Category: Anger

Colorado voting officials adopt safety measures as state becomes target for election conspiracists

https://abcnews.go.com/US/colorado-voting-officials-adopt-safety-measures-state-target/story?id=84546801

Rather long read but it is important to understand this is what the right wing Republican party has become, this is their version of democracy.   Threaten, do violence, stop voting of those you don’t like or who will not vote as you demand, only the right wing’s ideas count, these are the things they do and feel is OK because they have become a gang of thugs.   They have fancy names for themselves, militia this and proud boys that but it is the same thing, gang thugs getting their way by threating to harm others regardless of the laws of civil society. 

Those involved in election fraud “deserve to hang,” one accuser said.

Laura Romero
May 9, 2022, 4:07 AM
10 min read
 

When Josh Zygielbaum left the Marine Corps more than ten years ago, he thought he would never have to wear body armor again. But now Zygielbaum is back to wearing a bulletproof vest as a Colorado county clerk — one of the many extreme measures he says he’s been forced to take as the state has emerged as a battleground in the shadowy world of election conspiracies.

Considered by many experts to be a leader in election security due to its up-to-date voting machines, its policy of recording every vote on a paper ballot, and its rigorous post-election audits, Colorado has been described by some election experts as the “gold standard for elections.” Yet despite its strong reputation, the state has recently been targeted by election denial groups as a center for baseless accusations that election workers helped steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

As a result, election officials and poll workers in several Colorado counties have donned bulletproof vests and undergone active shooter training for their own safety.

Zygielbaum and other officials ABC News spoke with pointed to Tina Peters, an embattled county clerk in Mesa County, accusing her of being one of the leading figures fueling the false and baseless conspiracy theories that have put Colorado in the spotlight.

Peters, who announced in February that she is running for Colorado secretary of state, has been under investigation by the FBI since November for her alleged involvement in a security breach of the Mesa County election system, according to a statement by the Colorado attorney general. In March, she was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of election tampering and misconduct, after authorities say the election software she used for her county wound up in the hands of a consultant, and screenshots of the software appeared on right-wing websites.

“Using a grand jury to formalize politically-motivated accusations against candidates is tactic long employed by the Democrat Party,” Peters said in a statement posted on her campaign website. “Using legal muscle to indict political opponents during an election isn’t new strategy, but it’s easier to execute when you have a district attorney who despises President Trump and any constitutional conservative like myself who continues to demand all election evidence be made available to the public.”

For the past several months, Peters has been joined by attorney John Eastman, a key architect of former President Donald Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a Trump confidant, at election denial events in the state.

“I came to Colorado today because you have here in Colorado the key to the whole nation,” Lindell said at a rally in April, “because you had a great county clerk, Tina Peters, (who) did her job.”

“For people that say we need to look forward — we’ve got to fix what happened in 2020,” Peters told the crowd.

In a similar event in February hosted by FEC United, a conservative group with a militia wing, attendees including Peters and Eastman cheered as self-described election denier Sean Smith said that he had evidence of criminal election conduct by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

“You may know me as the number-one most dangerous election denier in Colorado,” Smith told the crowd.

The event spurred Griswold to make a report to the Colorado State Patrol after Smith said that “if you’re involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang.”

“We are still seeing the effects of the 2020 election,” Griswold said in a statement to ABC News. “Extreme elected officials and right-wing political insiders continue to spread the Big Lie and election conspiracies.”

As voting officials gear up for the upcoming midterm elections, “the potential for violence that we face is very real,” Zygielbaum said.

Concerns about their staffers’ safety have spurred county officials to adopt a variety of safety protocols. Zygielbaum told ABC News that employees in his Adams County office have been asked not take the same route home on a daily basis.

He said his county has also partnered with the Department of Homeland Security to review their facilities, and is redesigning their elections office “so that voters and individuals who are not employees” cannot go inside the building. In addition, the county is working closely with law enforcement at the state, local and federal level, and has a direct line to the FBI and Terrorism Task Force.

