Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows

[Kai G. Llewellyn 837]

I mean arguably a lot of the cases I referenced could be reduced to that. Reversing O v. H could be over whether the states have a right to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples or not, or L v. T whether states can ban 'sodomy'. There is a reason there is a constitution at the federal level and that is to guarantee basic rights for everyone, no matter where they reside in the United States. States have huge scope as it is to determine their own policy and direction, but for them to essentially become theocratic little hellholes is incompatible with the US Constitution, and it should be prohibited.

 

While procedurally, it is a matter over whether it's Fed vs. state, as a matter of fact it does dictate the universal rights that people in the US have.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Kai G. Llewellyn

[Mike E 11,739]

As a federalist, I’m ok with reversing all those.  The currently  laws one who can and can’t marry who and what sex is allowed or not are rather arbitrary. 
 

So for example, a state can ban marriage between second cousins and allow sex between a 10 year old and a 50 year old. If you don’t like either you have a choice: move to another state aligned with your beliefs or use the democratic  processes in your state to change things.  

 

America is 50 sovereign independent nation states.  Give states the sovereignty the constitution promises. 

[TBoneTX 45,264]

9 hours ago, jg121783 said:

Regardless of your view on abortion this is a serious breach of the court and the judicial process and the leaker should be punished severely to set an example for anyone who might leak in the future.

This is true, and it's exceptionally disturbing.  I heard Prof. (of Constitutional law) Josh Blackman in a radio interview today, and he said flatly that this imperils the Supreme Court's ability to function, now and in the future.

 

He also said that this leak may have the opposite effect of what the leaker intended -- that, rather than intimidating the anti-Roe justices into switching positions, it might cause them to dig in their heels.

 

He emphasized that a 3-month-old draft opinion is nowhere near final and should not be considered such in the slightest.

 

He also said that the Supreme Court may decide to accelerate reaching their final decision in order to get the current chaos over with.

[TBoneTX 45,264]

Per my thoughts above, see what Bari Weiss says:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-shocking-supreme-court-leak?s=r

[TBoneTX 45,264]

Glenn Greenwald thoughtfully knocks it out of the park:

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-irrational-misguided-discourse?s=r

[TBoneTX 45,264]

Here are details about standard protocol and what's done to protect against leaks:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/05/03/gop_demands_justice_roberts_find_leaker_this_is_how_he_will_be_remembered_147556.html

[Fuerteventura 29]

14 hours ago, Mike E said:

Back in December 2021, the national review says this didn’t happen. 
 

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/what-justice-kavanaugh-told-senator-collins/

 

Collins and Murkowski see it differently:

“If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision and this reporting is accurate, it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office,” Collins said in a statement. “Obviously, we won’t know each justice’s decision and reasoning until the Supreme Court officially announces its opinion in this case.”

Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, pro-choice GOP moderates, were among the key votes during the Senate confirmation hearings for Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. In explaining her votes to confirm them, Collins said that both judges had assured her at the time that they believed Roe v. Wade was “settled law.”

https://news.yahoo.com/susan-collins-supreme-court-leak-roe-abortion-kavanaugh-gorsuch-172603085.html

[Kai G. Llewellyn 837]

5 hours ago, Mike E said:

As a federalist, I’m ok with reversing all those.  The currently  laws one who can and can’t marry who and what sex is allowed or not are rather arbitrary. 
 

So for example, a state can ban marriage between second cousins and allow sex between a 10 year old and a 50 year old. If you don’t like either you have a choice: move to another state aligned with your beliefs or use the democratic  processes in your state to change things.  

 

America is 50 sovereign independent nation states.  Give states the sovereignty the constitution promises. 

States are neither sovereign nor nations, that is a matter of fact. There is no nationhood that I'm aware of that any US state has that is equal to that of the constituent nations of the UK, last time I checked people primarily fly US flags, not flags of their state. They are equally not sovereign, they are not able to act as independent actors on the international stage, nor do they have any means to secede unilaterally, two key components of sovereignty. You are not advocating for federalism, but instead independent unitary states, quite the opposite of federalism really. Federalism isn't the non-existence of a federal government, nor is it of concept of a weak federal government (that's confederalism, and that didn't last very long here).

 

It is established in many other Federal countries (Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Australia), that the federal level enshrines a baseline upon which all the component states, lander, canton, provinces and whatevers are bound to. However, unless otherwise defined, the state level has free scope to set policy as they see fit. This is something I strongly believe in...a guarantee of rights for everyone within the federal country, while giving wide scope to states giving them the ability to set policy as they see fit. This is opposed to unitary countries (France, Italy, New Zealand, Ireland) who issue all policy, laws etc at a national level which everyone has to follow. The US Constitution is vaguely worded enough that it cannot be seen as a document frozen in time, only guaranteeing rights to white males, still seeing people of color as slaves, women as subserviant and other minorities as non-existent...that makes the Constitution functionally useless. It has to be interpreted as a living document whereby its definitions capture wider groups of people as the progress of time marches on. The Constitution owes its longevity to this.

