What we can deduce from a leaked PDF(matthewbutterick.com)
matthewbutterick.com
What we can deduce from a leaked PDF
https://matthewbutterick.com/chron/what-we-can-deduce-from-a-leaked-pdf.html
313 comments
> The fact that neither Apple nor Amazon sued Bloomberg for defamation—despite being extremely rich, finicky, and litigious—made nary a dent
For private individuals, the thresholds for defamation lower. But for public officials, and corporations defamation is nearly impossible to prove. It's not enough to prove that the statements made were false, it's also necessary to prove that they were made with malicious intent. Unless there's some bombshell piece of evidence, like journalists actively conspiring to tear down a target, the journalists can just say "well, we were just writing a piece interesting for our readers."
The 9-0 supreme court case that set this precedence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
For private individuals, the thresholds for defamation lower. But for public officials, and corporations defamation is nearly impossible to prove. It's not enough to prove that the statements made were false, it's also necessary to prove that they were made with malicious intent. Unless there's some bombshell piece of evidence, like journalists actively conspiring to tear down a target, the journalists can just say "well, we were just writing a piece interesting for our readers."
The 9-0 supreme court case that set this precedence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan
> were made with malicious intent
That's not what "actual malice" means. Actual malice means:
> with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not
So its not just that they wanted to harm the person, but that they took reckless disregard to whether it was true or not. Essentially, writing something without even doing a bit of fact finding to try and support it would be considered "actual malice". You don't need to prove the defendant wanted to harm the person being libeled, just that they didn't care whether or not what they were saying was true or not.
That's not what "actual malice" means. Actual malice means:
> with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not
So its not just that they wanted to harm the person, but that they took reckless disregard to whether it was true or not. Essentially, writing something without even doing a bit of fact finding to try and support it would be considered "actual malice". You don't need to prove the defendant wanted to harm the person being libeled, just that they didn't care whether or not what they were saying was true or not.
Not to mention that suing over something like that would just have called attention to it. There's no universe in which Apple or Amazon would actually benefit from filing that kind of lawsuit even if they won it. And there are relatively few universes in which whoever was making the decision would be dumb enough to think they'd benefit.
Only reason for them to fill such suit is if they were malicious and wanted the other party to waste time, money and resources... Not exactly something that is good corporate leadership. Or even good for their shareholders.
> The 9-0 supreme court case that set this precedence:
Small nitpick: a decision is not precedent until it is 1) challenged and 2) survives the challenge. A decision in isolation without seeing a challenge and also surviving that challenge is technically not precedent (though it still is the Law of the Land, precedence or not).
Small nitpick: a decision is not precedent until it is 1) challenged and 2) survives the challenge. A decision in isolation without seeing a challenge and also surviving that challenge is technically not precedent (though it still is the Law of the Land, precedence or not).
A decision absolutely is precedence before it's been challenged. Otherwise, there's be nothing to challenge - a challenge is an attempt to change the existing precedence and create a new status quo on something.
You are mistaken. Say a lower court delivers a ruling. That is not precedent, but it is the Law of the Land until overturned. Say an appeals court upholds that ruling... then the ruling becomes precedent. If never challenged, it isn't precedent, merely the law. Roe was the law of the land but didn't establish precedence until upheld in Casey. If precedent occurred on the initial ruling, that ruling could never be challenged as courts are compelled to uphold precedent of previous rulings until such time as challenges reach a higher court and are overturned.
> That is not precedent, but it is the Law of the Land until overturned.
The fact that a ruling sets the law of the land is what precedence means. It means other rulings follow the previous, preceding rulings.
Roe absolutely was precedence before Casey - that's why abortion was legal in the 1970s and 1980s before Casey v. Planned Parenthood.
The fact that a ruling sets the law of the land is what precedence means. It means other rulings follow the previous, preceding rulings.
Roe absolutely was precedence before Casey - that's why abortion was legal in the 1970s and 1980s before Casey v. Planned Parenthood.
Roe was law, certainly, but only after Casey were courts compelled to treat it as established precedent as the findings in Roe were reasserted. Prior to Casey, Roe had not been seriously challenged in a way that would affect Roe. Casey upheld Roe, establishing Roe as precedent. If today, the Supreme Court issued a finding overturning Roe, it would be law, but that would not establish any precedent. It would be ignoring precedent. But subsequently if this new ruling overturning Roe was challenged and upheld, only then does it become precedent.
Not every finding of the Supreme Count or any court establishes precedent. Only the findings upholding previous cases allow those previous cases to become precedent. Otherwise, the word "precedent" becomes superfluous and has no distinct meaning from "the law."
Not every finding of the Supreme Count or any court establishes precedent. Only the findings upholding previous cases allow those previous cases to become precedent. Otherwise, the word "precedent" becomes superfluous and has no distinct meaning from "the law."
That's an interesting point!
It's not really, it's a misunderstanding of both the US defamation legal landscape and the typical behaviour of large corporations in such circumstances. A news org getting a story wrong is not defamation and statistically nobody sues over stuff like that because it's nigh-impossible to win.
It's not really, it's a misunderstanding of both the US defamation legal landscape and the typical behaviour of large corporations in such circumstances. A news org getting a story wrong is not defamation and statistically nobody sues over stuff like that because it's nigh-impossible to win.
