Who's a Threat to US National Security?

By David Bloviator
Political Editor

Which political party can you trust to protect the United States from its foes, foreign and domestic?

The answer is obvious, right?  Let's see what the polls say:

Whiskey tango foxtrot?

Before you say it's Fox “News,” we'd point out their polling unit is well respected and often accurate, which is why the rest of the Fox hatemongers have no use for it.  If they say that Republicans have an eight point edge on foreign policy, we're inclined to believe it (at least before we learned that the leader of the Republican Party stole and hid the most sensitive national security secrets we have, to the cheers of his grovelling Republican tongue-bathers.)

The party that in this century alone brought you a useless bloody war in Iraq that turned the country into a failed Iran-dominated shell of a state, to our detriment, and then followed that performance by electing a Russian asset who collaborated with Putin throughout his Presidency and stole highly classified secrets to at best use as blackmail and at worse as a cash cow?

That Republican Party?

If you take the longer view, though, there's a reason for the longstanding Republican advantage on national security despite being falsified by pretty much every fact since 1968. 

The reason is that for at least that long (actually, since 1948), Republicans have successfully smeared Democrats as weak on national security, whether the threat was the Communist menace, the terrorist menace or the menace of desperate refugees along the Rio Grande seeking to exercise their right to asylum.  The threat morphs but the story stays the same: Democrats are at best weak and at worst unpatriotic.

This is the attack line even when reality is diametrically opposed.  When  a Democratic Vietnam War hero ran against a Republican draft-dodging coke-snorting ne'er-do-well, the Republicans invented a ridiculous fiction smearing the war hero as just the opposite.  

And when the draft-dodger was elected by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court, he then proceeded to drop the ball when warned of the clear and present danger of al-Qaeda terror attacks in the United States.  Al-Qaeda attacked just as warned and instead of being held accountable for their fecklessness, we got this  instead:

And the little man in the flight suit, under the direction of Deadeye Dick Cheney proceeded first to turn victory into defeat in Afghanistan and then tear up Iraq on transparently false pretenses.  The resulting power vacuum, in addition to costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, led to the strengthening of Iran and the creation of an oil-fueled failed state in the heart of the Middle East.  That's not much of a reason to trust Republicans with U.S. national security, but the myth persists.

We think it persists because the Republicans have been so ruthlessly pounding away at Democratic “weakness” ever since Dean Acheson and College of Cowardly Communist Containment “lost” China like a vagrant sock.

And because Democrats have been so bad at fighting back.  Their first instinct was to prove they could fight Communism by waging pointless bloody wars in Asia.  That didn't work out so well, especially for the Asians.

Their second instinct has been to hand over their lunch money, thereby locking themselves permanently into the myth that Democrats can't be trusted to protect national security.

On the rare occasions they have fought back, the results were gratifying.  Remember in 2008 when John McCain tried to play the card against Barack Obama because, one, he was a Democrat, and, two, just look at him?  Here's what President Obama had to say:

Well, you know, Sen. McCain, in the last debate and today, again, suggested that I don't understand. It's true. There are some things I don't understand.

I don't understand how we ended up invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, while Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are setting up base camps and safe havens to train terrorists to attack us.

That was Sen. McCain's judgment and it was the wrong judgment.

When Sen. McCain was cheerleading the president to go into Iraq, he suggested it was going to be quick and easy, we'd be greeted as liberators.

That was the wrong judgment, and it's been costly to us.

Obama went on to do what the Bush Administrations flubbed: removing Osama bin-Laden as a threat. However, Republicans, blinded by hate, played the national security card to keep the lawless detention center in Guantanamo Bay, weakening the United States by maintaining for no reason a symbol of American contempt for international law and order.

More recently, President Biden stated the uncontroversial view that the Republican insurrectionists seeking a mass mobilization to overthrow democracy and replace it with a reactionary kleptocracy were “semi-Fascist.”

Republicans used to think that being soft on Russia was bad

The response from the semi-Fascists has been the usual Republican performance of fake outrage, combined with brilliant historical rejoinders along the lines of “Are you saying that a violent movement embraced by millions of Republicans is fascist?”  Got it in one!

