GOP Abortion Panic Too Late: The Alito Surge Is Here To Stay

Democrats should give Justice Samuel Alito an award.

By insisting on writing an opinion abolishing Roe he has done more damage to the Republican Party than he probably ever thought possible, provoking a continuous surge at the ballot box for Democrats that seems unstoppable.

The Hill: “RNC chairwoman calls on GOP candidates to adopt ‘common sense’ messaging on abortion”. — She is quite right to panic, but it’s too late. The Alito Surge is here to stay.

Axios: “Democrats’ rush to get abortion-related initiatives on the ballot in key states could throw a wrench in Republicans’ effort to keep the House in 2024”

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Author: craigcrawford

Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.

35 thoughts on “GOP Abortion Panic Too Late: The Alito Surge Is Here To Stay”

  1. RNC Chairwoman acknowledges GOP frustration after election losses | CNN Politics

    One clear signal from Tuesday’s elections was that abortion rights are politically popular, no matter where or when they are on the ballot. Democrats leveraged reproductive rights to rack up big election wins in Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
    McDaniel on Sunday defended Republicans’ positions on abortion restrictions, but said she’s advocated for candidates to keep suburban women in mind when discussing abortion rights policy.
    “It’s up to the candidates if they take those suggestions,” she said. “I always say, you know, if I give my husband directions in the car it doesn’t mean he’s going to take them.”

  3. abortion issue might not be the only alito gift to Dems.  there are still more rights in his sights according to this report last year:

    Supreme Court Justice Alito’s Crusade Against a Secular America Isn’t Over | The New Yorker

    … Alito is the embodiment of a conservative majority that is ambitious and extreme. (He declined to be interviewed for this article.) With the recent additions of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Court, the conservative bloc no longer needs Roberts to get results. And Alito has taken a zealous lead in reversing the progressive gains of the sixties and early seventies—from overturning Roe v. Wade to stripping away voting rights. At a Yale Law School forum in 2014, he was asked to name a personality trait that had impeded his career. Alito responded that he’d held his tongue too often—that it “probably would have been better if I said a bit more, at various times.” He’s holding his tongue no longer. Indeed, Alito now seems to be saying whatever he wants in public, often with a snide pugnaciousness that suggests his past decorum was suppressing considerable resentment.
    […]
    If Alito is still fighting against the Warren Court of the sixties, he is now in an incomparably more powerful position. Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at U.C.L.A. who studies elections, told me that Alito “has indicated he remains skeptical of the one-person-one-vote rule.” Last term, in Vega v. Tekoh, the Court decided that police officers couldn’t be sued in federal court for failing to read suspects their rights; Alito, who wrote the 6–3 majority opinion, wondered whether the Court “has the authority to create constitutionally based prophylactic rules”—like the requirement, first established in Miranda v. Arizona (1966), that arrested suspects be verbally informed of their rights. Lenese Herbert, a law professor at Howard University, wrote on scotusblog that the Miranda decision—“one of the increasingly few cultural and court canons that binds us”—had been “injured, perhaps fatally.”
    […]
    The reversal of Warren Court norms may be accelerating under today’s lopsided majority, but Alito has been pushing the Court rightward since his arrival. Richard L. Hasen, the election-law expert, told me that Alito is “uniformly hostile to voting rights,” and has been a “major force” in the Court’s support for corporate spending in campaigns. Alito encouraged the filing of suits that have allowed the Court to curb the power of public-sector unions. He authored the 5–4 opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014), which exempted some companies from providing contraception coverage to their employees, and he has helped advance a new regime of jurisprudence strengthening the rights of religious people—especially conservative Christians, and especially when their beliefs conflict with anti-discrimination law. 

  6. https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-overthrow-judicial-powers-77a68c1e6ee6fc79462f6aaf4ea1a323

    “Republican faction seeks to keep courts from interpreting Ohio’s new abortion rights amendment”

    “Four Ohio Republican state lawmakers are seeking to strip judges of their power to interpret an abortion rights amendment after voters opted to enshrine those rights in the state’s constitution this week.”

    “To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” said the mix of fairly new and veteran lawmakers who are all vice-chairs of various House committees.”

    “The legislature has multiple paths that we will explore to continue to protect innocent life. This is not the end of the conversation,” Stephens previously said in a news release.

    “It’s the latest development in the struggle over abortion rights between the Republican-dominated Legislature and the majority of the voters, who passed the amendment by a margin of 57% to 43%.”

    So much for the will of the people. They’ll probably keep putting it on the ballot. This doesn’t stop until EVERY Repug is voted out.

    Biden/Harris 2024!

  8. Patd

    Love the liberty cartoon.

    These authoritarian types get so irritated when women object to a loss of rights.  They simply won’t be happy unless the “little lady” is confined to the kitchen, nursery, and bedroom.  

     

  13. Has President Obama been removed from office yet?
    Every time I go in for my yearly checkup the nurse asks me a series of questions to see whether I can outsmart the mental status exam.

    What’s your birthdate?
    What’s my name? 
    What year is it?
    Who is the president?
    What town are we in?

    There are a couple/three others, but she always asks those.  Dumbass has missed 2 of them in the past week.

  14. SFB reportedly takes Propecia (for male-pattern baldness), a side effect of which is memory loss.   

    The new combover, flattop thing he’s working looks weird.

    Why does his skin look so bad, though? Sniff, sniff.

  16. the guardian

    Supreme Court announces new ethics code
    The highest court in the nation has announced today its justices must abide by an ethics code.
    The code begins: “A Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States should maintain and observe high standards of conduct in order to preserve the integrity and independence of the federal judiciary.”
    The news comes on the heels of revelations about undisclosed financial ties involving conservative justice Clarence Thomas that many have argued is a conflict of interest for someone in his position.

  17. the hill’s take

    thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4307444-supreme-court-to-adopt-ethics-code-after-scrutiny-of-undisclosed-gifts/

    The Supreme Court indicated Monday it will adopt a code of conduct amid heightened scrutiny over the high court’s standards when it comes to undisclosed gifts and trips.
    In a statement released alongside the 15-page code, the justices said the court’s rules and principles are, for the most part, “not new.” However, “codification” of existing principles is meant to clear up concerns about the justices operating without oversight. 
    “The absence of a Code … has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” the statement reads. “To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”
    […]
    The new code details five “canons,” or rules, each of the nine justices agreed to abide by, many drawing lines in the sand on political activity and fundraising.

  19. patd,  thanks – NBC news was making the same announcement but it wouldn’t display the link on my phone.  The devil is in the details.
     

  20. pogo, here’s wapo on it

    Supreme Court under pressure issues ethics guidelines specific to justices – The Washington Post

    The Supreme Court on Monday issued a statement of ethics specific to the nine justices after reports of lavish and unreported travel and gifts for some of its members prompted intense public criticism and political pressure.
    A statement from the court said that while “for the most part” the guidelines are not new, they were necessary for the public.
    The absence of an ethics code “has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” said the statement signed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his eight colleagues. “To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”
    [continues]

  21. pogo,
    to be sure, the devils ARE in to the details as we speak doing their best to find all the loop holes they can.

  23. Now that is sad, The Supreme Court believes we are stupid enough to fall for that. They had rules, nobody followed them so what do we do have rules again, Not new rules, just this time we will really follow our rules, we promise, really. You can trust us.
     
    You know there must be something in the water, 
     
    Jack

  25. WaPo:

    ***
     A statement from the court said that while “for the most part” the guidelines are not new, they were necessary for the public.
     
    The absence of an ethics code “has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” said the statement signed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his eight colleagues. “To dispel this misunderstanding, we are issuing this Code, which largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”

    ***

    An unsigned “commentary”accompanying the code indicates justices will continue to make their own decisions about recusals and speaking engagements. It says justices should “consider whether doing so would create an appearance of impropriety in the minds of reasonable members of the public.”

    It emphasizes that recusals should be rare because each justice is needed on a nine-member court, where there can be no replacement. “In short, much can be lost when even one Justice does not participate in a particular case,” the statement says.
     
    The commentary also suggests the court is still looking for some answers. “To assist the Justices in complying with these Canons, the Chief Justice has directed Court officers to undertake an examination of best practices, drawing in part on the experience of other federal and state courts,” it says.
     
    The code does not provide a specific remedy for a complaint that a justice has violated the court’s standards.

    Amanda Frost, a professor and judicial ethics expert at University of Virginia’s law school called the court’s adoption of a formal code a “small, but significant step in the right direction that all nine signed on to a statement making clear that certain conduct is not permissible” – a step, she said, that makes it less likely such conduct will occur in the future.
     
    Frost and other ethics experts, however, were critical of the court for not acknowledging past transgressions and for the lack of any enforcement mechanism if a justice were shown to have violated one of the new rules.

    ***

    Thomas and Alito have both said that under the rules in place at the time, they did not believe they needed to report private jet travel and free trips. In his annual financial disclosure this year, Thomas for the first time reported Crow’s purchase in 2014 of the family properties in Savannah, Ga., and reported three 2022 trips on Crow’s private jet.
    ***

    … Misunderstanding? … For the public?  
    Fig leaf for Alito, Thomas, Leo and Crow? 

    What’s that expression I’m looking for? Oh, yeah, BLABLABLABLABLABLAHBLAH.

  26. Pogo
    What I take away from this is that there need to be more Justices so it is easier for them to recuse in case of conflict. So do we double the number? 18 should work. do it gradually 2 every 4 years. 
    Jack

  28. Jack, 13. Same number as # of Courts of Appeal. That’s why we have 9 – to match the number of the courts of appeals when the high court was expanded to 9 in 1869. Grant was president. Both houses of Congress were Republican. Let them try to argue that this is some sort of a liberal idea.

  29. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/11/13/texas-disabled-covid-vaccine-ban/

    “A sweeping ban on COVID-19 vaccine requirements for all private businesses, including hospitals, is the latest blow to medically vulnerable Texans who rely on others’ immunization to shield themselves from highly transmissible viruses.”

    “But the new measure, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law on Friday, could risk the health of groups like organ transplant recipients, cancer patients and those with underlying conditions as common as severe asthma.”

    “These risks led to some bipartisan dissent during original Senate discussions of the bill, especially from state Sens. Borris Miles, D-Houston and Kelly Hancock, R-Fort Worth, who both take immunosuppressants for their respective kidney transplants.”

    In my family, I’m still the only one who thinks it wasn’t a hoax. And now, they think everyone under the age of 60 who dies, probably died from blood clots because they took the vaccine. It’s nuts and I’m glad I’m not going anywhere for the holidays.

  31. Why does [trump’s] skin look so bad, though?

    …’cuz he’s like 80 years old and eats garbage
     

    I’ve never seen a fig 

    i got a fig tree, ain’t nothing finer than a fresh, sweet fig off the tree (the birds agree)
     

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