> A news org getting a story wrong is not defamation
Exactly, and neither is a journalist outright lying as long as it's not harming someone's reputation. I have no idea why the author says: "I trust the journalists, because there are still serious legal consequences for news organizations that publish falsehoods"
There are zero legal consequences for news organizations who knowingly lie and mislead as long as they do it with a little bit of care.
Exactly, and neither is a journalist outright lying as long as it's not harming someone's reputation. I have no idea why the author says: "I trust the journalists, because there are still serious legal consequences for news organizations that publish falsehoods"
There are zero legal consequences for news organizations who knowingly lie and mislead as long as they do it with a little bit of care.
And whether or not we ever know the truth, such as it is, it's pretty clear to me that the companies involved sincerely believe their positions at an executive level and that BBW editors really believe their position for whatever reason. The whole thing is very strange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
The visibility section of the wiki link suggests that they may be resilient. They are printed using a low visibility color (light shade of yellow) which can be made visible via post processing. While they do note using a high resolution scanner, I suspect that could be made less important by building redundancy into the MIC, a la how QR codes can function well despite having portions be damaged or missing.
The visibility section of the wiki link suggests that they may be resilient. They are printed using a low visibility color (light shade of yellow) which can be made visible via post processing. While they do note using a high resolution scanner, I suspect that could be made less important by building redundancy into the MIC, a la how QR codes can function well despite having portions be damaged or missing.
I wonder if anyone has looked at the leak for a MIC/yellow dots. It contains a color channel (see highlighting) so it is plausible it could, even if re-scanned.
I quickly isolated the blue channel of the document and ramped up the saturation (which should emphasize yellows), but I can't find any obvious dots (even at 10x zoom). AFAIK it's not the only method in use though, just the most well known.
I checked it and failed to find any. Though if it was scanned from a color print its very likely that they were there in the paper version-- they just may not have survived scanning.
I imagine the Supreme Court is an environment where everyone prints everything. Everyone is in their 50s (some in their 70s) and they probably print and annotate everything manually. I imagine there are copies of everything floating around and picking one up and making another copy wouldn't be all that difficult.
I also wouldn't assume Politico has full staff in office yet, and it wouldn't surprise me if they made a scan-of-a-handed-off-copy on a personal device to get to their web staff. It's pretty brave of them putting it online as a scan still, I think I'd have retyped or taken closer care to crop out the edges and all that just in case (source: Am journalist.) But maybe they handed it to someone in digital forensics and ensured any sort of microdots were stripped out. I worry about words being switched on a per-copy basis as a trap (Tom Clancy used it as a plot device ages ago and it stuck with me,) so maybe they knew it was a copy that floated around and couldn't be traced, or they're not as paranoid as me.
I also wouldn't assume Politico has full staff in office yet, and it wouldn't surprise me if they made a scan-of-a-handed-off-copy on a personal device to get to their web staff. It's pretty brave of them putting it online as a scan still, I think I'd have retyped or taken closer care to crop out the edges and all that just in case (source: Am journalist.) But maybe they handed it to someone in digital forensics and ensured any sort of microdots were stripped out. I worry about words being switched on a per-copy basis as a trap (Tom Clancy used it as a plot device ages ago and it stuck with me,) so maybe they knew it was a copy that floated around and couldn't be traced, or they're not as paranoid as me.
I wouldn't worry about words being switched. These are legislative documents and risk of such actions having long reaching consequences is real. Just think that such error would end up being released stored and distributed long term. It might change entire meaning of sections thus maybe even change some future lawsuits, not something you want to risk.
>>I worry about words being switched on a per-copy basis as a trap
So you support leaking Supreme Court draft opinions and prefer leakers not be caught?
You realize the consequences of legitimizing this for the rule of law, right? If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
So you support leaking Supreme Court draft opinions and prefer leakers not be caught?
You realize the consequences of legitimizing this for the rule of law, right? If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
This is already a much bigger problem than this leak. Selective enforcement of drug laws is rife in the us. Are you also concerned about that?
A leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion is an extraordinary breach of judicial confidentiality protocols and severely damages the integrity of the highest court.
Are you saying that the rule of law is already so degraded in other areas that further degrading it with this kind of action is of no consequence and therefore if it happens to advance what you consider to be a good policy then we should welcome it?
Are you saying that the rule of law is already so degraded in other areas that further degrading it with this kind of action is of no consequence and therefore if it happens to advance what you consider to be a good policy then we should welcome it?
Given that it all revolves around allowing states to turn a Christian fundamentalist idea into a criminal law, I’d say the idea of “rule of law” is long gone.
You've found a way to rationalize undermining rule of law, by arguing that this exercise of the law is.. not the law.
Like I said at the start: If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
Like I said at the start: If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
The idea of keeping religion out of law is not "one political platform".
If the law is working against the society - like in this case - then it needs to be fixed, not blindly obeyed.
If the law is working against the society - like in this case - then it needs to be fixed, not blindly obeyed.
There are more than religious arguments for prohibiting abortion and the Supreme Court draft opinion on Roe vs Wade has zero religious argument contain therein.
Beyond that, the law says the Supreme Court and legislature decides what is or isn't a violation of the separation of Church and State, not activists deciding for themselves what law should or should not be observed.
>>If the law is working against the society - like in this case - then it needs to be fixed, not blindly obeyed.
There is a legal process for changing the law. What you are attempting to justify is undermining the rule of law with haphazard rationalizations.
