The blond lady is absolutely (drat, can’t say “right” in a political context) CORRECT about what the right did. And if the liberals were like that then, yes, that’s what they should do. But liberals are NOT conservative. They do NOT want a single leader and to accept moral guidance from some church. They feel strongly about FAIR, not so much RIGHT… and so the proposed system isn’t appropriate for liberals.
Note that I don’t know if there even is something that can both promote liberal views and be tolerable to liberals. It may be that we’ve discovered the fatal flaw in democracy: A sufficient cult can overthrow it.
The point about the Federalist Society being a “feeder system” indicates that there has never been a liberal equivalent of today’s Supreme Court. Six of its members are a coterie of partisan hacks and right-wing ideologues, and the sooner and the more progressive Americans start to disregard its dictates the better, it has no legitimacy, as does your country’s claim to be a democracy, at least at the national level. Meanwhile the US increasingly resembles the antebellum US, but with abortion rather than slavery as the focus of conflict.
Netflix boasts that people have cumulatively watched 1,000,000,000 hours of “Stranger Things”. How many hours have people put into human rights? Arresting climate change?
Ted, the difference is (as your ‘toon points out) that liberals, by the very fact that they’re liberals, have neither the patience, the determination, nor the skills necessary to “build a left-wing equivalent of ‘The Federalist Society’”. You know, the whole “Character” thing.
The late, ever-lamented Sir Terry made the point that while leftists are very good at revolutions, we’ve little interest in governing. After we win the revolution, we sit around wondering why the garbage is piling up.
The rightwingers, in contrast, have a passionate interest in governing. They love having and exercising power, and so they’re constantly scheming to get more.
Perfectly stated, Mr. Rall. Although, we can only hope politicians from both sides garner enough fear for their children and their future that they refuse to allow the political carnage from Mitch McConnell and his Republican Party to continue.
And while we’re on the subject, cartoonist par excellence Joe Heller has apparently posted that he’s suspended for having blamed Joe Biden for high gas prices. I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear this news. Joe, you need to stop using the “C” word. You know, “Circus”?
OR you can exercise your right to participate in democracy and elect representatives to congress who will pass legislation making it legal, or even an amendment making it a “right,” like you SHOULD HAVE done the first time around.
But democracy is hard and the outcome is not guaranteed, so please, keep trying to circumvent it via the Court and convince more justices to take away your democratic rights to determine what should be legal and what should be a right.
And.. therein lies the problem. Republican dogma is inherited from one generation to the next. Democrats are more wishy washy and have trouble staying on topic.
Rall makes a good point here. The left does need to learn to organize effectively over the long term, and in a way that appeals to the majority of people. The unions used to be a kind of school for the left, but that’s disappeared now.
@Zomvee’89 – Jewish law says it isn’t a child until it takes its first breath. Jesus never said anything about abortion, but hung around with prostitutes, so one presumes he was aware of the process, and said nothing.
If you really want to get Biblical here, it behooves one to actually READ the thing.
Exodus 21:22-25: “When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges. But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” In other words, forcing a miscarriage does not require the “life for life” requirement. (Of course, Jesus struck all that down with HIS law, but, hey, let’s go all in.)
Ecclesiastes 6:3-5: "If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.” In other words, better to die before birth than live an unhappy life.
Numbers 3:39-40: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Count all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more and make a list of their names.’” This is even beyond birth – a month beyond birth.
Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This is the source of the Jewish law that one is not considered a living soul until you take your first breath.
Numbers 5:27: An actual abortion process is described as necessary if a woman cheats on her husband, performed by the priest!
There really isn’t a left, there are dems trying to hold the country together and repubs who want to destroy democracy because the majority did not vote for their miserable lying, white racism and controlling attitudes.
Biden should simply suspend this Court by declaring it to hopelessly corrupted by politics and declaring its decisions to be null and void. Then he should go on to get a nomination process that ensures political influences to be minimal.
It’s democracy v plutocracy – this is the endgame for our planet
Just at the point at which we need a coordinated global effort to escape our existential crises – climate breakdown, ecological breakdown, the rising tide of synthetic chemicals, a gathering global food emergency – those who wield power string razor wire across the exit.
When I began work as an environmental journalist in 1985, I knew I would struggle against people with a financial interest in destructive practices. But I never imagined that we would one day confront what appears to be an ideological commitment to destroying life on Earth. The UK government and the US supreme court look as if they are willing the destruction of our life support systems.
The supreme court’s ruling was neither random nor based on established legal principles. It arose from a concerted programme to replace democracy in the US with judicial dictatorship.