The blunt statement of an inconvenient truth is great for rallying the Democratic base, but for really peeling away the Republican red, white and blue veneer, you need to move the middle ground of the electorate, the same one that for half a century believes against all evidence that the party of Nixon, Agnew, Ollie North, Sarah Palin, Tomatoe Quayle and Dead-eye Dick Cheney is the Party of National Security.

The news that the Tangerine-Faced Traitor a/k/a the Leader of His Party stole reams of sensitive intelligence and secreted it in the basement of his Florida hash house between the liquor bottles and pool towels and then lied about has not landed well with anyone not a semi-Fascist.  And it's even caused many who fit that description to suddenly pipe down.  (Calling Cancun, come in Cancun, calling Sen. Cruz.)

But if Democrats really want to close the public perception gap, why not make the obvious point that no party led by a person with so little regard for the defense of the U.S. can be entrusted to protect us?

There are maybe two problems.  First, Dems don't really like wrapping themselves in the flag, which Republicans have used, and therefore the progressive wing recognizes, as a cover for white supremacy among other forms of bigotry.

Secondly, they've never done it, so they don't have the invective at hand.  We can help, by repurposing some of the most rancid Republican attacks and smears on generations of patriotic Democrats (remember the 2004 Republican Conventioneers happily mocking John Kerry's Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in military service 12,000 miles away from where George W. Bush won his dental health medal for service in the Alabama National Guard?).

Here are just three attack lines, repurposed from their bastard Republican birth:

Republicans – the party of amnesty and abortion!  That was one of 1972's greatest hits.  What kind of party promotes amnesty for a dangerous corrupt subversive who has tried to overthrow the U.S. government, helped a Russian dictator whitewash interference in U.S. political affairs, and stole highly-classified sensitive documents in violation of among other criminal statutes the Espionage Act? 

And abortion.  Abortion.  Abortion.  Abortion.  Let's see how Republicans like it when they get to defend forced birth every day, at every campaign stop, and in every interview with a member of the real news media.

Oh, by the way, abortion.

Republicans coddle Communists. This was the heart of Ronald Reagan's national security pitch in 1984, in a successful effort to distract the nation from his pointless disastrous forays in Lebanon and Nicaragua.   Anyone who opposed his love of random shoot-'em-ups was weak on Russia and Communism.  

Commie coddler? Love it!

Is there any doubt which party is squishy-soft on Russia?  Despite their votes to ship some arms to Ukraine, on the number one national security issue of our time – protecting the U.S. against Russian subversion – the Republican have sided over and over again with Putin's Russian agents, and in fact support installing a known Russian stooge and former President as the next one despite overwhelming and unrefuted public evidence of collusion.  See, e.g., Mueller Report, Vol. I.

Republicans support a candidate who openly solicited Russian hacking and election subversion, whose campaign conspired with Russian agents by sharing confidential campaign information with them and watering down a pro-Ukrainian plank in the 2016 platform.  Later that same Russian agent echoed Putin's incredible denial of that interference, tried to destroy NATO, the successful anti-Russian defensive alliance, and stole highly classified documents, which he stored in a golf club penetrated by Chinese and Russian agents.

You can't trust a party who promotes and defends an agent of Russian Communism (what would you call a regime where all economic assets are under the control, political and economic, of a tyrant like Putin?).

Republicans won't protect us against terrorists

Maybe Joe Biden could drive the point home by flying to Berlin and telling Vladimir Putin to tear down his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Republicans won't protect us from dangerous terrorists who want to attack the homeland.  Remember the little man in the flight suit pictured above?  You may not believe it, but he beat a real war hero in 2004 not only by smearing that hero as a coward and traitor, but also by branding said hero's entire party as too weak on homeland security.  In 2004, Flight Suit Guy and his wingman Dead-eye Dick Cheney ran for re-election by claiming that a Democratic win would lead to an America overrun by terrorists.

Here's ol' Deadeye:

Cheney was criticized in September for saying about this election “if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.” ...

“It’s very important that we choose someone who understands the nature of the enemy we face, who understands the depth of the commitment needed in order to defeat it, who understands that we’re far better off taking them on over there than we are fighting them on the streets of our own cities,” Cheney told a group of supporters last week in Michigan.

Absent an ongoing offensive against terrorists such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney said, “terrorists will grow only more determined … and the risk will increase that they’ll get their hands on deadlier weapons than anything we’ve seen yet.” And at a rally earlier this month in this Green Bay suburb, Cheney accused Kerry of “a record of weakness and a strategy of retreat” on national security.

