Late yesterday afternoon, a Trump judge in Amarillo decided it was a really good idea to take Mifepristone off the market, a drug that has been safely used to induce medical abortions for 20 years.  The lawsuit he ruled on was filed by an anti-choice group that wasn’t happy that the SCOTUS decision to take away the constitutional right to healthcare from millions of women didn’t go far enough.  They wanted to take away the right to abortion from ALL women in the US.  The group venue shopped, taking the case to a radical judge Amarillo and got the result they wanted; for the first time in US history, a federal judge interfered with the FDA’s authority by banning the drug. The plaintiffs lied that the drug was untested and dangerous, which is bullshit.  Of course, since their case was bullshit, the judge bought it and banned it.  Another judge in Washington State almost immediately issued a contradicting order, which will likely throw the case straight to the SCOTUS.  Recall that the SCOTUS, which now has a 6 -3 ultraconservative majority gained by cheating, could likely generate a nationwide ban on the drug.  Even though the SCOTUS threw the abortion issue to the states, I have no confidence the court will remain consistent by throwing this back to the states, since their rulings are now controlled by ideology, not the law.

Here’s a solution to the Mifepristone ban, and it’s pretty straightforward – we need a lawsuit filed that bans Viagra and all other ED treatments.  If a federal judge can intervene in the FDA’s decisions over women’s healthcare, certainly another federal judge can to the same thing men’s healthcare, right?  Besides protecting men’s health, banning Viagra will prevent millions of pregnancies, which is a huge side benefit.

After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

Gym Jordan was on MTP this morning babbling about how law enforcement has been weaponized, but only when it comes to conservatives being investigated.  He’s all over the “weaponized” FBI trying to protect school board members whose lives are being threatened, but completely blind to the tsunami of blatant law breaking on his own side.  When Chuck Todd brought up the fact that the NY Assistant US Attorney, Charles McGonigal, has been charged with taking money from a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, Jordan stated he was going to investigate that, but brushed Todd off when he pointed out that Paul Manafort was Deripaska’s primary contact between the TFG campaign and the Russians.  He wants to investigate the Steele dossier, but is not interested in investigating whether the US Attorney’s office in NY was suppressing the dossier and leaking other stories to the press intended to damage Hillary during the 2016.  The new conservative House majority has only a few goals for this term – cementing in their own power, hamstringing the federal government, and exacting revenge for TFG’s loss in 2020.  That’s it, period.  They don’t give a flying shit about their country or their constituents; their only tools are retribution and disinformation.

When asked about the George Floyd act and reforming policing in the US, Jordan took the usual position of conservatives today, saying that the US government has no role in policing reform and that it must be handled at “state and local levels”.  This is the strategy now followed by most Republicans who shirk responsibility to avoid being blamed for the consequences.  It’s also the SCOTUS’s normal response to all issues of privacy, individual rights, civil rights, and voting rights.  The Court, under Roberts, has now taken the position of taking no position on critical issues like privacy, gun safety laws, campaign finance, radical gerrymandering, and systemic voter suppression, punting all those issues to the state level which in 35 states is under the iron fisted control of minority Republicans cemented into power by…wait for it…radical gerrymandering and voter suppression.  The Court has also gone so far as drawing the idiotic conclusions that money doesn’t corrupt and that magically the Voting Rights Act is no longer needed.

At the state level, DeSantis and Abbott are the poster children for shirking their duty.  They both habitually override local county and city officials who are trying to protect their own citizens by grabbing power at the state level to hamstring them, but then take no responsibility for massive failures like the 2021 Texas power failure that killed 700 Texans.  By keep a “free market” ideology where free markets don’t exist, they avoid blame when their own constituents suffer from their negligence.  By hiding behind idiotic libertarian ideology that has never worked anywhere on the planet, they can blame faceless villains rather than doing their goddam jobs to improve the lives of their constituents.

This is the biggest fraud that’s been committed against the American people, but they retain power through two strategies – using disinformation to blame non-existent bogeymen for their own failures, and radical gerrymandering that creates a base of voters who believe their destructionist rhetoric and bullshit.  AND, it’s getting worse, not better.

This afternoon, the SCOTUS issued a one sentence rebuke of TFG in his efforts to hamstring the DOJ investigating his theft of thousands of government documents.  The order, one sentence long, said:

TRUMP, DONALD J. V. UNITED STATES

The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied.

Even the SCOTUS can occasionally surprise by doing its goddam job.

Last night in Kansas the voters spoke up about the right for women to make their own healthcare decisions without interference from politicians.  Turning out like never before, voters struck down Republican efforts to strike abortion rights from the state constitution and impose a strict ban that would cost lives.  This election was the bell cow for other states that were trying to do the same thing.  Had pro-choice efforts failed here, it would have cast a dark cloud over vast areas of the entire country as ideologues imposed their religion and dogma over tens of millions of women and their families.

More significant, Republican legislators cheated their asses off to get the result they wanted, making their loss even more sweet. Kansas Republicans had already put this measure onto the ballot for the PRIMARY election where no Democrats were running, hoping that they could ban abortion under the radar in a low turnout election.  After the SCOTUS stupidly and wrongly struck down Roe, that strategy went out the window, and Kansas became the focus of national attention.  That attention drew a turnout estimated at 54%, almost 20% higher than typical primaries, and more important, the measure was struck down in red areas of the state by almost 20% higher than Trump received in 2020.  What this tells us is that not only are abortion rights strongly supported by those who vote Democratic, it’s also supported by Republicans.

What happened last night is the logical result of gross overreach which always happens when politics are dominated by one party.  The Republicans should learn a lesson from this (but they won’t) that overplaying your hand can be costly.  With issues as important as Constitutional rights under threat, Americans who are normally asleep at the wheel wake up and actually vote.  We saw that during the Viet Nam war, after Watergate, after Bush’s foray into Iraq, with veteran’s healthcare just this week, and now women’s right to choose.

Hopefully this motivation to the polls sticks for the November mid-terms and beyond.  The only way our government works is for elected representatives to be held accountable to the voters for corruption and power grabs.  The GOP has proven itself to be irresponsible and callous to the needs of its voters.  It’s long past time for local, state, and federal governments to be brought back to actually representing the people.  ALL the people.

You’ll recall that in the last session, Texas passed another stupid law, trying to make it illegal to take down inflammatory and false rhetoric from social media platforms.  They were targeting Facebook and Twitter, which, after years of comatose moderation FINALLY started taking down posts from white supremacists, insurrectionists, QAnon enthusiasts, and other weirdos pumping manure to the public.  The court blocked the law in a mixed opinion with the liberal justices, except for Kagen, plus Roberts making the ruling with the conservatives (and Kagen) voting no.  It was a relief, but it’s not over as the court sent the case back to the courts.

But that’s not the interesting part.  What’s interesting was Alito’s dissent.  He took the same side that he did in the Texas Bounty law on abortion, wanting to have a clearly unconstitutional law stand while it wound its way through the courts; but this time he said that the court will have to visit this case at some point. In his opinion he said:

“This application concerns issues of great importance that will plainly merit this court’s review,” he wrote. “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news. At issue is a groundbreaking Texas law that addresses the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day.”

I agree that laws like this that threaten what little is left of civility in public debate are important, but I find it interesting that Alito is most concerned about social media moderation but is OK with taking away the right to vote and women’s rights to choose their own healthcare, while at the same time taking a completely hands off approach to gerrymandering, the greatest clear and present danger to the survival of our democracy.

The court’s problem is much larger than this particular opinion, and adds fuel to the fire that millions of Americans see the court now as illegitimate; I most certainly do, especially after the latest Trump/McConnell court packing that’s happened over the last decade.  The conservative super majority is cemented in now for future decades and that was accomplished by McConnell’s blatant cheating seeking retribution for Bork’s rejection by Democrats decades ago.  The court has transformed our country from a teetering and weak democracy to an oligarchy that protects the rich at the cost of everyone else.  The court now rules almost 90% in favor of corporations and has completely failed at its main responsibility, protecting the rule of law.

I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

It’s now been a week since the communications office of the Supreme Court announced that Clarence Thomas had been hospitalized “for an infection” and that he would go home in a few days.  That few days has now expanded to a full week, and repeated attempts by the press to get more information on him have been met with silence.  This is one of the most odd set of circumstances about the health of a SCOTUS justice that I can recall, especially after the detailed blow by blow reporting from the court about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health in the few years before she passed away in 2020.

Coincidently, news is breaking daily about the deep involvement of Thomas’ wife, Ginni, in the effort to overturn the US presidential election in order to illegally keep Trump in office after he lost.  It turns out that not only did she attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6th, she communicated extensively with Mark Meadows and others in the conspiracy to overturn the election by amplifying lies about non-existent voter fraud.  Apparently there were 29 texts between them from the election to January 10, 2021.  She also communicated with other like minded folks in Trumpland including Jared Kushner.

Not coincidently, Justice Thomas voted against the other 8 justices when the court refused to intervene in the order to release Trump’s WH records.  He also wrote a dissent when the Court declined to hear the Pennsylvania case that was seeking to disqualify mail-in ballots in that state.  Ginni Thomas also publicly supported expelling Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the RNC when they voted to impeach Trump in the second impeachment and then joined the January 6th Committee.  In her texts to others in Trumpland, she also repeated QAnon bullshit conspiracy theories, loudly proclaiming the election was stolen and supporting the lawyers spreading the lies.  Worse, she has Justice Thomas’ ear 24/7/365 and even mentioned to Meadows in one text that she was talking to her “best friend” about how the election was stolen.  Not coincidently, her “best friend” has ruled 100% in Trump’s favor in cases brought before him.

The stink of the Thomases’ corruption just adds to the existing stench of the cheating and partisanship that has finally overtaken the Court since McConnell successfully stole Merrick Garland’s seat and then rammed through the nominations of Kavanaugh and Barrett, clearly unqualified nominees.  The Court has been rapidly undoing decades of precedent in many areas with particular focus on taking away a woman’s right to seek her own healthcare and making it harder for non-Republicans to vote.  John Roberts has been concerned about the eroding public confidence in the Court, and with good reason.  In a recent Gallup survey, confidence in the Court has declined to a low point of 40%.  Twenty years ago, confidence was as high as 62%.

Is it merely coincidence that Justice Thomas has suddenly dropped off the face of the earth as the scandal of his wife’s deep involvement in the insurrection comes to light?  I think not.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a sudden retirement from the bench to avoid what looks to be the first impeachment case built against a SCOTUS justice.  Nothing else explains the deafening silence about Thomas’s supposed health problem and hospitalization.  We’ll be watching this one closely.