As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has documented, hundreds of millions of dollars in dark money (funds whose sources are unknown) were poured into the nomination and confirmation of the three judges appointed to the court by Donald Trump. Among the groups leading these campaigns was Americans for Prosperity, set up by the Koch brothers: oil tycoons with a long record of funding rightwing causes. As an investigation by Earth Uprising shows, there’s a strong correlation between the amount of oil and gas money US senators have received, and their approval of Trump’s supreme court justice nominations.
Once the favoured justices were in place, the same networks started using their financial power to steer their decisions. They do so through “amicus briefs”: advice notes to the court supporting a plaintiff’s position. The judicial process is meant to be unswayed by political pressure, but amicus briefs have become one of the most powerful of all lobbying tools.
Republicans often work through fear of various sorts, including the fear of uncertainty, and hit into Kahneman’s “fast thought” aspect. For example that is the basis of the Great Replacement fear of the Right. Democrats are much more likely to try for the Kahneman “slow thought”, which takes more work and a tolerance for uncertainty.
The solution to getting abortion and voting rights back is much simpler: build a time machine, and stop the DLC takeover of the Democratic Party, and make sure they remain a left-wing party, not centrist.
Another thing that reproductive rights supporters if they’re white can do is, women, get a tubal ligation, and men, get a vasectomy. Since race panic is one of the reasons the anti-choice crowd want to set those rights back more than fifty years this would be a great response if you’re not sure about having kids anyway. And do it even if you’re not white but again not sure about having kids. Really, considering how little US society cares about its children AFTER they’re born compared with other Western countries and all the other ways the US is degenerating having kids is a gamble nowadays even if you can afford to have them.
There is some truth to this, but giving the Democrats a filibuster proof majority in the house and senate and not voting for Republicans ever again would be a big start to doing something sooner than later.
We don’t seem to care how the 10 year-old carrying her uncles baby lives the rest of her life. We don’t seem to care if a woman’s life is threatened or destroyed by health problems. We don’t seem to care what kind of life a child has after it takes its first breath. That is a “right” to life? If the pregnant mother starts to bleed will the doctor who cares for her be prosecuted for manslaughter if the fetus miscarries? Will the sobbing mother be charged with a crime? What kind of a right to life are we talking about?
Or we reform the Supreme Court. Add judges, institute age limits for active service, have term limits and stagger appointments to one every two years. Tough but doable and might take less than 40 years to accomplish
I’ll say this as often as I need to. The overturning of Roe v. Wade doesn’t end abortion. It simply kicks the matter over to the states. Already, red states are restricting abortion (if not banning it) while the blue states are taking steps to protect it. The lower and lower middle class women (especially those of color) who don’t have the resources to travel to an abortion friendly state will be left holding the bag. As for the current SCOTUS, you are right that it will take time (and a lot of blue voting in state/local/federal elections) for these right wing Justices to either fall ill or retire. And if the Democrats regain control of the Senate if they lose it in November (not to mention if a Democratic candidate, like say CO Gov. Polis, gets elected in 2024). This does mean we sit around whining about it. At least it’s shifting the focus of the abortion debate back to its original focus, the woman seeking the abortion. Not because she “wants” it, but because she feels she can’t bear this child for personal and/or financial reasons.
Radish the wordsmith almost 2 years ago
Or people can vote out dictator loving lying racist rights stealing republigun snakes.
Daeder almost 2 years ago
Restoring rights should never be as difficult as taking away rights.
Concretionist almost 2 years ago
The blond lady is absolutely (drat, can’t say “right” in a political context) CORRECT about what the right did. And if the liberals were like that then, yes, that’s what they should do. But liberals are NOT conservative. They do NOT want a single leader and to accept moral guidance from some church. They feel strongly about FAIR, not so much RIGHT… and so the proposed system isn’t appropriate for liberals.
Note that I don’t know if there even is something that can both promote liberal views and be tolerable to liberals. It may be that we’ve discovered the fatal flaw in democracy: A sufficient cult can overthrow it.
GreggW Premium Member almost 2 years ago
The point about the Federalist Society being a “feeder system” indicates that there has never been a liberal equivalent of today’s Supreme Court. Six of its members are a coterie of partisan hacks and right-wing ideologues, and the sooner and the more progressive Americans start to disregard its dictates the better, it has no legitimacy, as does your country’s claim to be a democracy, at least at the national level. Meanwhile the US increasingly resembles the antebellum US, but with abortion rather than slavery as the focus of conflict.
wmbrainiac almost 2 years ago
Netflix boasts that people have cumulatively watched 1,000,000,000 hours of “Stranger Things”. How many hours have people put into human rights? Arresting climate change?
PraiseofFolly almost 2 years ago
Progressive politics: It’s for not for amateurs anymore. And “Deus ex Machina” has been appropriated by the other side.
tbemont Premium Member almost 2 years ago
We need to do both. Peaceful protests and create an effective plan for the future the way Republicans did.
s49nav almost 2 years ago
Ted, the difference is (as your ‘toon points out) that liberals, by the very fact that they’re liberals, have neither the patience, the determination, nor the skills necessary to “build a left-wing equivalent of ‘The Federalist Society’”. You know, the whole “Character” thing.
sykerocker almost 2 years ago
Boy, did you hit the nail on the head for that one!
Meg: All Seriousness Aside almost 2 years ago
That’s what they should have done for the past fifty years instead of putting out statements that they’re shocked RvW was overturned!
Nice guys do finish last.
1BlackLivesMatter Premium Member almost 2 years ago
“Burn, riot, and loot” is what one can expect from the libs.
mourdac Premium Member almost 2 years ago
Excellent strip, Mr. Rall. The Supreme Court could be expanded but that ain’t gonna fly.
Màiri almost 2 years ago
The late, ever-lamented Sir Terry made the point that while leftists are very good at revolutions, we’ve little interest in governing. After we win the revolution, we sit around wondering why the garbage is piling up.
The rightwingers, in contrast, have a passionate interest in governing. They love having and exercising power, and so they’re constantly scheming to get more.
How do we solve that?
Stephen Runnels Premium Member almost 2 years ago
Perfectly stated, Mr. Rall. Although, we can only hope politicians from both sides garner enough fear for their children and their future that they refuse to allow the political carnage from Mitch McConnell and his Republican Party to continue.
Teto85 Premium Member almost 2 years ago
That and work at the state level to strengthen your state’s laws concerning reproductive health.
s49nav almost 2 years ago
And while we’re on the subject, cartoonist par excellence Joe Heller has apparently posted that he’s suspended for having blamed Joe Biden for high gas prices. I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to hear this news. Joe, you need to stop using the “C” word. You know, “Circus”?
moz.man.514 almost 2 years ago
OR you can exercise your right to participate in democracy and elect representatives to congress who will pass legislation making it legal, or even an amendment making it a “right,” like you SHOULD HAVE done the first time around.
But democracy is hard and the outcome is not guaranteed, so please, keep trying to circumvent it via the Court and convince more justices to take away your democratic rights to determine what should be legal and what should be a right.
Alberta Oil Premium Member almost 2 years ago
And.. therein lies the problem. Republican dogma is inherited from one generation to the next. Democrats are more wishy washy and have trouble staying on topic.
Motivemagus almost 2 years ago
Folks, if you want to respond to a troll, create a new post with a callout like this: @ZomVee’89. You’re just giving the attention a troll craves.
lonecat almost 2 years ago
Rall makes a good point here. The left does need to learn to organize effectively over the long term, and in a way that appeals to the majority of people. The unions used to be a kind of school for the left, but that’s disappeared now.
Motivemagus almost 2 years ago
@Zomvee’89 – Jewish law says it isn’t a child until it takes its first breath. Jesus never said anything about abortion, but hung around with prostitutes, so one presumes he was aware of the process, and said nothing.
If you really want to get Biblical here, it behooves one to actually READ the thing.
Exodus 21:22-25: “When men have a fight and hurt a pregnant woman, so that she suffers a miscarriage, but no further injury, the guilty one shall be fined as much as the woman’s husband demands of him, and he shall pay in the presence of the judges. But if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” In other words, forcing a miscarriage does not require the “life for life” requirement. (Of course, Jesus struck all that down with HIS law, but, hey, let’s go all in.)
Ecclesiastes 6:3-5: "If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he. For he cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. Moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing: this hath more rest than the other.” In other words, better to die before birth than live an unhappy life.
Numbers 3:39-40: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Count all the firstborn Israelite males who are a month old or more and make a list of their names.’” This is even beyond birth – a month beyond birth.
Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This is the source of the Jewish law that one is not considered a living soul until you take your first breath.
Numbers 5:27: An actual abortion process is described as necessary if a woman cheats on her husband, performed by the priest!
rdublu almost 2 years ago
Republicans execute a plan and are able to vocalize their points to the public while Dems flounder
Retrac Premium Member almost 2 years ago
The Supreme Court is not supposed to make laws, such as it did with Roe. Laws come from Congress — the lazy bums!
Radish the wordsmith almost 2 years ago
There really isn’t a left, there are dems trying to hold the country together and repubs who want to destroy democracy because the majority did not vote for their miserable lying, white racism and controlling attitudes.
MartinPerry1 almost 2 years ago
Biden should simply suspend this Court by declaring it to hopelessly corrupted by politics and declaring its decisions to be null and void. Then he should go on to get a nomination process that ensures political influences to be minimal.
Radish the wordsmith almost 2 years ago
It’s democracy v plutocracy – this is the endgame for our planet
Just at the point at which we need a coordinated global effort to escape our existential crises – climate breakdown, ecological breakdown, the rising tide of synthetic chemicals, a gathering global food emergency – those who wield power string razor wire across the exit.
When I began work as an environmental journalist in 1985, I knew I would struggle against people with a financial interest in destructive practices. But I never imagined that we would one day confront what appears to be an ideological commitment to destroying life on Earth. The UK government and the US supreme court look as if they are willing the destruction of our life support systems.
The supreme court’s ruling was neither random nor based on established legal principles. It arose from a concerted programme to replace democracy in the US with judicial dictatorship.
As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has documented, hundreds of millions of dollars in dark money (funds whose sources are unknown) were poured into the nomination and confirmation of the three judges appointed to the court by Donald Trump. Among the groups leading these campaigns was Americans for Prosperity, set up by the Koch brothers: oil tycoons with a long record of funding rightwing causes. As an investigation by Earth Uprising shows, there’s a strong correlation between the amount of oil and gas money US senators have received, and their approval of Trump’s supreme court justice nominations.
Once the favoured justices were in place, the same networks started using their financial power to steer their decisions. They do so through “amicus briefs”: advice notes to the court supporting a plaintiff’s position. The judicial process is meant to be unswayed by political pressure, but amicus briefs have become one of the most powerful of all lobbying tools.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/06/power-wealthy-earth-politics-democracy-plutocracy
martens almost 2 years ago
Republicans often work through fear of various sorts, including the fear of uncertainty, and hit into Kahneman’s “fast thought” aspect. For example that is the basis of the Great Replacement fear of the Right. Democrats are much more likely to try for the Kahneman “slow thought”, which takes more work and a tolerance for uncertainty.
moondog42 Premium Member almost 2 years ago
The solution to getting abortion and voting rights back is much simpler: build a time machine, and stop the DLC takeover of the Democratic Party, and make sure they remain a left-wing party, not centrist.
Rich Douglas almost 2 years ago
If Democrats had supported their party’s nominee in 2016, we would have a liberal majority on the Supreme Court today.
GreggW Premium Member almost 2 years ago
Another thing that reproductive rights supporters if they’re white can do is, women, get a tubal ligation, and men, get a vasectomy. Since race panic is one of the reasons the anti-choice crowd want to set those rights back more than fifty years this would be a great response if you’re not sure about having kids anyway. And do it even if you’re not white but again not sure about having kids. Really, considering how little US society cares about its children AFTER they’re born compared with other Western countries and all the other ways the US is degenerating having kids is a gamble nowadays even if you can afford to have them.
jwallac2 almost 2 years ago
Or you can set the rules at the state level, which is a lot quicker.
GiantShetlandPony almost 2 years ago
There is some truth to this, but giving the Democrats a filibuster proof majority in the house and senate and not voting for Republicans ever again would be a big start to doing something sooner than later.
dickanders Premium Member almost 2 years ago
We don’t seem to care how the 10 year-old carrying her uncles baby lives the rest of her life. We don’t seem to care if a woman’s life is threatened or destroyed by health problems. We don’t seem to care what kind of life a child has after it takes its first breath. That is a “right” to life? If the pregnant mother starts to bleed will the doctor who cares for her be prosecuted for manslaughter if the fetus miscarries? Will the sobbing mother be charged with a crime? What kind of a right to life are we talking about?
Arghhgarrr Premium Member almost 2 years ago
Or we reform the Supreme Court. Add judges, institute age limits for active service, have term limits and stagger appointments to one every two years. Tough but doable and might take less than 40 years to accomplish
syzygy47 almost 2 years ago
I sincerely wish no harm to anyone. That said, can’t we just ask Liz Cheney to ask her Dad to take the SCOTUS out a-huntin’?
Màiri almost 2 years ago
Well, at least this sort of thing doesn’t often happen here. Pity.
Tory Lawmaker Stabbed to Death During Meeting With Constituents in UK
Northgalus2002 almost 2 years ago
I’ll say this as often as I need to. The overturning of Roe v. Wade doesn’t end abortion. It simply kicks the matter over to the states. Already, red states are restricting abortion (if not banning it) while the blue states are taking steps to protect it. The lower and lower middle class women (especially those of color) who don’t have the resources to travel to an abortion friendly state will be left holding the bag. As for the current SCOTUS, you are right that it will take time (and a lot of blue voting in state/local/federal elections) for these right wing Justices to either fall ill or retire. And if the Democrats regain control of the Senate if they lose it in November (not to mention if a Democratic candidate, like say CO Gov. Polis, gets elected in 2024). This does mean we sit around whining about it. At least it’s shifting the focus of the abortion debate back to its original focus, the woman seeking the abortion. Not because she “wants” it, but because she feels she can’t bear this child for personal and/or financial reasons.