Secretary Griswold confirmed to ABC News that her office arranged for counties to receive a physical threat assessment from DHS, as well as nearly $130,000 in grant funding to make security upgrades.

In the city of Denver, clerk Paul López says he had to move his office away from a first-floor window because it was a security risk.

“I think that folks who think they can intimidate election workers and try to stop us from being able to do our job are absolutely incorrect,” López told ABC News. “We will defend our democracy, and we will do it in a way that inspires people to come to the polls and not scare them away. “

In Chaffee County, county clerk Lori Mitchell has faced personal threats since 2020, with one incident over the summer traumatizing her to the point where she almost decided against running for reelection.

“I saw somebody lay their right hand over their left arm and pull what looked like a gun to me,” Mitchell told ABC News. “And so I ducked in my car.”

“It ended up being a squirt gun,” Mitchell said. “But it was still one of the most frightening days of my life.”

Now, Mitchell and other officials in her office speak with constituents through bulletproof glass. To prepare for the midterms, the county is working closely with law enforcement to enact additional measures to protect election workers.

“Colorado is one of the current epicenters of the Stop the Steal movement,” said Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. “And so we are concerned and very worried about the influence and pressure being put on election officials. They are incredibly understaffed and overworked, and now they have to deal with the emotional toll that comes from knowing that you have to do things to protect yourself.”

According to Crane, the state has seen people “putting in open-records requests to get personal information of poll workers and election judges.”

Crane said that as the state prepares for the upcoming midterms, the attorney general and district attorneys have been working with law enforcement organizations to prepare for possible hostile situations against election officials.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers have passed a bill that would ban the open carry of guns at polling places and create new criminal penalties for people who threaten election workers.

A similar bill that is part of a legislative package to increase security for state and local officials was also advanced by a state legislative panel last month. That legislation also includes a bill aimed at cracking down on the attempted sabotage of voting equipment — described by officials as a direct response to allegations against Peters, the Mesa County clerk.

“No one should have to worry about the safety of themselves or their families when serving as an election administrator,” said Griswold.

“By protecting our election workers and officials, we safeguard our democracy,” she said. “We must do what we can to protect and retain our top-quality election administrators at the state, county and local level.”

Man Tells Abortion Rights Activists ‘Your Body Is Mine’ in Viral Video

https://www.newsweek.com/man-tells-abortion-rights-activists-your-body-mine-viral-video-1704667

A viral video showing a man telling abortion rights protesters that “your body is mine” and “you’re having my baby” has sparked outrage on social media.

Protesters rallied in cities across the country at the weekend, days after a leaked draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court suggested it was poised to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion nationwide.

The leak prompted many more protesters than usual to gather outside the Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Saturday, calling for abortion to remain a legal option nationwide.

“Not the church, not the state, the people must decide their fate,” they chanted, according to the video.

Their chants drew a response from a man among a group of anti-abortion protesters on the steps of the church, who regularly go from the church to protest at a nearby Planned Parenthood.

“I am the people, I am the people, I am the people, the people have decided, the court has decided, you lose,” he responded to the crowd.

In response to another chant, the man—who was wearing an “America First” hat—said: “You have no choice. Not your body, not your choice, your body is mine and you’re having my baby.”

Anti-abortion activists and church members gather outside

Anti-abortion activists and church members gather outside of the Basilica of St. Patricks Old Cathedral in downtown Manhattan on May 07, 2022 in New York City.STEPHANIE KEITH/GETTY IMAGES

Closed captions on the clip described the man as “FDNY” (New York Fire Department), but it is not clear if the man is actually affiliated with the city’s fire department.

He appeared to be wearing a fleece bearing FDNY insignia in the clip. The FDNY has been contacted for comment.

“Important: despite the CC, we still don’t know if this fascist is actually from FDNY. What we do know is that the Archdiocese of NY @NY_Arch are hosting fascists + giving them a platform,” NYC for Abortion Rights wrote on Twitter. The group and the Archdiocese of New York have also been contacted for comment.