Beyond that, the law says the Supreme Court and legislature decides what is or isn't a violation of the separation of Church and State, not activists deciding for themselves what law should or should not be observed.
>>If the law is working against the society - like in this case - then it needs to be fixed, not blindly obeyed.
There is a legal process for changing the law. What you are attempting to justify is undermining the rule of law with haphazard rationalizations.
No, there are no logically valid, non-religious arguments for prohibiting abortion. That’s the point: abortion ban is not “a view”; it’s a moral equivalent of antivax. It means one is either misinformed, or lacks basic ethics. You’ve just demonstrated that yourself, by ignoring the fact that the draft opinion quoted a professional witch hunter and marital rape apologist.
Beyond that - the courts exist for a reason, because of the mandate given by society. When the society realizes they aren’t working properly, it should be possible to fix said courts.
And no, in US there is no working legal process for fixing the court, even in very obvious cases, like a judge protecting its wife, or just being a straight out human waste, like Scalia.
Beyond that - the courts exist for a reason, because of the mandate given by society. When the society realizes they aren’t working properly, it should be possible to fix said courts.
And no, in US there is no working legal process for fixing the court, even in very obvious cases, like a judge protecting its wife, or just being a straight out human waste, like Scalia.
>>No, there are no logically valid, non-religious arguments for prohibiting abortion.
There are so many reasons why this is wrong.
Under the Constitution, the tenth amendment clearly reserves powers not expressly enumerated for the federal government, to the people and states, and the only exception to that is powers expressly denied by the Constitution to the states, which defining human life as beginning before birth is not one of them.
Moreover, defining human life as starting at a heartbeat or before birth can be an entirely secular belief, your dogmatism denial notwithstanding.
>>You’ve just demonstrated that yourself, by ignoring the fact that the opinion was based on works of a professional witch hunter and marital rape apologist.
This is just ad hominem / character assassination, and not relevant to this point.
>>When the society realizes they aren’t working properly, it should be possible to fix said courts.
And you're arguing for fixing said courts through illegal acts. Like I said:
If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
>>And no, in US there is no working legal process for fixing the court, even in very obvious cases, like a judge protecting its wife, or just being a straight out human waste, like Scalia.
Of course there is a way to fix the courts: legislation can dictate the jurisdiction of courts, and legislatures can appoint new justices to the court, and the legislature is democratically elected.
Of course the latter takes time, as Supreme Court justices are lifetime appointments, but that is the Constitutional process, and that can also be changed if a supermajority vote for a Constitutional amendment.
Your expressions of hatred and disgust toward those who through the Constitutionally legitimate process, became Supreme Court justices, is not a moral argument. It's just a manifestation of the moral superiority complex exhibited by those on the political left who support this subversion of the law.
There are so many reasons why this is wrong.
Under the Constitution, the tenth amendment clearly reserves powers not expressly enumerated for the federal government, to the people and states, and the only exception to that is powers expressly denied by the Constitution to the states, which defining human life as beginning before birth is not one of them.
Moreover, defining human life as starting at a heartbeat or before birth can be an entirely secular belief, your dogmatism denial notwithstanding.
>>You’ve just demonstrated that yourself, by ignoring the fact that the opinion was based on works of a professional witch hunter and marital rape apologist.
This is just ad hominem / character assassination, and not relevant to this point.
>>When the society realizes they aren’t working properly, it should be possible to fix said courts.
And you're arguing for fixing said courts through illegal acts. Like I said:
If the law is only respected and observed when it agrees with one political platform, it's no law at all.
>>And no, in US there is no working legal process for fixing the court, even in very obvious cases, like a judge protecting its wife, or just being a straight out human waste, like Scalia.
Of course there is a way to fix the courts: legislation can dictate the jurisdiction of courts, and legislatures can appoint new justices to the court, and the legislature is democratically elected.
Of course the latter takes time, as Supreme Court justices are lifetime appointments, but that is the Constitutional process, and that can also be changed if a supermajority vote for a Constitutional amendment.
Your expressions of hatred and disgust toward those who through the Constitutionally legitimate process, became Supreme Court justices, is not a moral argument. It's just a manifestation of the moral superiority complex exhibited by those on the political left who support this subversion of the law.
It doesn’t matter when human life starts: even assuming it started at fertilization, it wouldn’t override other person right to decide about their body. The law doesn’t force you to be a organ donor when it could save someone; this is the same situation.
Like I said - there are no logically valid arguments for abortion ban, other than strictly religious.
Like I said - there are no logically valid arguments for abortion ban, other than strictly religious.
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>If you color-scan a printed document at low-enough resolution, will it corrupt the color-printer dot patterns or are they resilient to that?
I think that if you used Fourier analysis, you could identify the frequency generally associated with the dot size, and delete the signal in that band. This can also be used to achieve excellent reduction of the Moiré effect:
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/issues/moire-n...
https://ijournals.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/5.3106-Khanj...
This has the advantage of also not reducing the image quality as badly as when you try to blur the patterns away spatially.
I think that if you used Fourier analysis, you could identify the frequency generally associated with the dot size, and delete the signal in that band. This can also be used to achieve excellent reduction of the Moiré effect:
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/shift-happens/issues/moire-n...
https://ijournals.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/5.3106-Khanj...
This has the advantage of also not reducing the image quality as badly as when you try to blur the patterns away spatially.