Now the terrorists aren't scary brown people from Iraq (actually, they were from Saudi Arabia, a fact that ol' Dead-Eye invariably overlooked).  Instead, they're home grown.  And sure enough, Republicans are encouraging domestic terrorists to attack the very foundations of our country again, just as they did on January 6:

Graham says there will be riots in the streets if Trump is prosecuted pic.twitter.com/oE6MyuqjeA

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 28, 2022

 Republicans are doing nothing to protect our democracy from being overturned by violent rampaging mobs incited by the leader of their party.  They are even using threats of further mob violence to obstruct justice and threaten law enforcement, whom they used to back when they were shooting Black women in their beds.

Elect Republicans and the domestic terrorists will grow only more determined and, if the Republican-bent Supreme Court has its way, the risk will increase that they'll get their hands on weapons deadlier than anything we've seen yet in a school shooting.

That should work.

Oh, and don't forget, abortion.

Hot off the Trail: Campaigning Like It's 1932

By Political Editor David Bloviator with Correspondents Nellie Bly in Cleveland, Ida Tarbell in Phoenix, Jenny Birk in Tampa, Florida, and Mike Connor in Harrisburg, New Jersey [Are you sure about that one? – Ed.]

The midterm elections are “right before” us, as noted by a Florida sex offender and target of multiple criminal investigations (Actually, they are almost three months away), so we thought it was time to rev up the ace Spy Political Team to hit the hustings and give us the low down on how things are going.

Actually, not too badly.  The disastrous campaign of famous New Jersey snake oil salesman Mehmet Oz is, like the victims of his ridiculous body cleanse programs, sh***ing all over itself.  Not doing much better is venture capitalist and sock puppet for fascist financier J.D. Vance in Ohio, once thought of as a sure Republican hold.  The House still looks like an uphill fight but there are reasons for hope.

Unfortunately for those with a shred of empathy, the hope is based on Sullen Sam Alito's principle-free reversal of Roe and subsequent Red State outrages like forcing women to give birth to severely defective fetuses with no chance of meaningful life.  Amazingly enough (to Republicans, that is) the unspeakably cruel assault on desperate women is not going too well, at least among women.

Here's some recent polling from of all places, Fox ‘News’ (to be fair, their polling unit unlike their anchors deals in reality) in the hotly-contested Wisconsin Senate race:

Almost a fifth of the electorate names abortion as their number one issue.   In that cohort, the breakdown looks not too terrific for Republican dimwit Ron “Take my fake electors, please” Johnson:

For decades Republicans have been able to gin up their white supremacist/Christian extremist base by bravely opposing abortion rights, safe in the knowledge that those rights were protected by the Supreme Court.  Now the dog has caught the car and the results don't look too good.

But as the poll itself properly suggests, there are other issues on the ballot as well, like the future if any of American democracy.  Here Republicans have taken a clear and forthright stand: they're against it.

They make their views plain in all sorts of ways.  This week, when anti-democratic Ron DeathSantis (R – Pandemic) decided to lend a hand to the floundering finagler in Ohio, J.D. Vance, the sponsors of their little get-together decided the last thing they needed was a free press covering the event.

Here's how the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the last remaining newspaper in Northeast Ohio [Louise, please check – Ed.] , put it:

Those pesky reporters – what are they whining about this time?

The worst of the rules was one prohibiting reporters from interviewing attendees not first approved by the organizers of the event for DeSantis and Vance. When we cover events, we talk to anyone we wish. It’s America, after all, the land of free speech. At least that’s America as it exists today. Maybe not the America that would exist under DeSantis and Vance.

Think about what they were doing here. They were staging an event to rally people to vote for Vance while instituting the kinds of policies you’d see in a fascist regime. A wannabe U.S. Senator, and maybe a wannabe president.

Another over-the-top rule was one reserving the right to receive copies of any video shot of the event for promotional use. That’s never okay. News agencies are independent of the political process. We do not provide our work product to anyone for promotional use. To do so would put us in league with people we cover, destroying our credibility....

Anyway, we didn’t accept the limitations, because they end up skewing the facts. If we can speak only with attendees chosen by the candidate, we don’t get a true accounting of what people thought of the event. You get spin from the most ardent supporters.