The clip, which was initially posted on Instagram by an organizer, amassed more than a million views after it was shared widely on Twitter and prompted “FDNY” to trend on the platform.

“Today in NYC hundreds of pro-abortion folks showed up to counter clinic harassers,” Joshua Potash wrote in a tweet. “You can see the horrifying truth of what anti-abortion extremists really think when one says ‘your body is mine.'”

“If this guy really is @FDNY, he’s gotta go,” Jeff Sharlet tweeted. “Imagine the terror a rape survivor might feel if this guy, who says he owns women’s bodies and forces them bear his children, comes into her home. He made his choice. He chose threats over his job. He’s literally unsafe.”

Alyssa Miller wrote: “If there was any doubt about the ideology driving anti-abortion perspectives, this @FDNY firefighter just put it right out there. ‘Not your choice, not your body, your body is mine.’ The absolute glee he takes in saying it should disturb literally every woman everywhere.”

Amy Siskind wrote: “As horrible as his public statements are, as is @FDNY silence, let’s acknowledge that this scumbag is saying out loud what so many Republicans white men are already thinking and saying in private. This is their plan.”

Todd20036 • 30 minutes ago

Psst: people frown when you say the quiet parts out loud

ErnestMc • 17 minutes ago

He has the right to shout rape-y stuff in the public square, but FDNY having rape enthusiasts on their team (assuming he’s actually a fireman) may not be great PR for them.

And, since he thinks he can do whatever he wants to a woman’s body, the reverse should be true. How about forced castration?

The_Wretched • 18 minutes ago

“Silly “Allison” trying to get an off-duty FIREFIGHTER in trouble for exercising his Right of Free Speech. THIS IS STILL AMERICA. The dude can say whatever he wants.”

More willful misuse of 1A. If the firefighter gets to say the quiet part out loud (and what a plain indictment of Alito’s stupid idea about law), so does everyone else get to tell the firefighter how off putting he is.

Misutaa Roboto The_Wretched • 16 minutes ago

Yeah, threats have never been covered by the First Amendment. But this threat is slightly veiled, so I guess it must be okay after all. I’m sure he’s confident this SCOTUS has his back on that.

Misutaa Roboto • 26 minutes ago • edited

IOW: Douchebag shouts a little too overtly about raping women while still delirious with glee from the prospect of forcing victims to give birth to his offspring.

Rex • 22 minutes ago

I will then assume they will be paying child support from the moment of conception.

Ann Kah • 22 minutes ago

He’s young. He is visibly immature in his leering behavior. He is declaring that he has no intention of growing out of his testosterone-fueled high school years. I fully expect his mind to stay in that stunted state while the rest of him sags and wrinkles. These perennial man-children are the real threat to American society.

The_Wretched Mark • 14 minutes ago

The righties, Alito included, are afraid that black and brown people will “out breed the whites” and “replace us”. It’s called ‘replacement theory.’ It’s about as racist an idea as there can be.

Replacement theory then wraps back into their anti-abortion agenda. They seem to think that they can increase the total amount of “white” by forcing more births. Even worse, of of the right wing briefs suggested there is a shortage of white babies for adoption (xtian indoctrination) and they want to make more available.

This firefighter is hitting all the points they want.

See Fareed Zakaria’s warning for the US as abortion fight rages

The CC on this is so shitty it was just a long string of random letters when I tried.   I tried to adjust it in the settings and lost it entirely and couldn’t get the CC back even when I returned to the original settings.   I have no clue as to CNN CC is such a disaster.    However Fareed has such an informative take on the polarization of the US, how religion is declining and the religious are fight back tooth and nail to keep the US a highly religious country.   He breaks the country in two halves and shows how those halves fit in with the rest of the world.  The blue areas to the country fit with the European non-religious countries, the read areas fit with the African / Arab highly religious dominated countries.  

Republican governor accidentally SLIPS UP when asked if he’d ban all birth control

BREAKING: A Republican governor just accidentally slipped up when asked if he’d ban ALL contraception.

GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters wants to allow states to ban contraception use

GOP Senate candidate Blake Masters wants to allow states to ban contraception use
BY:  – MAY 6, 2022 4:52 PM
     

 Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, says he will only confirm judges who would overturn a landmark 1965 case that barred states from outlawing contraception. Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

 

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturns women’s constitutional right to abortion this summer, one Arizona Republican candidate for U.S. Senate thinks judges should also take aim at the right to buy and use contraception.

Blake Masters, a Tucson-based venture capitalist, boasts on his website that he will only vote to confirm federal judges “who understand that Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided, and that there is no constitutional right to abortion.” Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decided in 1973 and 1992, respectively, both upheld a constitutional right to abortion access.

But the ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 protected a married couple’s right to buy and use contraceptives without government restrictions. The case centered on a Connecticut law that banned the use of contraceptives, which the court determined violated a married couple’s constitutional right to privacy, establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices.

 
 

Masters’ stance puts him on the opposite side of the issue from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of GOP senators, which has advised candidates on talking points following the leak of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. 

In a section instructing candidates on how to “forcefully refute Democrat lies” about Republicans’ positions on abortion and health care, the NRSC declares that “Republicans DO NOT want to take away contraception.” 

Elsewhere in the talking points memo to GOP Senate candidates, the NRSC advises them to say, “I’m not in favor of putting women or doctors in jail. I would never take away anyone’s contraception or health care. That’s just the typical BS you get from politicians.” 

Masters’ campaign could not immediately be reached for comment. 

The Supreme Court in June will issue its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case centered on a Mississippi abortion law that is a vehicle for the court to overturn Roe, as conservative justices appear poised to do in a draft opinion that was leaked. 

In an election year that is supposed to favor Republicans across the country, Democrats and reproductive rights activists are concerned about what a Republican-controlled Senate chamber could mean, not just for abortion rights but a host of other issues.

In Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion, he mentioned other landmark cases that could potentially be overturned in the future, Including Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage. 

President Donald Trump hasn’t yet endorsed an Arizona Senate candidate, but Masters is viewed as the favorite to receive his endorsement. His campaign is also being supported by his former boss and mentor, technology investor Peter Thiel, who is spending at least $10 million to bankroll a campaign to support Masters. Masters has already won the support of some extremist Republicans, most recently Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spoke to a white nationalist conference earlier this year. Other media reports have noted his past praise for the Unabomber and Hermann Goering, one Hitler’s top military leaders and one of the most prominent members of the Nazi Party.  

It’s unclear where the NRSC stands on all Republican candidates in Arizona, but Florida Sen. Rick Scott – who leads the group – was trying hard to convince term-limited Gov. Doug Ducey to jump into the race on several occasions, signaling possible disinterest in the field. 

If the NRSC is serious that “Republicans will not take away contraception,” it might cause a slight hiccup in Masters’ candidacy should he win in the Aug. 2 primary.

 

AZ Senate Candidate Supports Ban On Contraception

AZ Senate Candidate Supports Ban On Contraception

The Arizona Mirror reports:

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturns women’s constitutional right to abortion this summer, one Arizona Republican candidate for U.S. Senate thinks judges should also take aim at the right to buy and use contraception.

Blake Masters, a Tucson-based venture capitalist, boasts on his website that he will only vote to confirm federal judges “who understand that Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided, and that there is no constitutional right to abortion.”

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decided in 1973 and 1992, respectively, both upheld a constitutional right to abortion access. But the ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 protected a married couple’s right to buy and use contraceptives without government restrictions.

Read the full article.

Like J.D. Vance in Ohio, Masters’ campaign is funded by homocon billionaire Peter Thiel. Masters, 35, is his former employee.

Yesterday Masters accepted the endorsement of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Trump has not yet made an endorsement in the race, but last week he called into Masters’ campaign rally.

Guestfornow Amber LeMay • a day ago

Ok.

