By Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling with
Washington Correspondent Izzy Stone in Chevy Chase, Maryland
In case you were wondering, Chevy Chase, Maryland, across the Northwest border of Washington, D.C., is lovely this time of year. The dogwoods are in bloom, the azaleas are a riot of hot pink and red and the parks are alive with the sounds of – women protesting the imminent loss of their right to a safe, legal abortion in the United States, a right firmly established in law since 1973.
What happened to disturb the sylvan silence of the elegant tree-shaded suburbs of Washington in May?
That well-known straight talking feminist, Jennifer Rubin, explains it all to us:
The Supreme Court’s approval ratings have been in sharp decline for a while. But in revealing itself to be a partisan gang seeking to impose a specific version of Christianity on the rest of America, the court might finally have gone a step too far. The leaked draft opinion foretelling a reversal of Roe v. Wade has boomeranged on the partisan, radical majority.
Partisan majority, eh? That sounds pretty bad. What kind of partisan majority, Jen?
She's too polite to say so but it's a Republican partisan majority: Long Dong Thomas (appointed by Republican Bush Senior), Sulky Sam Alito (appointed by Republican Bush Junior), and the Former Loser Grifter trio: Gorsuch (who filled the seat held open by Moscow Mitch McConnell's refusal to consider a nomination in an election year), Rapey Brett Kavanaugh, and Handmaid Amy (added a few weeks before the 2020 election following Republican willingness to consider, wait for it, a Republican judge in an election year).
Standing off to one side hoping to repeal Roe by weeks, rather than all at once, is the Pride of Harvard, John “Split the Difference” Roberts '76, L'79, also appointed by li'l George.
That's more than 30 years of Republican court-packing. So if you supported Republicans (like Jen!) at any time since 1988, you own a piece of the bloody carnage and ruined lives to come in states where abortion will be outlawed the day the bent Supreme Court issues its final decision.
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| Page A1, July 3, 1991. Who knew? |
In her defense, how could anyone have expected that supporting Republicans running for President and Senate could lead to taking away a fundamental right? It's not like 30 years of Republican hacks were honest about what they were doing. Here's what New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis observed way back when:
Today's George Bush is against abortion. He is in an Administration that has opposed Planned Parenthood and the U.N. world population program because they do not take a rigid view against abortion. His party's platform calls for a Constitutional amendment that would keep any state from allowing women to make the choice.
In the Western democratic world those are extreme positions. Hardly any European country, for example, bars abortion in such absolute terms: not Britain, not Germany, not France, not Spain, not Italy.
What changed Mr. Bush's view? Politics did. He decided that he had to please the extremists of the anti-abortion movement in order to get anywhere in today's Republican Party.
Well, OK, that might have been a clue.
So when he nominated Clarence with the Good Pubic Hair, The New York Times reported that anti-abortion groups were pleased:
Anti-abortion groups hailed the choice, in the apparent belief that Judge Thomas's generally conservative views would lead him to vote for reversal of the 1973 ruling that women have a Constitutional right to abortion.
By the way, that 1991 dispatch was sent over the telegraph wires by Maureen Dowd, who, before her retirement, uh, career as a columnist, was a hard-news Washington beat reporter. Don't worry, we'll get back to Kevin's sister.
Before we do, let's just spend one second on Jennifer Rubin's evaluation of the man who sold out his political principles to curry favor with anti-abortion rights zealots:
Throughout his life [George H.W.] Bush 41 understood that service, country, tradition, the norms of democracy and the Constitution itself come first....If we needed a reminder that Bush 41 will and should rank in the top tier of presidents,...
Sure, Jen.
Next in seniority is Sulky Sam Alito, who actually wrote and perhaps leaked the appalling draft opinion, which relied on the lack of protection for abortion rights in the original Constitution and the musings of the 17th Century advocates of marital rape. What the relevance of these tidbits are to the construction of the term “due process” in the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868) is clear only to Alito and his four henchpeople.
Who could have guessed that Alito would be waiting for Roe with a dagger? Perhaps anyone with a New York Times subscription, which noted at the time of his nomination
Among his noteworthy opinions was his lone dissent in the 1991 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the 3rd Circuit struck down a Pennsylvania law that included a provision requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses.
We won't know where George Junior ranks among great American Presidents according to Jen for a while, as he appears to be hale, hearty, and enjoying toe painting in Dallas. But if you supported his election, like Jen, Nicolle Wallace, or any number of latterly-outraged Republicans, you own the end of the right to abortion.
Speaking of Nicolle, what's she been up to since rioting in Dade County to stop the 2000 Florida recount? She's been thanking pro-abortion rights guests who drop by her daily MSNBC show:
Thank you @CecileRichards https://t.co/ngfMPzCQaf
— Nicolle Wallace (@NicolleDWallace) May 4, 2022
Thank you, Nicolle, for your support of reproductive freedom.
By the way, when your boss George W. Bush was busily scheming to put Roberts (who supposedly wants to overrule Roe but allow abortions up to 15 weeks until the next case, a technique known in legal circles as “boiling the woman like a frog”) and the aforementioned Sulky Sam on the Court, what did you have to say? You'll never guess:
The Bush campaign unveiled a television commercial that questions Mr. Kerry's priorities and attacks him for voting against legislation, since signed into law by the president, that makes it a separate offense to harm the fetus in a federal crime against a pregnant woman....Because the law treats the fetus as a
separate person, its opponents have described it as an effort to roll
back abortion rights....
In a conference call with reporters, Nicolle Devenish [As she was then known – Ed.], the communications director for the Bush campaign, signaled that the commercial would be the start of a concerted effort to counteract what she described as an effort by Mr. Kerry...to reinvent himself.
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| Nicolle Wallace's political views have, um, evolved |
....''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.''
Sounds like she was A-OK with efforts to undermine abortion rights in a close election. Had John Kerry, rather than W., managed to eke out a victory, do you think Sulky Sam would have made it onto the Court?
Any other woman gasbags shocked and horrified to learn that Roe is headed for the dumpster? Kevin Dowd's sister Maureen weighed in:
This week’s stunning reversal on women’s rights is the apotheosis of the last 40 years, through Reagan, Schlafly, Meese, Rehnquist and Scalia, climaxing in Mitch McConnell, who made a Faustian bargain to support chuckleheaded T---- to get a conservative court. Because of McConnell’s machinations blocking Merrick Garland and ramming through Amy Coney Barrett, T---- was able to name three anti-abortion conservatives to the court, all of whom prevaricated under oath before the Senate about their intentions on Roe.
To Maureen, the Republican effort to take away the right to legal abortion had been a clear and present danger for 40 years. Which leads us to wonder: was there any other time before last Sunday when she could have sounded the alarm and led the cheers for Hillary Clinton as the only thing standing between women and forced birth?
They say you can't tell a book by its cover, but let's look at the one for her collected Election 2016 wit and wisdom:
Ha-ha, amirite? How dare Hillary kick a man who, not content to grab women by the pussy, now through his three minions has an iron grip on all of their reproductive organs?
Like the standup gal she is, Maureen blames the current state of abortion-rights advocates on those who failed to sound the warning about what a Former Loser Grifter victory would mean for Roe and women.
Nah, we're just s***in' you. She blames, wait for it, Democrats:
When will the Democrats stop being betas? As an emotional Gavin Newsom said at Planned Parenthood’s L.A. headquarters, “Where the hell’s my party? Where’s the Democratic Party? Why aren’t we standing up more firmly, more resolutely?”
Where was Maureen when standing up more firmly, more resolutely, more unambiguously might have made a difference? And, to ask a question no one cares about, where was brother Kevin?
If Jen, Nicolle, Maureen, and so many others like them are going to sit all night at the Café Republicain flirting with or drinking White Russians and decrying the death of Roe and the imminent deaths of women denied legal abortions, it's only fair to ask them, like Yvonne to Rick, where they were last night.
We already know their answer: “I can't remember that far back.”
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| "Didn't you realize the Republicans wanted to take away your freedom?" |
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