reflectivepundit

The Evil Goal of a Supreme Court Justice: Make Liberals’ Lives Miserable

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Clarence Thomas, an intellectual lightweight, had according to one of his own clerks one overriding mission, when he entered the Supreme Court: “The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years,” he said, “and I'm going to make their lives miserable for 43 years." Last week, on two consecutive days, he accomplished that and some more: Within 24 dramatic hours, the highest court increased and decreased the authority of states significantly pointing in both cases to the U.S. Constitution as they (1) took away the states’ power to protect Americans’ lives by striking down modest gun-control measures and (2) gave states the control over women’s reproductive decisions by overruling the nearly 50-year-old Roe vs. Wade decision. The Court claimed to rely in both these contrary decisions on the US Constitution. Incredible.

Thomas, the most radical among his reactionary peers, left no doubt that he wants to make liberals even more miserable: He signaled in a concurrent opinion that he wants the SCOTUS majority to outlaw any birth control measures, consensual relation between gay persons, and, for sure, gay marriage. The three-judge minority dissented “in sorrow” as they put it. Many women share that sorrow.

In her column in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd  describes the line-up of male characters who gained power during the years “by trading away something that meant little to them compared with their own stature: the rights of women." This road put Thomas, now the most influential Supreme Court Justice, into his current power position on the Court. All this began with his nomination by President George H.W. Bush. It was no secret that Thomas was an arch-conservative. But Bush disregarded the long pro-choice position of his family to please pro-life conservatives in his party and win African-American support for nominating a Black to the highest court. His son, George W. Bush, appointed Justice Samuel Alito, who has been a life-long Pro-Life fanatic. And in an unimaginable irony, it was left to Donald Trump to put three (!!!) super-conservatives onto the Court—of course, with the machinations of GOP majority leader Mitch McConnell who conned the Democrats and the American people. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the Democrats more than once let him get away with—and much more.

During Thomas’s confirmation hearings, Joe Biden, then chairing the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee, presided over the destruction of Anita Hill who testified—in the view of many women credibly--that her former boss Clearance Thomas had, as Dowd puts it, tormented her “with unwanted attention and dirty talk about the pornographic films he liked to watch.” In other words, the one-time sex-harasser and pornography addict is now part of the SCOTUS majority that dictates morality according to the standards of the Middle Ages from which Justice Samuel Alito draws repeatedly in his sub-standard opinion.

Several of the justices in the majority lied to the Senate’s Judiciary Committee and to individual Senators, among them Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, when asked about Roe vs. Wade. Perhaps that is not surprising, since they were appointed by the liar-in-chief Donald Trump. But it is nevertheless mind-boggling that among the highest and most influential guardians of our laws and the US Constitution here are several justices who swore to tell the truth in their confirmation hearings—and once they got on the Court--they lied!

If America wants to stop Thomas and his fellow radicals from making their lives more miserable, they need to be just as relentless advocates of their rights as Thomas and Co. are determined to take those rights away from them.

Protesting peaceful, relentlessly, and voting for local, state, and federal candidates committed to repeal SCOTUS decisions via contrary legislation are the right ways to fight back.

First the Post-Massacre Playbook; Then the Do-Nothing Nation

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Not all of the ten victims of the Buffalo mass shooting were buried, when an 18-year-old gunman killed at least nineteen children and two of their teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Since lethal incidents like those in Buffalo and Uvalde have become as American as apple pie, they are by now followed automatically by the same post-massacre playbook: Flags are flown at half-mast, solemn prayer are services are held, make-shift memorials are established and buried under mountains of flowers, calls to pray for the victims and their families are issued, prominent people visit the venues of grief, shock and anger are expressed.

While the last chapter of the playbook is still open in the aftermath of Buffalo, the first chapter is now devoted to the events in Uvalde. Yes, our hearts and souls hurt. Yes, we are praying for the victims and survivors. Yes, we are angry that within two weeks two 18-year-old adolescents killed a total of thirty-one human beings. And, yes, we are frustrated that both killed with assault weapons, weapons of war, semi-automatic rifles that allowed them to kill a multitude of persons in record time.