Isn't stealing private property (like photos and video footage) what they do in Socialist dictatorships like Venezuela and Cuba?

The Republicans didn't invent demonizing the press

But these tactics are right out of DeathSantis's anti-democracy playbook.  While not persecuting people for thinking they could vote merely because Florida voters passed a referendum allowing them to (or the registrar said they could), he's been shutting the independent media out of covering his Huey Long-like Reign of Terror in Florida (although to be fair to Huey Long, he tried to make his constituents healthier, not sicker):

When Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new bill Thursday morning to change mail-in voting in Florida, the only television cameras allowed to capture the moment belonged to FOX News.

Outside, reporters and videographers from local news outlets were told the ceremonial bill signing was an “exclusive” for FOX & Friends, the conservative network’s morning show. DeSantis confirmed as much later in the day. 

So the Miami Herald, the largest newspaper in the state, couldn't attend a public function. And if you're a member of an opposition party who dares to attend a public event at which a public official is speaking, well...

Jackboot autocrat. Orban wannabe. https://t.co/GGag0r6fgj

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) August 21, 2022

Norman Ornstein?  We're so old we remember when Norman Ornstein was considered a mainstream figure.  Guess the mainstream, like the Colorado River, has shrunk to a puddle.

The demonizing of a free press has been a Republican talking point since before 2016, despite the legions of Republican shills who whine otherwise.  Remember Agnew inveighing against “nattering nabobs of negativism” in between trousering thick envelopes of dirty money?  Or flacks for George W. Bush boasting about they refused The New York Times' request for a Presidential interview for eight years? 

But undermining a free press isn't just a cute Republican affectation that you can forget about in your post-Bush career as an adorable anchor for MSNBC.  There's no democracy without a free press because voters can't decide for whom to vote unless they know what tf is going on.

As the illustration above suggests, undermining and attacking a free press isn't the only analogue between 1932 and 2022.  There's also ... the Jewish Question.

A standard Republican attack on any Democratic candidate or idea is that they are it are backed by...George Soros.  George Soros is a rich guy and Hungarian Holocaust survivor who supports Democrats.  To Republicans, he's Jewy Jewison, according to the Forvitz:

Florida governor Ron DeSantis suspended state attorney Andrew Warren and mocked him as a “Soros-backed state attorney” on Thursday over Warren’s refusal to prosecute charges related to abortion and gender affirming care for minors.

Typical Democrat

Soros, a billionaire and philanthropist, has often been invoked as an antisemitic dog whistle, standing in, as a Vox article noted in 2018, for the longstanding antisemitic trope “of the scheming Jewish billionaire, without any real (i.e., blood) loyalty to the country that allows him to be a citizen, actively seeking to undermine white Christian unity.”

A prolific political donor, Soros is connected to Warren through his donations to the Florida Democratic party, which the party in turn disperses to its candidates, possibly including Warren. ... During the 2016 race, per the Times, supporters of Warren’s Republican opponent spread rumors about the extent of Soros’ involvement on Warren’s behalf in an effort to damage his campaign.

Conspiracy theories about Soros, the Forward noted in 2020, “seem to be born of the antisemitic trope that there is some rich, shadowy Jewish figure who is responsible for the country’s perceived problems.”

In addition to DeSantis’ comments, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake this week suggested on Steve Bannon’s far-right podcast that diplomat Cindy McCain and Soros are co-conspiring to “destroy America.” ...

So the Republican mainstream's brightest hope for a post-Tangerine-Faced Traitor renaissance hates not only democracy and free press, but Jews. Seems like kind of a loser in Florida, but what do we know?

Hatred of Jews seems to be popping up all over the Republican Party. Let's go to Pennsylvania, where insurrectionist whack job Doug Mastriano is counting on anti-Semites to get him over the line.  And guess who's right there with him:

Mr. Mastriano...is a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. His campaign was recently swept by controversy over efforts to recruit supporters on the social media site Gab, a haven for white nationalists and antisemites.

Mr. Mastriano’s Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, began airing ads this week invoking the man accused of killing 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, after posting antisemitic vitriol on Gab. Mr. Mastriano distanced himself from Gab last month, saying he rejected “antisemitism in any form.”

