
will no longer decide the basic legality of pre-viability abor-
tion for all 330 million Americans. That issue will be re-
solved by the people and their representatives in the demo-
cratic process in the States or Congress."
"Instead, those difficult moral and policy ques-
tions will be decided, as the Constitution dictates, by the
people and their elected representatives through the consti-
tutional processes of democratic self-government."
"In my judgment, on the issue of abortion, the Constitu-
tion is neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is
neutral, and this Court likewise must be scrupulously neu-
tral. The Court today properly heeds the constitutional
principle of judicial neutrality and returns the issue of abor-
tion to the people and their elected representatives in the
democratic process."
Eric,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your rare compliment, especially about the joke. I was a bit concerned the some would think my reference to a nagging wife was a stereotype and politically incorrect. There are also nagging husbands.
Yes, desperate times call for desperate measures. If life begins at conception, and an embryo is a potential human being, isn’t each male sperm also a potential human being? Could (should?) a state prohibit onanism, the spilling of male sperm, which is designated a sin in Genesis, and, I believe, is so regarded in the Catholic Church? What’s good for the goose is good, as they say, for the gander. How would they enforce it? The same way Texas has provided in its anti-abortion law, by deputizing every citizen in Texas. The state legislature could deputize all citizens to be on male masturbation alert. I can see Margaret Cho and Sarah Silverman getting some caustic jokes out of this.
ReplyDeletePresumably, since he borrows Cato's rhetoric, aaall wishes that the fate the brutal, militaristic Romans visited upon Carthage (which was not, to be sure, a very pleasant civilization) be visited upon Russia. What a dreadful way of thinking about the world.
ReplyDeleteFor the humorous apotheosis of stereotypes about older husbands and wives, look no further than the 'Old Jews Telling Jokes' series on YouTube, for example some in this collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI5euTaviCc&ab_channel=GoodSeries
ReplyDeleteGreat jokes, John. It's for my schnauzer. Hilarious.
ReplyDeleteEric,
ReplyDeleteYou might be interested in Stuart Jeffries very readable account of the Frankfurt School, Grand Hotel Abyss.
The title comes from Georg Lukacs, the Hungarian Marxist and Communist, who depicted the members of the Frankfurt School as bourgeois sitting in a luxury Gran Hotel staring into the abyss as they sipped their expensive wines.
In fact, Adorno even called the police when students occupied the Frankfurt School during the 1968 protests. Marcuse, by the way, criticized him for that.
In any case, Adorno is a genius and quite insightful, and if you're going to limit your reading to only authors who are properly revolutionary and anti-imperialist, you're going to cut yourself off from the experience of some great minds.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteRockhill cites The Grand Hotel in his article.
One can overlook someone showing indifference to or reticence about efforts in a political movement. But directly engaging in counter-revolutionary activities, collaborating with the oppressors, ratting out dissidents cannot be excused. Especially in the case of people who themselves had escaped with their lives from that kind of oppression.
Eric and LFC pretty much nailed it: codifying Roe legislatively is a non-starter in so many ways. One of which is that it's focus on November pulls the rug out from under the many activists who have militantly stepped forward to use the government boldly and creatively to protect women's rights NOW. That's the way to build a movement long before November and win in November.
ReplyDeleteRegarding humor: you, Professor, seem to have no problem with the medium. Having said that, here are my lame attempts at "Stupid Political Jokes," à la Letterman.
1. Crossword: 8 letter word meaning really, really feckless. Ans: Democrat
2. What should Democrats do now? In the interest of originalism and the one party state, they should change their name to the Jefferson-Madison party of the 1790s: Democratic-Republican - dump Harris in favor of Liz Cheney.
3. What recent statements or actions will resonate across history as profiles in courage? 1. Democratic-Republicans singing God Bless America on the Capitol steps; 2) Speaker Pelosi, in the face of SCOTUS stripping away the rights of a majority of Americans, pulling herself together and reading a poem. Note: she did not wish for a stronger Republican party; and 3. VP Harris, with all the wisdom and pluck she could muster, reassured fearful women and pollsters nationwide with the words, "And I'm a woman myself, and a woman's daughter and a woman's granddaughter.”
Ta Da!
The following article in the June issue of the Atlantic, “America Is Growing Apart, Possibly for Good,” is of interest:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/red-and-blue-state-divide-is-growing-michael-podhorzer-newsletter/661377/
LFC, I recently posted several quotes from K''s concurrence, including one in which he specifically notes that the Congress has a role, that don't specify that going forward only the states have a role in dealing with abortion. On what did you base your view to the contrary?
ReplyDeleteThis is from Article III, section 2 of the Constitution:
ReplyDelete"...the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
While I have no doubt the SC could possibly do far more mischief should a law be enacted codifying Roe, could the Congress make an exception? I believe that could be done.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteYou have to quote the entire passage, which reads as follows:
“In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all other cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Let’s say Congress enacted a statute along the lines you propose, for example: “A woman’s right to an abortion up to the end of the second trimester shall not be infringed on, or precluded, in any way, in any state, and the Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to hear any cases or appeals relating to the enforcement of this statute.”
Undoubtedly a state which, like Mississippi, enacted a statute making it unlawful to have an abortion at any time prior to the end of the second trimester would sue the United States, and would be a party to that lawsuit, thereby invoking the first sentence of the passage quoted above, by virtue of which the S. Ct., under Article III itself, has original jurisdiction – jurisdiction which Congress may not retract or modify. The S. Ct. would hear the case under its original jurisdiction and declare the exception in the federal statute as null and void.
aaall said:
ReplyDeleteplu
LFC, I recently posted several quotes from K''s concurrence, including one in which he specifically notes that the Congress has a role, that don't specify that going forward only the states have a role in dealing with abortion. On what did you base your view to the contrary?
You're right that K did say that Congress has a role. However, I drew the inference from the concurrence as a whole that he is most comfortable with a situation in which abortion regs and laws are not uniform throughout the country. I don't have time right now to pluck out the quotes. Whether this would translate into his voting to strike down a uniform national legislative ban on abortion is perhaps an open question, but I could see him taking the view that the best course is for states to decide matters for themselves, and hence ginning up some rationale for why Congress imposing a nationwide ban is not permissible.
sorry, "plu" is a typo
ReplyDelete