The gun lobby and their supporters have a standard slogan: Guns do not kill—people do. What a tragic joke! For the idea that reasonable people with guns can stop crazy people with guns was once again disproven in Buffalo and in Uvalde: In the first case, bullets from the gun of a guard in Tops Friendly Market could not stop the mass-shooter because the latter wore body armor. In the second case, two police officers encountered the shooter before he entered the school but, again, their shots were deflected by perpetrator’s body armor.

No other country in the world makes it as easy as this country to purchase assault weapons and magazines that guarantee the largest number of people killed in the shortest possible time. In the United States, the number of handguns is significantly larger than the total population size. And no other country has as many mass shootings and people killed by handguns than the United States.

Again and again, public figures and regular people will say in response to catastrophic shootings, “This is not what we are!”

Unfortunately, this is what we are.

Going Back to the Middle Ages to Overturn Roe v. Wade

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Every woman and every man appalled by the prospect of stark limitations to or prohibition of abortion rights as spelled out in the leaked draft of Justice Alito’s radical opinion should read the document. While news reports and commentary following the release of the draft by POLITICO summarize the opinion and the actual consequences of the expected majority ruling, the details in Alito’s arguments and justifications are interesting. Most of all his claim that the Court must be “guided by the history and tradition that map the essential components of our Nation's concept of ordered liberty…”

For history and tradition Alito does not merely rely on the U.S. Constitution and the fact that the Founders’ document does not spell out abortion rights. He relies on and cites from English Common Law in sketching the long history of males condemning abortion as punishable murder. Here are some examples from Alito’s and most likely soon the Court majority’s opinion:

• Henry de Bracton's 13th-century treatise explained that if a person has “struck a pregnant woman, or has given her poison, whereby he has caused an abortion, if the foetus be already formed and animated, and particularly if it be animated, he commits homicide.

• Sir Edward Coke's 17th-century treatise likewise asserted that abortion of a quick child was “murder” if the “childe be born alive” and a “great misprision” if the “childe dieth in her body.”

• In 1732, for example, Eleanor Beare was convicted of “destroying the Foetus in the Womb” of another woman and “there-by causing her to miscarry." For that crime and another “misdemeanor,” Beare was sentenced to two days in the pillory and three years’ imprisonment.

Noting that the American colonies followed the lead of English Common Alito writes that “the few cases available from the early colonial period corroborate that abortion was a crime.”

So, if you do not like the coming overturning of Roe v. Wade, its, history, stupid—English Common Law and the failure of the Founding Fathers to grant abortion rights in the Constitution.

Following the news about Alito’s draft opinion last night, there were spontaneous protests in front of the Supreme Court and elsewhere. It was not surprising to see not only women but also men defending the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision.

Addressing women, Alito writes, “Our decision returns the issue of abortion to those legislative bodies, and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting, and running for office. Women are not without electoral or political power.”

On this point, Alito is right.

Pro Choice women have electoral and political power—and so do Pro Choice men. They and others who could have their established rights repealed by the New Far Right in the near future have still the opportunity to use the ballot to counter the reactionary forces.

The next, most important battle ground will be the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the White House. If all three institutions are controlled by the GOP following the 2024 elections, federal legislation along Alito’s opinion will follow. Not only with respect to abortion rights.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and the Weak Links in the Western Bloc

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The much-praised unity of the European-North American bloc since the Russian invasion of Ukraine has in reality weak links. The weakest is Hungary, a member of both the EU and NATO. The country’s newly reelected Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a long-time admirer of Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin and a constant critic of EU and NATO leaders in Brussels.

Emboldened by his election victory last Sunday, Orban used his acceptance speech for a rhetorical slap in the direction of Brussels. And three days later, this Wednesday, he broke with the EU’s refusal to pay for Russian gas and oil with rubles. “If the Russians ask for it, we will pay in rubles,” he told reporters. While other neighbors of Ukraine facilitate NATO weapon transports into the embattled country, Hungary has refused to cooperate.

One wonders, whether Hungary is such an important part of EU and NATO that Orban can violate the European Union’s agreements, laws, and court rulings designed to strengthen democracy. After all, Orban destroyed Hungary’s developing democracy and replaced it with so-called illiberal democracy, a benign code for autocracy. While the democratic institutions are still in place, they are completely controlled by Orban and his Fidesz party.

Yet, along with Poland, which was before the Ukraine invasion moving to become a full illiberal democracy as well, Hungary receives the highest payments from the European Union.

As for the United States and NATO, things are not going well either: 63 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday, Tuesday, against a non-binding resolution in support of NATO. And that in the face of the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine.

These are the main points of the resolution.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) reaffirms its unequivocal support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as an alliance founded on democratic principles;

(2) calls on the President to use the voice and vote of the United States to adopt a new Strategic Concept for NATO that is clear about its support for shared democratic values and committed to enhancing NATO’s capacity to strengthen democratic institutions within NATO member, partner, and aspirant countries; and

(3) calls on the President to use the voice and vote of the United States to establish a Center for Democratic Resilience within NATO headquarters.

Why in heaven did close to one third of the GOP conference vote “no?”

They took exception to the following provision in the resolution’s full text:

“Whereas democracies across the alliance face external threats from authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China and internal threats from proponents of illiberalism [emphasis added]…”

The naysayers, close to one third of the GOP conference, rejected the highlighted part of the above sentence because they perceived it as a criticism of Hungary and Poland by the Liberal Left. After all, hard-core Trumpian GOPers admire those countries’ illiberal democracies and strive to introduce their authoritarian models right here at home.

These GOPers are fans of strongmen. And, of course, of one particular would-be strongman who does not support NATO and endorsed Orban's latest candidacy.

NATO and EU should enlist Ex-Chancellor Merkel as Peace-Maker

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As the Ukrainian military and civil defense units fight the invading Russian military effectively, Vladimir Putin’s decision to place his military’s nuclear forces on high alert heightens the threat of his use of nuclear weapons in the Ukrainian theater of war—and perhaps beyond. In this critical situation, all efforts must be made to find a peaceful solution. And the best person to enlist for what seems a mission impossible is in my view Germany’s ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, She  speaks Russian fluently und knows Putin better than any other Western politician. Her ability to reason like the trained scientist she is would be a good basis of discussions with the usually rational but more recently highly emotional Russian leader.  

The unity displayed by NATO and EU and allies in other parts of the globe in their swift opposition to Russia’s war against Ukraine must have come as an unprecedented shock to Putin. The Russian president must have underestimated how effective President Biden’s repair of the U.S.-European relationship has been. He reversed his predecessor’s efforts to destroy NATO as we know it and weaken the EU and thereby strengthened Western democracies so that they now can resist Russian expansionism forcefully without direct participation in the military hostilities.

Two weeks into this war, the Ukrainian military and civilian Territorial Defense Forces have stalled Russia’s plan to occupy its neighbor. The unprecedented sanctions against Russia have isolated the country cutting it mostly off the global markets. This has already resulted in hardship for the Russian public.

As Thomas Friedman writes in today’s New York Times, “Russia has no good way out [of this war]…” And that is the problem. Not only for Putin but for the Western alliance against him. Strongman do not want to accept defeat, cannot accept a loss. That’s bad enough, as we learned following the 2020 presidential election in the U.S., in a country in which the institutions of government still work as supposed. But in an autocracy with a sole ruler on top there are no built-in restrains. Thus, the danger of Putin’s end game that may include the deployment to weapons of mass destruction.

The frequent and long phone conversations between Putin and various Western leaders are signs that there may be room for actual negotiations. But that would need a most skilled negotiator.

Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel would be the best possible choice!

The goal must be to find a solution that guarantees Ukraine’s independence but at the same time offers Putin a way out with the ability of justifying the war and its end result as something positive to his people