Jewish Democratic leaders in Florida criticized Mr. DeSantis’s planned appearance with Mr. Mastriano in the same city as the Tree of Life synagogue.

“When Ron DeSantis goes to Pennsylvania to campaign for Mastriano, what he’s doing is he’s encouraging all of the bigotry,” said Rabbi Mark Winer, the president of the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus.

Of course, you can expect the good mainstream Republicans in moderate Pennsylvania to reject anyone who embraces anti-Semitic extremists, right?

Wrong, according to the often-reliable New York Times:

And here's one more pogrom in the making, from deep in America's thirsty hellscape, also known as Arizona:

Arizona will seldom have moments of clarity like this, so let’s get to the brutal facts.

One of our two-major party candidates for governor has just endorsed a man who hates Jewish people, despises gay people and wants no Black or brown immigrants in this country.

Jarrin Jackson is no casual bigot. He has produced such a stream of internet bile he can only be seen as a committed anti-Semite, homophobe and racist – one of the most vile people in political life, unfit for government and unwelcome in polite society.

And yet Jarrin Jackson, Republican candidate for the Oklahoma state Senate, tweeted on Wednesday that he has won the endorsement of Kari Lake, Arizona Republican candidate for governor. There he was photoshopped together with the smiling Lake, two peas in a tweet.

"I am honored to be endorsed by the #AmericaFirst (and Trump-endorsed) warrior who drained the McCain swamp in Arizona and is now the GOP nominee for governor in Arizona – Kari Lake. She is a rising star and her endorsement is a big deal! Thank you, Kari!"

That comment appeared in the far-left rag, The Arizona Republic.  It is not owned by George Soros.

It's almost as if anti-Semitism is as Republican as their other passions: insurrection, racism, and torturing women.

So if it's beginning to sound like a German election in 1932, remember the lesson of that history: whether the Jew-hating insurrectionists doing business as the Republican Party prevail or not is matter of whose will is stronger: theirs.

Or yours. 

Why We Can't Have Nice Things Part III: The Anti-Federalist Papers

By Publius XVI
of the Board of Editors

We've been away.  Any news?

We don't know much about Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence, having been kicked out of a CIA briefing in 1982, so we'll leave all the learned commentary on the latest felonies of the Tangerine-Faced Grifter to those qualified to speak to it, on the one hand, and to his remaining media shills and co-conspirators, on the other.  

Instead, we have some thoughts about one deeply buried news item that caught our eye:

The face of federalism

Gov. Tate Reeves on Wednesday said he’s “pushing back on the left” by pulling Mississippi out of a federal pandemic rental assistance program and plans to send any unspent dollars back to Washington....

Advocates who help people with rental assistance said Reeves’ decision will hurt Mississippians — many of whom are working but struggling to pay all of their living expenses.

“This is not a good day,” said Gwen Bouie-Haynes, the executive director of the National Association of Social Workers-Mississippi Chapter, which has helped residents sign up for the program. “… This will result in more people living on the street in Jackson and across the state of Mississippi.”

Reeves’s office said the program has about $130 million remaining....

In February, Mississippi Today reported, based on information provided by the Home Corporation, that 66% of the applicants approved to receive funds through the program were employed, and the majority are Black and female.

The latest U.S. Census data available, for the week ending July 11, showed that 44.5% of adult Mississippians surveyed reported being behind on their rent or mortgage, with eviction or foreclosure in the next two months being either very likely or somewhat likely.

At the same time period last year, 60.5% reported eviction or foreclosure as likely. At times during the pandemic, Mississippi led the nation in the percentage of people reporting likelihood of eviction or foreclosure.

So, to sum up: a white Republican is turning down free Federal money to punish and immiserate his poor constituents, many of them Black and most of them working for poverty wages.

How could this happen?  We've talked about the obvious answer: racism.  But there's another, less obvious answer: federalism.

Hey, where you going?  Federalism may sound boring, but if you're a poor Mississippi family evicted and living in a tent, not so much!

Now in most countries, when the nation decides that it needs to give poor people money to pay their rent, it does so.  But in our glorious republic, we have an entirely separate and sovereign layer of government, called “states.” 

Those of you who live in states like California, Texas, or Florida may not even notice,  But if you have tried to move from state to state and practice your profession or drive a car, you have.  And it was a moderate to gigantic pain in the ass, for no gain to you or your country.  

