These f**kin' guys, Ch. 39,255

By A.J. Liebling
Meta-Content Generator with
Justice Correspondent Scott V. Sandford

For fifty years, the Republican Party, at first cynically and then because it had been captured by Christian dominionist reactionaries, has packed the courts with anti-abortion zealots eager to send women back to the days of Lysol and coathanger abortions.

Last week they succeeded.  

In an unsigned opinion whose cowardice was only exceeded by its legal incoherence, five Republican Justices, including two sex offenders, decided they would not stay the enforcement of the Texas abortion bounty hunter act even as they acknowledged it might well be unconstitutional under current Supreme Court precedent.

Why?, you may ask.

Here's the totality of the legal reasoning that these five cowardly extremists offered to the millions of Texas women now denied their Constitutional right to abortion, as summarized by Justice Sotomayor:“Today, the Court belatedly explains that it declined to grant relief because of procedural complexities of the State’s own invention.”

Oh. 

Billy Kristol joins the Resistance

But courts have the power to enjoin state action pending judicial review precisely to allow them to sort out these daunting procedural or any other complexities while not burdening those whose Constitutional rights may be being taken away.

And we're not going to dive too deep into the ridiculous effort by Texas Republicans to immunize their anti-abortion bounty-hunter law from federal judicial review, except to point out that there is nothing that bars a federal court from enjoining the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute by prohibiting state officials, like judges and clerks, from doing so.   

The Supreme Court actually said so, when it held in 1948 that state court judges could not enforce racist deed covenants: “State action, as that phrase is understood for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, refers to exertions of state power in all forms. And when the effect of that action is to deny rights subject to the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is the obligation of this Court to enforce the constitutional commands.”  Shelly v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 20 (1948).

Anyway, our point here is not to belabor the ludicrously slender rationale offered by the five reactionaries after Justice Sotomayor blew it to bits.  Instead, we want to focus on a subsequent outrage: the cries of ex-Republican bloviators and gasbags that after decades of working to empower the Republican Party and all it stands for, they are shocked, shocked to discover that their Party oppresses women.

Our first example is Billy “Wrong About Everything” Kristol, who has taken to Twitter to express his undying solidarity with the women of Texas:

Shouldn't the Texas bounty hunters be able to go after a man suspected of impregnating a woman now seeking an abortion? He would have "knowingly engage[d] in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” Odd how the man--the father--gets off scot free.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 4, 2021

Speaking of men getting off scot-free, let's remind ourselves of Billy Kristol's sordid past.  For decades, he's carried the bags for a miserable lot of Republicans all of whom devoted themselves to telling women what they could do with their own reproductive systems.  He was really hoping they would invade every country in the Middle East to show how big and strong we are (and how did that turn out, Billy?).

Kristol loyally served anti-abortion VP Dan Quayle

But among other postings, he was the Chief of Staff for dumb as a bag of hammers Vice President Dan “Potatoe” Quayle.  Quayle was added to the Republican ticket to appease hard-right zealots unsure of George H.W. Bush's fidelity to their core principles, like denying women the right to a safe and legal abortion.

Here's Kristol's former boss on the topic:

Quayle, who said he opposes abortion except when the mother's life is in jeopardy, made the statement when reporters here asked whether the Maryland woman raped by Massachusetts murderer William Horton Jr. should have given birth to Horton's child if she had become pregnant. He said Horton's 1987 rape while on a prison furlough program approved by Michael S. Dukakis would not have justified an abortion.

Today marked the third time recently that Quayle has said he thinks rape victims should not get abortions if they become pregnant.

Remember all the times that Billy Kristol was so concerned about a woman's right to choose that he criticized his boss for trying to take it away?  Neither do we.

Republican hypocrite #2, come on down!

 

Oh wow - this ad is powerful and likely just the start: https://t.co/5tATulR2vy

— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) September 4, 2021

Oh, wow, has she ever opined on the importance of abortion rights before?  Well, after John Kerry refused to vote for an idiotic bill treating fetuses as persons for the purposes of imposing criminal liability, our staunch protector of women's rights then doing business as George W. Bush's campaign flack had this to say:

''John Kerry began this process as the duckling of the far left and hopes to emerge at his convention as the swan of the heartland,'' Ms. Devenish said. ''Only the truth about his record will prevent this phony makeover of the nation's most out-of-the-mainstream senator.''

Oh, wow, indeed: refusing to vote for an anti-abortion dog whistle made John Kerry out of the mainstream, in which Dan Quayle and Dick Cheney swam so happily?

Fast forward to 2008, when our women's rights heroine was trying to foist Sarah Palin off as qualified to serve as Vice President.  

Her views on a woman's right to choose were clear to even the meanest intelligence (not surprising as they emanated from one):

What part of that did Nicolle Wallace not understand?

Cue Ed McMahon: “Well, that must be every single Republican coatholder, shill, and apologist who pretends they weren't aware of the anti-abortion rights positions of the hacks they so spinelessly supported for decades.  EVERY SINGLE ONE!”

Not so, Republican breath.

We saved the most shameless and odious for last:

.@TheRickWilson: "The Yeehaw Stasi they want to establish down in #Texas to report women for seeking an abortion, it's going to have an eventual blowback." #TheReidOut #reiders pic.twitter.com/yiDLzluUXF

— The ReidOut (@thereidout) September 3, 2021

What has Rick Wilson been doing for his entire political career? If you guessed flacking for odious Republican anti-abortion stooges by smearing their Democratic opponents, you won! 

Wilson got his start in politics as a field director for former President George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. During that campaign, according to CNN, Wilson was mentored by Bush strategist Lee Atwater...

Too bad about those Democrats, Rick

In 2002, Wilson was a media advisor for then-Rep. Saxby Chambliss' U.S. Senate campaign. In one notable ad, Wilson and others in the campaign attacked then-Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) over his votes for funding to the Department of Homeland Security. ...Cleland had pushed to give DHS employees civil service protections, pitting him against President George W. Bush on the issue. But the ad’s copy suggested that he had opposed the creation of the department itself.”

Wilson told the site of the ad's creation, saying, "... It is an ugly ad. It is a hideously looking ad because we wanted people to focus on the votes. The mechanism itself is pretty simple and basic [namely, lying – Ed.]. We knew back then that saying the words ‘against the president’s vital homeland security efforts’ [would work]."...

During the 2008 presidential election, Wilson was responsible for the creation of ads attacking then-Sen. Barack Obama (D) for his relationship with pastor Jeremiah Wright...

 Wilson's firm Intrepid Media also worked for a super PAC in support of Marco Rubio's presidential campaign.

George H.W. Bush?  Who appointed Long Dong Thomas, the deciding vote in the Texas abortion bounty hunter debacle?  All those other Republican hacks who consistently opposed abortion to appease religious extremists?  

Indeed, it's hard to think of any single political consultant who was more responsible for this week's decision than this bombthrower.

And now he's the protector of women's rights?  Hoh-kay.

You might say what's the big deal? If there are scores of Republican bag-carriers who have come over from the dark side, isn't that a good thing? Well, yes and no.

Bringing more folks into the tent is a good thing. But pretending that their 50 years of effort to overturn Roe doesn't really mean anything falsfies history. It was their efforts that brought women to the currtent crisis. Those five Republican clowns didn't drop from heaven, like rain over Mt. Kisco. They were the product of decades of efforts of Rick, Nicolle, and Billy, not to mention many more.

We think that if these ex-Republican bomb throwers really want to be readmitted to the human race, they need to face their sordid pasts honestly and atone for their sins.  It's the right time of year!

And as they continue to earn huge bucks from their current notoriety, it would be only fair of them to contribute some substantial portion of their loot to a fund that flies poor Texas women to states where, at least today, abortion is available.  

The most important lesson from the current debacle is that actions have consequences.  Don't let Billy, Rick, Nicolle, George, Toronto Dave, Meaghan, and all the other f**kin' guys pretend otherwise.