I was thinking along those Reality Winner lines that if I were an organization today getting a leaked document like this, what I would do would be to print it and then scan it grayscale and post that. Thereby being sure to avoid issues of embedded metadata and probably making it at least harder to read things like sneaky printer codes. Not that I'd really expect the Supreme Court to use something like that, but just as a general principle. Obviously this wouldn't be foolproof (something as simple as having a subtly different version of that office routing "stamp" on page 1 for different recipients would suffice to narrow things down a lot) but good practice anyway.
Other than it being color, that's what I would have assumed was done here, except the staple holes and relatively decent image quality do seem to argue against it.
Other than it being color, that's what I would have assumed was done here, except the staple holes and relatively decent image quality do seem to argue against it.
I've always thought that the best approach would be to embed some kind of steganographic identifier in the rendered text. Small variations in the spacing or even kerning.
The simplest way to get around that would be to retype the whole document, which is a bunch of friction. But to counter that, more invasively, the texts different people would get could be different themselves. Sentences subtly reordered, slight differences in word choice or spelling. Though that makes collaboration more difficult.
Less technical savvy but resourced organizations wouldn't face difficulty using those approaches. It could just be a bit that an IT admin toggles on the GSuite or MS Office admin panel.
The simplest way to get around that would be to retype the whole document, which is a bunch of friction. But to counter that, more invasively, the texts different people would get could be different themselves. Sentences subtly reordered, slight differences in word choice or spelling. Though that makes collaboration more difficult.
Less technical savvy but resourced organizations wouldn't face difficulty using those approaches. It could just be a bit that an IT admin toggles on the GSuite or MS Office admin panel.
You could use OCR, and reproduce it as all ASCII. Apparently EVE Online guilds would start to put minor variations in the text of memos, or even alter critical information (like changing timing of convoys or attacks by a few minutes) to weasel out informants.
My facvorite was when the forum background image had the logged-in user encoded into it
> Sentences subtly reordered, slight differences in word voice or spelling. Though that makes collaboration more difficult.
I think that would make collaboration impossible. If that were standard practice collaboration would eventually uncover that was occurring, and a leaker would compensate.
IMHO that technique is only valid when the recipients can be assumed to not be in contact, or as an unusual thing to identify a leaker when one is already suspected.
I think that would make collaboration impossible. If that were standard practice collaboration would eventually uncover that was occurring, and a leaker would compensate.
IMHO that technique is only valid when the recipients can be assumed to not be in contact, or as an unusual thing to identify a leaker when one is already suspected.
> If that were standard practice collaboration would eventually uncover that was occurring, and a leaker would compensate.
I don't think that's really the issue. Let's suppose you have 64 employees with access to a doc. You can uniquely identify them with 6 bits in the doc. A doc of a couple pages would be more than enough to put in those bits, and many more. Even if you had two collaborators who shared docs for a word for word diff, they'd still miss half the identifying bits, which reduces the potential culprit pool to 8, and that's assuming zero redundancy.
The issue I imagine is more usability. Someone identifies one of those bits as content that should be changed: what happens when they suggest the edit?
I don't think that's really the issue. Let's suppose you have 64 employees with access to a doc. You can uniquely identify them with 6 bits in the doc. A doc of a couple pages would be more than enough to put in those bits, and many more. Even if you had two collaborators who shared docs for a word for word diff, they'd still miss half the identifying bits, which reduces the potential culprit pool to 8, and that's assuming zero redundancy.
The issue I imagine is more usability. Someone identifies one of those bits as content that should be changed: what happens when they suggest the edit?
> Even if you had two collaborators who shared docs for a word for word diff, they'd still miss half the identifying bits, which reduces the potential culprit pool to 8, and that's assuming zero redundancy.
That's not really what I'm talking about. It seems like you're focusing on identifying all the exact bits that are being used to identify someone, but that's not important. What is important is the recipients figuring out that someone is monkeying with the documents in a systematic way to trace them. Once a leaker knows that, instead of leaking the exact document for publication, they'd either leak reworded summary of key points themselves, or require the journalist to only publish something similar.
That's not really what I'm talking about. It seems like you're focusing on identifying all the exact bits that are being used to identify someone, but that's not important. What is important is the recipients figuring out that someone is monkeying with the documents in a systematic way to trace them. Once a leaker knows that, instead of leaking the exact document for publication, they'd either leak reworded summary of key points themselves, or require the journalist to only publish something similar.
Printers have done this since the 1980s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
That's the watermark, which is well known. Low resolution scans of the original document can counteract them (...I think...), so I'm brainstorming (dystopian) alternatives.
I misunderstood the intent it seems.
You either print and rescan and crop the edges, or you type it all out yourself. It'd be safest to never put it online at all other than paraphrased summaries. The next safest would be to just type it all out yourself in your own words, but it's pretty darn difficult to do when you've got legalese. Politico must have had reason to believe they're in the clear there. Maybe they had two copies or they knew their source got a shared copy that couldn't be traced. Journalists lose sleep over this.
Why not OCR the document to limit traceability?
Sure you could do that too. You mean, just release it as text, I assume. It would certainly cut out a lot of possible methods of fingerprinting, leaving actual changes to the text only pretty much, which are probably not as common outside some limited scenarios.
I think the reason you don't do that is that things like the formatting and so on being accurate lend credibility to the document.