Better, I like an idea I read on JMG over 10 years ago now. Every straight male is snipped before puberty with a procedure that can be reversed. Only after the guy can show a medical review of his physical and mental abilities and only after he shows proof he can financially raise the child does he get to have the women sign off on a document that she agrees.

Put that is n an amendment for these bills and watch the screaming on the right.

Todd20036 liondon#loserpresident • a day ago

Because there’s no such thing as children in foster care so long they age out.

clay Todd20036 • a day ago

Older kids are so much harder to lie to about their origins.

clay liondon#loserpresident • a day ago

Next up– they’ll use the increase in un-wanted children as a pragmatic argument that IVF is unnecessary and can be eliminated as a form of abortion, as well.

Middle School Teacher FIRED For Being Pansexual

I like this video blogger.    A vlogger is someone who uses an avatar instead of their face while they do their videos.  The avatar is female, but the blogger is male, happily male.  Cis Male. Also is happily polysexual, but that is beside the point.    He uses a female avatar to make the point that it doesn’t matter to him, he doesn’t get upset over it.  I preferred it when he used his own face and body to do his videos, but I understand his point.  

His content covers a lot of subjects and I recommend you check out his other videos.   He is a staunch supporter of LGBTQ+ rights despite having been raised a highly evangelical conservative Christian forced to attend church schools.   He admits he believed the crap forced on him and treated the LGBTQ+ very badly as a teen and young adult.  He even drove away a friend he had for years because the friend was gay.  Even though Chris tried to apologize that friend never forgave his treatment by Chris and that is something Chris understands and regrets to this day.  Suris / Chris claims it took getting away from his highly religious parents and that community living on his own in the real world that he had his eyes opened.  When he tried to push the religious views he had been taught to be normal and the way things should be he found himself at odds with all the people he wanted to be friends with.   Talking to them and listening to who they really were, he found he couldn’t reconcile that with what he had been taught.  So he started to open his eyes and change his views.  Unfortunately, as he says he can never make it up to those he hurt and bullied for his god because he was taught that was what his god wanted.   At least he is honest and will admit the damage his highly religious upbringing did to him and the people he encountered.  

At the very beginning there is some blog stuff he does with his followers, I usually ignore it as I am also doing other things.  It is not very long but if it bothers you please fast forward to the real subject of the video, a Florida teacher got fired for answering a question by her students over her family / sexual partner relationships.  Spoiler she was not graphic nor explicit, but she simply was not cis heterosexual one woman one man.  How dare she let kids know that all people don’t follow that religious dictate!  Watch the video to what life in the US under Republican rabid right religious wing is going to be like.  Remember these are not little kids these are middle schoolers what was called JR high in my schooling years.  This was not about teens drawing sexual pictures of their orientations but about the flags they drew representing their orientations.  Colored flags are now so offensive that you can be fired in Florida if they do not represent the republican religious heterosexual normative one man / one woman only nature of sexual expression.  I hate this so much!  The right wing media really misrepresented this story.  

 

Hershel Walker’s Homocon Son: Pro-Choice Women “Don’t Need To Worry About Abortions,” They’re All Fat

Hershel Walker’s Homocon Son: Pro-Choice Women “Don’t Need To Worry About Abortions,” They’re All Fat

“If you’re gonna get an abortion, you do have to get banged. So all of the blue-haired pro-choice protesters don’t need to worry much about abortions. I’m sorry, I just had to say that.

“It’s easy to give something up when you don’t have it. It’s easy to give up shopping when you’re broke, like we all are under Joe Biden.

“So for everyone saying they’re going on a sex strike, were you getting any to begin with, ma’am? Cuz it doesn’t look like it.

“It looks like you’ve been in the drive-thru. Not in the drive up to his house category, more in the ‘I’ll take a ten-piece fried chicken.’

“That’s where it looks like you’ve been.” – Christian Walker, son of Georgia US Senate candidate Hershel Walker.

Christian Walker has over 250,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 500,000 on Instagram.

 

unsavedheathen • a day ago

There’s something about a man who has plucked his eyebrows along a French curve and who wears eyeliner and foundation and blush and bronzer and lip gloss and who has shaved his hairline who then mocks women not consumed by their appearance.

Fearsome Beard unsavedheathen • a day ago

The something that comes to mind for me is self hating.

Uncle Mark’s ugly face returns Fearsome Beard • a day ago

Nah…she’s been me of those bitchy, shallow twinks, who lives well on daddy’s money and thinks she’s going to be young, pretty & privileged forever.

We’ve seen this tired story play out with countless others over the decades, and it’s mostly never pretty.

Jeff D wmforr • 18 hours ago

It is scientifically proven to be very hard to get pregnant during gay sex. So what would this twink know about pregnancy, abortion, or even women?

Elagabalus • a day ago

This little twat is the kind of gay person who gives the rest of us a bad name.

Todd20036 Elagabalus • a day ago

He’s the kind of gay person who will rat us out to get the best bunk in the camp

Uncle Mark’s ugly face returns Todd20036 • a day ago

And he’ll be shocked to discover that his daddy’s money or his shoveling other gays into the ground won’t saved him in the end.

GOP Operative Behind Ballot Harvesting In Philadelphia

GOP Operative Behind Ballot Harvesting In Philadelphia

The Republicans know there is voter fraud because they are the ones doing it.   But even more important they are not even trying to hide it anymore.   One way or another they will kill our democracy and take over the government to establish minority rule of the Republican party.   

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

City elections officials last week received applications from more than three dozen Republican voters across a pocket of the neighborhood. Those applications requested that mail ballots be delivered not to the voters’ homes, but to P.O. Box 54705, an address registered to a recently formed GOP political action committee, according to state data.

Many of those voters told The Inquirer they have no idea why their ballots were sent there. Some said they never even applied to vote by mail.

The ballots appear to be the effort of one man: Billy Lanzilotti, a 23-year-old GOP operative, South Philadelphia ward leader, and chairman of the Republican Registration Coalition, the PAC he registered at the P.O. box earlier this year.

Read the full article.

 

Thorn Spike • a day ago

And there’s your voter fraud.

northalabama • a day ago

the gqp believes voter fraud is so easy, any idiot could do it, yet they keep getting caught – they’re not just any idiots, though, so there’s that.

PhilBob13 northalabama • a day ago

I think because they don’t understand how elections are actually run, and the fact that there are professionals working in the offices?
But sure, keep spreading sh** about how government doesn’t work.

clay • a day ago • edited

Dude’s in the same ward, one precinct just north of me. I walk past his street on the way to the grocery store. One of his claims quoted in the article is known to be false: “There’s been a number of problems with the post office lately,” he said. ”Checks are being stolen out of the mail.

No, the problem is a couple of the mail drop boxes have been broken into, so the USPS has asked that we drop off all mail at . . . the Castle Street Post Office.

Gigi • a day ago

Seems like the only ones committing election fraud are Republicans. But you won’t hear that on Tucker Carlson.

B Snow PhilBob13 • 18 hours ago

I’m getting a ton of use out of this:

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FAILING STATE! • a day ago

Geez, I wonder if anyone will even bother to wag their finger at him.

Karl Dubhe IV • a day ago

They believe that everyone does it, so they try. As if the people who run the elections haven’t seen this kind of shit before…

현빈(🇰🇷Hyunbin🇺🇸)🥋🎹🎻 • a day ago

But definitely don’t stop crying about voter fraud while committing voting fraud, Repubs.

Bob’s Your Uncle – BYU • a day ago

All blue areas of swing and red states in particular need to be particularly mindful of scams like this one.

I’d like to see a penalty of a mandatory year in Federal prison for every stolen ballot be applied in the future, but that won’t happen in my lifetime because too many conservative white grifters are treated like fucking royalty in red and purple states because they have found Jesus..

Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors Seek Justice In What Could Be Their Last Chance

SAMUEL ALITO’S ANTIABORTION INSPIRATION: A 17TH-CENTURY JURIST WHO SUPPORTED MARITAL RAPE AND HAD WOMEN EXECUTED

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/samuel-alito-roe-v-wade-abortion-draft

The Supreme Court justice wants to turn the U.S. into a dystopian hellscape where women are property—and he’s not stopping there. 

 

BY BESS LEVIN

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito listens as US President George W. Bush speaks at the the Federalist Society's 25th...
US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito listens as US President George W. Bush speaks at the the Federalist Society’s 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner at Union Station in Washington, DC 15 November 2007. AFP PHOTO/SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)SAUL LOEB
 

By now, you’ve likely heard the news that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the national right to an abortion, an expected but nevertheless jolting, devastating blow to reproductive rights. We know The Handmaid’s Tale is about to go from scripted narrative to retroactive documentary thanks to the leak of a draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which arch conservative justice Samuel Alito writes, in a hateful 98-page screed, that “Roe [v. Wade] was egregiously wrong from the start” and that it “is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Which Alito obviously knows would lead to abortion care being severely restricted or fully outlawed in roughly half of the country and make it not only a felony to perform an abortion in some states, but a felony to obtain one.

As Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern notes, the draft—which could change before a the final ruling, as could the various justices’ votes—doesn’t just lay out the case for why Roe should be overturned, it goes full scorched earth. Alito, Stern writes, “does not seek out any middle path. He disparages Roe and its successors as dishonest, illegitimate, and destructive to the court, the country, and the Constitution. He quotes a wide range of anti-abortion activists, scholars, and judges who view abortion as immoral and barbaric; there’s even a footnote that approvingly cites Justice Clarence Thomas’s debunked theory that abortion is a tool of eugenics against Black Americans.” The opinion is an appalling, heinous attack on people who have relied on Roe for nearly half a century, and the most sickening part is that the conservative justice clearly doesn’t give a shit that obliterating the landmark ruling will ruin countless lives. In fact, one might argue, that’s all part of the plan. And if you needed further proof that Alito is pure evil and wants to take the U.S. back to a time when women’s bodies were property for men to control, know that one of the people he cited in his opinion was an English jurist who defended marital rape and had women executed for “witchcraft.”

Yes, Alito literally quoted this guy, who was born in 1609, as a defense for ending Roe v. Wade in 2022. “Two treatises by Sir Matthew Hale,” Alito enthusiastically writes, “described abortion of a quick child who died in the womb as a ‘great crime’ and a ‘great misprision.’ See M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown.” As Jezebel notes, The History of the Pleas of the Crown “is a text that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world” and reads: “For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract.” Again, Alito used the arguments of this man to bolster his case.

Taking away the rights of pregnant people is quite clearly just the first step for Alito, though. Per Stern:

[Alito] disavows the entire line of jurisprudence upon which Roe rests: the existence of “unenumerated rights” that safeguard individual autonomy from state invasion. Alito asserts that any such right must be “deeply rooted” in the nation’s history and tradition, and access to abortion has no such roots.

The obvious problem with this analysis is that the Supreme Court has identified plenty of “unenumerated rights” that lack deep roots in American history. Most recently, the court [recognized] the right of same-sex couples to be intimate (2003’s Lawrence v. Texas) and get married (2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges). Alito dismissed both decisions in harsh terms, mocking their “appeals to a broader right to autonomy” as a slippery slope. The “high level of generality” in their reasoning, he wrote, could “license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like.”

And that’s another reason why the Roe preview is so disturbing. On Monday, former Justice Department official Elliot Williams tweeted: “You don’t need to read too far between the lines of Alito’s draft to see a rationale for overturning or weakening Griswold (the right to contraception) Obergefell (same-sex marriage) Loving (interracial marriage) Lawrence (consensual sex acts).” Incidentally, it was less than a month ago that GOP senator Mike Braun said that states should be allowed to ban interracial marriage (before claiming he misunderstood the question that led to him saying such a thing multiple times).