 

Unfortunately, the flagrant disregard for significantly established judicial precedent makes the concept of 'settled law' an impossibility now. Like I said, anything and everything is up for grabs. Inter-racial marriage, contraception, same-sex marriage, the privacy of the individual. Hell, even the concept of the 2nd Amendment could be reconsidered over whether it gives the right to a militia only rather than the people on an individual level.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Kai G. Llewellyn

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, Kai G. Llewellyn said:

States are neither sovereign nor nations, that is a matter of fact..

Cite.  

[Kai G. Llewellyn 837]

17 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Cite.  

Do I really have to explain to you what a sovereign nation state is? Look up the Montevideo Convention I guess?

 

Anyways, sovereignty is the supreme authority for a body to act without *any* outside interference and any jurisdiction it subjects itself to, it can withdraw from it whenever at its choosing. It is established there is no legal mechanism that a state can unilaterally withdraw from the Union. They are therefore by definition not sovereign. I.e. the UK was able to unilaterally withdraw from the European Union without the consent of its members, it can exercise that authority as it is a sovereign nation state. US states cannot do this ( https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/sixteen-months-to-sumter/newspaper-index/dubuque-herald/can-a-state-constitutionally-secede)

 

Nation, defined as "a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory", and while this is a more arbitrary qualifier, the only US state that comes close to that is Texas, as it has its own strong identity. Washington conversely can hardly be defined as a 'nation'...most people here tend to identify themselves as Americans over being a Washingtonian...hell, Cascadia would be closer to being considered a nation that WA would itself. Either way, these are outliers when you consider the cases of Wales and Scotland, while not sovereign nations, they *are* nations as they have their own distinct identity, language, culture, flag AND language that goes back centuries, and people still hold dear today. You tell a Scotsman that they're 'English', you're asking to get a fist to your face, and if you tell them that they're British, you may get an ugly look depending if they're a unionist or not. Hardly would the case be if you told a Texan or Washingtonian that they're American, hell they might take pride in that they are.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Kai G. Llewellyn

[Mike E 11,739]

7 minutes ago, Kai G. Llewellyn said:

 Do I really have to explain to you what a sovereign nation state is? Look up the Montevideo Convention I guess?  

That wasn’t the question.  And referring to something from foreign entities doesn’t answer it.  
 

States of the USA are sovereign entities and this is taught in K-12 school in the USA. 
 

Just because a few powers are granted to the federal government doesn’t change that. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder

 

“Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is unconstitutional because it violates the Fifteenth Amendment since its provisions can ever only be applicable to certain subdivisions under the United States of America without regard for equal sovereignty.”

 

…

 

”The Court held that Section 4(b) exceeded Congress' power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, reasoning that the coverage formula conflicts with the constitutional principles of federalism and "equal sovereignty of the states" 

 

So I have cited established evidence that each of the 50 states are sovereign, and that since they are states, they are sovereign states.
 

 It remains to establish that they are sovereign nation states. For that we need only look the history of United States dating to its inception.
 

The actual federation didn’t commence until December 12, 1787 when Pennsylvania joined  Delaware in the Union in ratifying the US constitution.  Each of the 13 states that ratified the constitution were independent nations until ratification. 
 

Among the states that were admitted to the union some were carved out of existing US and some were independent nations.  The 14th state Vermont, was an independent nation from 1777 to 1791 called the Vermont Republic. Texas, Iowa, California, Oklahoma, and Hawaii are among the other admitted states that were independent entities before becoming US

territories or directly being incorporated as states of the union. And for rest, mostly they petitioned for statehood versus it being forced upon them. And it is hard to argue against current territories like Puerto Rico, CNMI,  Guam, and American Samoa being nations, and the citizens of the latter aren’t even citizens of the USA.  
 

To this day, arch progressive Gavin Newsom declares his state as a  nation state and his state’s flag says “California Republic”. And in violation of the US flag code, it is easy to find places where the flag of the California Republic towers over the star spangled banner. 
 

Thus if one state is a nation as Hawaii for example is without question, they all are because they are equal  

 

America is 50 separate and independent nation states which have voluntarily ceded  small set of enumerated powers to the federal government.  I fully understand that some people want to expand that list and thankfully SCOTUS is there to claw back power to the sovereign states. 