I think the reason you don't do that is that things like the formatting and so on being accurate lend credibility to the document.
At the end of the day, credibility is a trust issue, and in the Photoshop era I don't think having the right header and the right formatting add much to the credibility.
Fewer potential clues but also less credibility I expect.
OCR also isn't going to be 100% though probably more than good enough in this case. If you really want to implement subtle tracking, you could make changes in the document itself that differ by recipient.
OCR also isn't going to be 100% though probably more than good enough in this case. If you really want to implement subtle tracking, you could make changes in the document itself that differ by recipient.
> If you color-scan a printed document at low-enough resolution, will it corrupt the color-printer dot patterns or are they resilient to that?
It should be completely trivial to destroy any markings in the PDF. Black and white text in particular once scanned can just be thresholded and passed through filters. Heck it seems like a trivial application of deep learning to obfuscate text. For example, it would be interesting to train a transformer to learn degradation from multiple print/scan cycles using the same source using different printers and scanners so that it learns how to fake all sorts of imprecision.
It should be completely trivial to destroy any markings in the PDF. Black and white text in particular once scanned can just be thresholded and passed through filters. Heck it seems like a trivial application of deep learning to obfuscate text. For example, it would be interesting to train a transformer to learn degradation from multiple print/scan cycles using the same source using different printers and scanners so that it learns how to fake all sorts of imprecision.
On rewatching L’s deductive reasoning on Death Note, it is interesting that the viewer sees 100% of the investigation and assumptions on Light while we never see any of L’s other investigations, despite L repeatedly mentioning outloud and in his own head that Light’s probability of being the culprit was less than 5%.
In this case, I think this author ruled out the clerks and other parties too quickly. It is interesting insight to consider that there is a lack of consensus amongst the majority opinion justices and a leak could be to move them back towards the draft, but it has to consider all people with access.
In this case, I think this author ruled out the clerks and other parties too quickly. It is interesting insight to consider that there is a lack of consensus amongst the majority opinion justices and a leak could be to move them back towards the draft, but it has to consider all people with access.
Nice to see a Death Note fan.
> In 2018, Bloomberg Businessweek published a story called “The Big Hack” that was vigorously denied by Apple and Amazon. Based on these denials, certain tech bloggers became convinced that the story was false. The fact that neither Apple nor Amazon sued Bloomberg for defamation—despite being extremely rich, finicky, and litigious—made nary a dent.
No, people concluded that because there were so many holes in the Bloomberg reporting that didn't make any sense conceptually.
No, people concluded that because there were so many holes in the Bloomberg reporting that didn't make any sense conceptually.
And because the people sourced for the story disagreed with it, and all the tech & security experts disagreed (as well as bloggers), and the journalists in question never followed up this incredible bombshell with all of the additional bombshells it should've lead right to as further implants were discovered, and neither did anyone else ever follow it up, and IIRC, didn't some of the journalists quietly leave Bloomberg later? Really, quite a lot of things. While against all this, the absence of a lawsuit says very little, given how horrible the PR from suing is and how pointless it is suing the very rich Bloomberg corporation in an American jurisdiction for nebulous damages.
Butterick is being silly here.
Butterick is being silly here.
> the journalists in question never followed up this incredible bombshell
They did publish more stories on the topic, which are collected here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/2018-the-big-hack
> IIRC, didn't some of the journalists quietly leave Bloomberg later?
AFAIK the authors of The Big Hack, Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, are still employed by Bloomberg. Riley was even promoted about a year later:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/17/bloomberg...
> how horrible the PR from suing is and how pointless it is suing the very rich Bloomberg corporation in an American jurisdiction for nebulous damages
Based on what? This past year, for instance, Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News and certain individuals for defamation and claimed billions in damages
They did publish more stories on the topic, which are collected here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/2018-the-big-hack
> IIRC, didn't some of the journalists quietly leave Bloomberg later?
AFAIK the authors of The Big Hack, Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley, are still employed by Bloomberg. Riley was even promoted about a year later:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/17/bloomberg...
> how horrible the PR from suing is and how pointless it is suing the very rich Bloomberg corporation in an American jurisdiction for nebulous damages
Based on what? This past year, for instance, Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News and certain individuals for defamation and claimed billions in damages
Ah yes, that followup all of 5 days later, repeating the same assertions. After which it has been... almost 4 years of silence. (Your WaPo link notes about Bloomberg's followup that "It is unclear what, if anything, resulted from those efforts." Gosh, you'd think they'd just go ask their many, many, oh so reliable sources, about all the damning evidence all of the subsequent investigations turned up by looking at the little Chinese doodads sitting on all those hacked motherboards, waiting to be forensically examined.)
There is a world in which Bloomberg reported on some of the most serious widespread compromises of scores of companies ultra-paranoid about security who are appalled to learn about the hack long before Bloomberg, triggering countless deep investigations, discoveries of devices & disassemblies, analyses, tracing the APTs back to their Beijing or Shanghai offices (and maybe hacking their office cameras etc), wholesale upheaval of the supply chain, bankruptcy of compromised firms, becoming a touchstone for the intelligence & infosec communities, a cautionary lesson about supplychain hacks & hardware which must never happen again, in which, like the Snowden leaks, the hits just keep on coming, Bloomberg avidly using its deep sources and secret access to report on it every step of the way for clicks, and the naysayers are silenced by public & private evidence and all the experts quietly stop doubting it or endorse it as they learn the truth and leave comments on Twitter & HN about it being legit etc.
There is another world in which the Bloomberg report was ginned up and was some sort of fabrication or Chinese-whispers or severe misinterpretation and nothing like the big hack happened, and so it appears and that's that, and they double down denying there's anything wrong with it while preferring to never talk about it again.
>> “The Big Hack” suffers from something of a time bind: If Bloomberg was on the mark with its claim that about 30 companies were affected by the hack, it stands to reason that further details of this wide-ranging intrusion would surface sooner or later. The Erik Wemple Blog asked Bloomberg if it is aware of any developments on that front. A Bloomberg spokesperson declined to comment.
I am fairly sure which world we live in.
> Riley was even promoted about a year later
Fair enough.
> and claimed billions in damages
Of which they have thus far earned $0, and changed no one's beliefs. Regular people continue to have no idea who Dominion is and think Fox was wrong, security experts continue to believe Dominion is insecure hackable junk, and QAnoners continue to believe that the reincarnated JFK hacked the voting machines to steal the election or something.
There is a world in which Bloomberg reported on some of the most serious widespread compromises of scores of companies ultra-paranoid about security who are appalled to learn about the hack long before Bloomberg, triggering countless deep investigations, discoveries of devices & disassemblies, analyses, tracing the APTs back to their Beijing or Shanghai offices (and maybe hacking their office cameras etc), wholesale upheaval of the supply chain, bankruptcy of compromised firms, becoming a touchstone for the intelligence & infosec communities, a cautionary lesson about supplychain hacks & hardware which must never happen again, in which, like the Snowden leaks, the hits just keep on coming, Bloomberg avidly using its deep sources and secret access to report on it every step of the way for clicks, and the naysayers are silenced by public & private evidence and all the experts quietly stop doubting it or endorse it as they learn the truth and leave comments on Twitter & HN about it being legit etc.
There is another world in which the Bloomberg report was ginned up and was some sort of fabrication or Chinese-whispers or severe misinterpretation and nothing like the big hack happened, and so it appears and that's that, and they double down denying there's anything wrong with it while preferring to never talk about it again.
>> “The Big Hack” suffers from something of a time bind: If Bloomberg was on the mark with its claim that about 30 companies were affected by the hack, it stands to reason that further details of this wide-ranging intrusion would surface sooner or later. The Erik Wemple Blog asked Bloomberg if it is aware of any developments on that front. A Bloomberg spokesperson declined to comment.
I am fairly sure which world we live in.
> Riley was even promoted about a year later
Fair enough.
> and claimed billions in damages
Of which they have thus far earned $0, and changed no one's beliefs. Regular people continue to have no idea who Dominion is and think Fox was wrong, security experts continue to believe Dominion is insecure hackable junk, and QAnoners continue to believe that the reincarnated JFK hacked the voting machines to steal the election or something.
That and that there wasn't anything actually defamatory in the article against either of those entities. It was just a claim that a particular technology existed and that it was used maliciously.
> Therefore, I don’t think the source is someone who works at the Supreme Court, like a justice or a clerk. Justices understand that they don’t always end up in the majority. Clerks rely on these jobs as a calling card for the rest of their careers.
I think people underestimate how ideological the legal profession has become. On an increasing number of social issues, liberal lawyers (which is 90% of them) believe that their position is not only correct, but above debate and above the political and legal process. They begrudgingly accept that economic issues are subject to political debate, but moral issues are their exclusive domain, and politics and law are merely vehicles for imposing the moral views of highly educated professionals on the unwashed masses.
It doesn’t matter that Roe is so bad that numerous prominent liberal legal scholars are unable to defend its reasoning: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/honest-pro-choicers-admit.... It must be the law of the land forever because it’s proponents are right and it’s opponents are “on the wrong side of history.” The arc of history bends towards justice, after all, and no institutional norm can override the march of progress.
A breach of trust like this is obviously a serious offense in a profession where keeping people’s confidences is fundamental to the job. But nonetheless there’s plenty of corporate law firms where these leakers will be feted, not condemned.
I think people underestimate how ideological the legal profession has become. On an increasing number of social issues, liberal lawyers (which is 90% of them) believe that their position is not only correct, but above debate and above the political and legal process. They begrudgingly accept that economic issues are subject to political debate, but moral issues are their exclusive domain, and politics and law are merely vehicles for imposing the moral views of highly educated professionals on the unwashed masses.
It doesn’t matter that Roe is so bad that numerous prominent liberal legal scholars are unable to defend its reasoning: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/honest-pro-choicers-admit.... It must be the law of the land forever because it’s proponents are right and it’s opponents are “on the wrong side of history.” The arc of history bends towards justice, after all, and no institutional norm can override the march of progress.
A breach of trust like this is obviously a serious offense in a profession where keeping people’s confidences is fundamental to the job. But nonetheless there’s plenty of corporate law firms where these leakers will be feted, not condemned.
One thing I noticed a very long time ago is that most people have not read their religious texts.
Roe v Wade being no different. People havent read it, they havent read Casey, they havent read this draft, and they havent read other Supreme Court decisions to know what normal looks like.