So why do we have these idiotic states?  We'll offer two answers: one, we always have; and, two, it serves the interests of rich white male racists.

Let's start with Mississippi Governor Alfred E. Neuman on steroids.  Who is this guy?  He's the latest in a long line of white Republican racist stooges installed by the local white elite to keep poor people in their place.  (Tossing poor Mississippians into the streets instead of accepting free money being just one example. )

You'll be shocked, shocked to learn that he doesn't think racism is a systemic problem in America, or in his Old Confederacy:

She...asks Reeves to weigh in.

He gives the correct response, in the sense that a Republican speaking to Laura Ingraham on Fox News is expected to give a particular response: There is no systemic racism in America.

Reeves has had a pretty good week. In addition to his Fox News appearance, he got Monday off since it was a state holiday: Confederate Memorial Day. In fact, he was speaking to Fox at the tail end of what he on April 7 declared to be Confederate Heritage Month. April, according to the proclamation obtained by the Mississippi Free Press, should be a period in which Mississippians “honor all who lost their lives in this war” and to “come to a full understanding that the lessons learned yesterday and today will carry us through tomorrow if we carefully and earnestly strive to understand and appreciate our heritage.”

Coming back soon

There will be people who argue that this holiday [is] an effort to learn from the past, they might say, not an endorsement of it. One might claim that there's nothing inherently racist about celebrations of the Confederacy (which this obviously is), perhaps because they view the Civil War as being centered not on slavery but on, say, states' rights.

That particular argument is undercut fairly robustly by the fact that Mississippi state law mandates the holiday, one of three Confederacy-related state holidays on the calendar. It is clear that the system in Mississippi encourages a generous view of the Confederacy, a rebellion against the United States that was predicated on the enslavement of Black people. 

It's almost like the whole structure of states' rights was invented to keep the national government from protecting its Black citizens from continuing racism and discrimination, as indeed was the case from 1876 through 1964.

But federalism isn't only a matter of screwing Black people for no reason other than racist vindictiveness (remember, this was federal money Mississippi refused to dole out).  Thanks to six bent Republicans, including two sex offenders, on the Supreme Court, your state of residence can mean the difference between life and freedom or death and carrying your rapist's child. 

A woman who is ten weeks pregnant in Kansas City, Kansas can obtain a safe, legal medication abortion.  Thanks to Smarmy Sam Alito and his henchmen, another woman who lives a mile away in Kansas City, Missouri, can be tried and convicted for that same safe easy medical procedure.  Or she could start to miscarry and die of sepsis before Missouri would permit a life-saving abortion.  That's federalism, at least according to our current Supreme Court.

Or worse.

The white male slaveholders who dominated the Constitutional Convention of 1787 inserted a clause designed in large part to give slave states the power to reach into free states and get their property, which we thought of as human beings, back.

According to Article IV, Section 2:

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

So let's say our unfortunate Missouri resident flees the state one step ahead of the law and arrives safely in Massachusetts. Having been charged with a crime by Missouri, the courts of Massachusetts have no choice but to lock her up (sound familiar) and ship her back to Missouri.

But wait, there's more!

The forced-birth states are busily passing laws outlawing assisting a woman in obtaining an abortion, even if that assistance comes from out of state.  There is nothing to prevent the creative minds of legislators in those states from making such assistance a criminal offense.  When that happens, under the current Supreme Court's understanding of federalism, there is nothing to prevent Missouri from indicting a doctor or clinic in Massachusetts that mails abortion pills into Missouri, and then demanding that the doctor be “delivered up.”

What is to be done?  We can't very well get rid of states, as much as we would like.  But from 1937 through about 2000, it was commonly understood that the Fourteenth Amendment, passed following a Civil War started and prosecuted by slave states asserting their supposed right to make war on the United States, protected us from the worst excesses of federalism.

Under that understanding, certain rights, even if not explicitly stated in the general terms of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, were held safe from state interference.  And the federal government was allowed to tell states what they had to do to get federal dollars (like pass along housing assistance to poor Mississippians). That all changed thanks to the Republican-nobbled Supreme Court.

But what a nobbled bent Court can do, a reconstituted Court can undo.  And if we get just a few more Democratic Senators, we can unpack and unbend the Court and put the states back in their bottles.

All we have to do give a f***.