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

13 hours ago, Dashinka said:

What will be very interesting is after this, if SCOTUS comes back and does not overturn Roe, will all the pearl clutching stop?  My understanding when reading the history of Roe is it was supposed to end the debate, they kind of failed at that.

This is my guess. I doubt they overturn it.

 

I am anti abortion but pro choice if that makes sense,  as are the majority of Americans. I do believe in strict limits after a fetus becomes viable. I do oppose restrictions when the health of the mother or quality of life of the fetus is in question. 

 

Why oh why. This is an issue designed to enflame the far right and the far left bases. Of all the problems facing this country this is way down the list.

 

I doubt it is important enough to most Americans to move.

 

The far right and left fringes that must be appeased to win a primary in a 2 party system are why we keep getting leaders like Biden and Trump.

[Kai G. Llewellyn 837]

While states have a level of sovereignty, in that they have a wide scope of affairs that they can run without interference, they are not sovereign in themselves. They are subject to the rulings of the Supreme Court of the US, the laws of Congress and the Constitution, they *cannot* withdraw from that in a legal sense. They by definition are not sovereign, but are entities with a level of sovereignty.

 

The entities that came together that formed the Federation permanently ceded their actual sovereign status when they ratified the US Constitution and were admitted to the union. They *were* countries, and haven't been countries for over two centuries now, and even then, it could be argued that they were independent countries for such a brief time that it doesn't form the basis for persistent national identity that endures today. You honestly cannot argue that those states that were independent countries prior to the Union have nationhood that is comparable with that of France.

 

Puerto Rico could absolutely be considered a nation, but the territories have always been a special case, and I understand PR has a legal means to secede, unlike states, because they're merely possessions of the US rather than part of the Union.

 

Regardless, nationhood is a subjective matter and I don't dispute that some states have degreeing levels of nationhood, they don't quite meet the bar in an international context to be considered actual nations. And there's varying factors because of that, largely it's down to the extremely strong national identity of the US, but also down to the people's individual identities whereby people in general consider themselves to be American first and foremost. Non-sovereign nations have one thing generally in common, is that a substantial percentage of their residents consider their nation's identity to be stronger than that of their sovereign country's identity. Of course, you could have a bazillion academics arguing one way or the other. Given that I am from Wales, and I consider myself Welsh and not British, the bar for nationhood will be that much higher in my view.

 

Anyways, the argument over matters on nationhood aren't really relevant on this discussion on SCOTUS rulings. Many non-sovereign nations exist, such as Quebec, Wales, Scotland, Catalonia and Basque to name a few. This is specifically over whether US states are sovereign entities, and they're not. If they were, they would be independent countries. If we're going down the line that states can abolish democracy, set themselves up as theocratic governments, and basically do whatever the hell they like, then you might as well rip up the US Constitution and call it a day because it then has no point.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Kai G. Llewellyn

[Kai G. Llewellyn 837]

10 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

The far right and left fringes that must be appeased to win a primary in a 2 party system are why we keep getting leaders like Biden and Trump.

I'm pretty sure the far left were not keen on Biden. I'm pretty left wing and the guy is a conservative in sheep's clothing and in the pockets of big business. The left held their noses and voted for Biden because they wanted rid of Trump. If Biden faces any other GOP nominee, he will lose. That I have no doubt.

 

Protip to the GOP if you want to win in 2024, have literally any other nominee than Trump, you'll win. A lot of people won't bother to vote for Biden if they're not staring down another 4 years of Trump.

 

Though Biden has been quite so useless in getting any of his campaign promises through, I won't be surprised if people sat out the next election even if Trump did end up getting the GOP nomination again.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Kai G. Llewellyn

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

1 hour ago, Kai G. Llewellyn said:

I'm pretty sure the far left were not keen on Biden. I'm pretty left wing and the guy is a conservative in sheep's clothing and in the pockets of big business. The left held their noses and voted for Biden because they wanted rid of Trump. If Biden faces any other GOP nominee, he will lose. That I have no doubt.

 

Protip to the GOP if you want to win in 2024, have literally any other nominee than Trump, you'll win. A lot of people won't bother to vote for Biden if they're not staring down another 4 years of Trump.

 

Though Biden has been quite so useless in getting any of his campaign promises through, I won't be surprised if people sat out the next election even if Trump did end up getting the GOP nomination again.

Well you said it. He does pander to the far left.  Biden is by far the most far left Potus during my lifetime. If you think he is conservative you must have plowed into the left ditch hard. I am preety much a moderate who drives right down the middle of the road.

 

Nice to have a liberal her to balance the far right . Just wanted to say hello before you get censorshiped.