There is a wide degree of room for understanding it from a jurisdiction perspective, that have absolutely nothing to do with one of two “camps” or that camp’s correlation to one of two political leanings. From a legal review perspective, that compartmentalizes the emotional aspect away from any desired outcome, its easy to see inspiration for other outcomes and paths that Roe v Wade shutdown all discussion of. Some of those paths actually reach similar results.
I tried once or twice to point that out, but people were just shocked to hear the topic. so I am kind of thrilled that the opportunity to inspire is now forced upon everyone.
Roe v Wade being no different. People havent read it, they havent read Casey, they havent read this draft, and they havent read other Supreme Court decisions to know what normal looks like.
There is a wide degree of room for understanding it from a jurisdiction perspective, that have absolutely nothing to do with one of two “camps” or that camp’s correlation to one of two political leanings. From a legal review perspective, that compartmentalizes the emotional aspect away from any desired outcome, its easy to see inspiration for other outcomes and paths that Roe v Wade shutdown all discussion of. Some of those paths actually reach similar results.
I tried once or twice to point that out, but people were just shocked to hear the topic. so I am kind of thrilled that the opportunity to inspire is now forced upon everyone.
Are you suggesting that the average person should read Supreme Court decisions? And furthermore, are you implying that there are fundamental mistakes in the reasoning of Roe v Wade that emerged just now, 50 years later? Both seem unreasonable suggestions to me. It's akin to saying people should learn programming and read up on code/documentation if they want to have an opinion about Facebook.
Yes, regarding fundamental mistakes, absolutely.
The reasoning didnt emerge just now, people just didnt want to talk about anything more nuanced than being “pro-life” or “prochoice” and “dont say the a-word”.
If you read the case you’ll realize “hold up, what? I’ve been emotionally led my whole life based on this steamy pile of shaky logic?”
You’ll realize that the same outcome could have been created with more durable consensus. Durable meaning acceptable, less divisive, not based on time.
But now, a major roadblock to evaluating things this way has crumbled.
The primary issues are:
- How the multiple unrelated case(s) got to the Supreme Court and were consolidated for Roe v Wade
- How the Supreme Court acted as a super legislature creating frameworks and edicts (it does this sometimes but they are guidelines, prongs for likelihood of compliance. In this case they were completely uncircumventable rights and restrictions, the area of Congress), instead of finding a part of the constitution to support it. Its out of character and relies on the difficulty of overruling the Supreme Court.
- How Congress has had 50 years or more to do or even just try anything on this topic, but didnt. (Risky for politicians doesnt mean the court can do their job)
- The next time the topic was revisited in Casey, the court was relying on the concept of Roe being precedent while then altering that precedent for a modified framework anyway. (The new draft uses that logic to dismantle Casey before dismantling Roe. And it doesnt take an opposite extreme view, it just gets the federal government out of it and returns it to state regulation. If Congress had opined at all, ever, it would have just returned it to Congress’ national laws, but since it never has then there is nothing to supersede state regulation.)
The reasoning didnt emerge just now, people just didnt want to talk about anything more nuanced than being “pro-life” or “prochoice” and “dont say the a-word”.
If you read the case you’ll realize “hold up, what? I’ve been emotionally led my whole life based on this steamy pile of shaky logic?”
You’ll realize that the same outcome could have been created with more durable consensus. Durable meaning acceptable, less divisive, not based on time.
But now, a major roadblock to evaluating things this way has crumbled.
The primary issues are:
- How the multiple unrelated case(s) got to the Supreme Court and were consolidated for Roe v Wade
- How the Supreme Court acted as a super legislature creating frameworks and edicts (it does this sometimes but they are guidelines, prongs for likelihood of compliance. In this case they were completely uncircumventable rights and restrictions, the area of Congress), instead of finding a part of the constitution to support it. Its out of character and relies on the difficulty of overruling the Supreme Court.
- How Congress has had 50 years or more to do or even just try anything on this topic, but didnt. (Risky for politicians doesnt mean the court can do their job)
- The next time the topic was revisited in Casey, the court was relying on the concept of Roe being precedent while then altering that precedent for a modified framework anyway. (The new draft uses that logic to dismantle Casey before dismantling Roe. And it doesnt take an opposite extreme view, it just gets the federal government out of it and returns it to state regulation. If Congress had opined at all, ever, it would have just returned it to Congress’ national laws, but since it never has then there is nothing to supersede state regulation.)
Roe has consistently been criticized by even liberal legal scholars: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/restori...
> Roe v. Wade “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” That was the conclusion in the Yale Law Journal of pro-choice legal scholar John Hart Ely.
> Laurence Tribe — Harvard Law School. Lawyer for Al Gore in 2000. “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”
Roe is the Lochner of liberal jurisprudence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York). It makes sense only under an extrapolation of the broadly libertarian small-government sentiment behind the Constitution that the left doesn’t believe in. (It was penned by a Nixon appointee, and was reaffirmed in Casey by five Republican appointees.)
> Roe v. Wade “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” That was the conclusion in the Yale Law Journal of pro-choice legal scholar John Hart Ely.
> Laurence Tribe — Harvard Law School. Lawyer for Al Gore in 2000. “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”
Roe is the Lochner of liberal jurisprudence. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York). It makes sense only under an extrapolation of the broadly libertarian small-government sentiment behind the Constitution that the left doesn’t believe in. (It was penned by a Nixon appointee, and was reaffirmed in Casey by five Republican appointees.)
> Are you suggesting that the average person should read Supreme Court decisions?
The country would be a better place if more people did.
Supreme court decisions are phenomenally well written. They usually begin with a clear, short, and accessible statement of the case and the relevant principle(s) before they summarize their decision. I find that they describe the issues surrounding the cases with great compassion for all the major arguments. And the dissents are usually equally informative.
Reading decisions has dramatically increased my appreciation of the nuance that goes into the decisions of the court and the operation of our country. Even for cases where I disagreed with the judgement with both before and after reading the decision, I gained a much greater perspective of alternative views. ... and a feeling that even when I strongly believe we're doing the wrong thing that we're trying so hard to do the right thing that eventually we'll get it right somehow.
For several years I read at least the beginning of every decision and dissent -- there aren't that many. I stopped only because I became crunched for time, and I'm thankful that your post reminded me of this gap from my life now that I have the time to pick up the practice again.
The country would be a better place if more people did.
Supreme court decisions are phenomenally well written. They usually begin with a clear, short, and accessible statement of the case and the relevant principle(s) before they summarize their decision. I find that they describe the issues surrounding the cases with great compassion for all the major arguments. And the dissents are usually equally informative.
Reading decisions has dramatically increased my appreciation of the nuance that goes into the decisions of the court and the operation of our country. Even for cases where I disagreed with the judgement with both before and after reading the decision, I gained a much greater perspective of alternative views. ... and a feeling that even when I strongly believe we're doing the wrong thing that we're trying so hard to do the right thing that eventually we'll get it right somehow.
For several years I read at least the beginning of every decision and dissent -- there aren't that many. I stopped only because I became crunched for time, and I'm thankful that your post reminded me of this gap from my life now that I have the time to pick up the practice again.
I also find the American Supreme Court decisions to be surprisingly accessible, while in my and other countries there is a lot of obfuscation. That said, I'm not sure I have the same feeling as you reading some of these decisions. Law and its interpretation is obviously a political matter and always will be. For example, in the case at hand, it's just silly to pretend that after 50 years we have finally arrived at a great legal argument against abortions, which happens to coincide with the recent introduction of three more conservative judges (one of them illegitimately). It's just futile, in my view, to treat any of these decisions as if the people involved were trying really hard to achieve objective truth, rather than impress their prejudices in the most articulate way.
> For example, in the case at hand, it's just silly to pretend that after 50 years we have finally arrived at a great legal argument against abortions
You’ve got it backwards. States have a general “police power” and have the right to pass laws to regulate the public health unless it infringes on a federal constitutional right. In 50 years there has never been a “great legal argument” where the right to have medical providers perform abortion appears in the Constitution. You’re welcome to look in there yourself and report back.
You’ve got it backwards. States have a general “police power” and have the right to pass laws to regulate the public health unless it infringes on a federal constitutional right. In 50 years there has never been a “great legal argument” where the right to have medical providers perform abortion appears in the Constitution. You’re welcome to look in there yourself and report back.
Many things don't appear in the Constitution. I'm sure they didn't magically find a hidden paragraph in 2015 regulating marriage equality. What happened there, and is happening with abortions, is that different ideological groups control the nomination to the Court and enshrine their ideology in law by proxy.
How do you account for the fact that the Court has not revised Roe v Wade in the last 50 years if it all rests on a correct interpretation of the Constitution, which has obviously not changed?
How do you account for the fact that the Court has not revised Roe v Wade in the last 50 years if it all rests on a correct interpretation of the Constitution, which has obviously not changed?
(different person)
The way time passes so long is that:
A) the court declines to hear cases over and over again unless it is forced to have “original jurisdiction” or decides not to decline to hear a case.
B) then when it decides to hear a case, we hope it rests on a solid constitutional ground because thats our only framework. there have only been a couple wild surprises from that court, and people amended the constitution in response just because the judges’ understanding was so wildly different than everyone’s, but the logic they pointed out was so clear that everyone agreed to overrule them by changing the constitution. Here, obviously people don't agree that much because, like you, they believe the means justify the end no matter how shaky the logic is. But for those willing to look, theyll see that court hadnt been doing its job as they didnt use the constitutional at all.
so its easy for us to see that the passage of time cannot be weighted as heavily as you are relying on. the marriage equality ones have very sound logic and have just as clear of a chronology as to why it wasnt ruled on before. your right in that it wasnt magic, but your wrong if you think it was ideological randomness.
The way time passes so long is that:
A) the court declines to hear cases over and over again unless it is forced to have “original jurisdiction” or decides not to decline to hear a case.
B) then when it decides to hear a case, we hope it rests on a solid constitutional ground because thats our only framework. there have only been a couple wild surprises from that court, and people amended the constitution in response just because the judges’ understanding was so wildly different than everyone’s, but the logic they pointed out was so clear that everyone agreed to overrule them by changing the constitution. Here, obviously people don't agree that much because, like you, they believe the means justify the end no matter how shaky the logic is. But for those willing to look, theyll see that court hadnt been doing its job as they didnt use the constitutional at all.
so its easy for us to see that the passage of time cannot be weighted as heavily as you are relying on. the marriage equality ones have very sound logic and have just as clear of a chronology as to why it wasnt ruled on before. your right in that it wasnt magic, but your wrong if you think it was ideological randomness.
> I'm sure they didn't magically find a hidden paragraph in 2015 regulating marriage equality.
Obergefell is a good contrast to Roe. