In his explosive draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which was leaked to Politico, Justice Samuel Alito overrules Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. His draft holds that abortion is no longer a constitutional right and leaves the fate of those who seek abortions to the vagaries of state laws. “We therefore hold that the Constitution does not… Read more »
Category: Supreme Court
GOP Senators Use Jackson Hearing to Agitate Their Base Before Election Campaigns
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is inching toward confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice after sailing with strength and grace through days of racist and disrespectful attacks by GOP senators. Conservative Democrat Joe Manchin has now signaled that he will vote to confirm Jackson, showing that the often fractured Democratic senators are uniting to support her confirmation…. Read more »
Supreme Court Says Torture at CIA Black Site Is a “State Secret”
Abu Zubaydah, whom the CIA once mistakenly alleged was a top al-Qaeda leader, was waterboarded 80+ times, subjected to assault in the form of forced rectal exams, and exposed to live burials in coffins for hundreds of hours. Zubaydah sobbed, twitched and hyperventilated. During one waterboarding session, he became completely unresponsive, with bubbles coming out… Read more »
Biden Should Replace Breyer With a True Progressive
As we await President Joe Biden’s nomination to fill the Supreme Court seat that Stephen Breyer will vacate this summer, many commentators are saying the nominee will not alter the ideological balance of the court. The 6 to 3 split in favor of the right-wingers will not change. But each new member transforms the dynamics… Read more »
Republicans, Aided by Manchin and Sinema, Are Stonewalling Voting Rights Bill
“The denial of this sacred right [to vote] is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition,” Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1957. Now, on January 18, 2021 — one day after we celebrated King’s birthday and one year after a mob of right-wing Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempt… Read more »
Conservatives on Supreme Court Poised to Block Biden’s Vaccine and Mask Mandates
Despite the fact that we are in the midst of an unprecedented and deadly pandemic with no signs of abating, the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court appears unlikely to stop the carnage. The reactionary “justices” seem more inclined to shield corporate profits and red states’ rights than to protect the health and safety of… Read more »
For the First Time, Supreme Court Is Poised to Retract a Fundamental Right
For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court is poised to take away a fundamental right from more than half of the people in the country. The Court’s December 1 oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization confirmed what progressives have feared since former President Donald Trump added three radical right-wingers to the court: The… Read more »
SCOTUS Likely to Allow Challenge to Texas Law, But May Still Overturn “Roe”
Texas’s draconian anti-abortion law remained in effect as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on November 1 about whether it could be challenged in court. Known as the “Texas Heartbeat Law,” Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) outlaws all abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, generally after six weeks of pregnancy when most people don’t… Read more »
Justice Department Fights Back Against Texas Anti-Abortion Law
The Supreme Court’s greenlighting of the most draconian anti-abortion law in the country has had the right wing’s “desired effect of deterring abortion providers from offering virtually any abortions” in Texas since September 1, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). S.B. 8 prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before most people even know they’re pregnant…. Read more »
SCOTUS Ruling Allows Texas to Deputize Citizens as Anti-Abortion Police
Donald Trump’s installation of three radical right-wing “justices” on the Supreme Court is paying off for the forces trying to overturn Roe v. Wade. On September 1, in a 5-4 vote, the high court allowed the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country to go into effect, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson. SB 8, known as the “Texas… Read more »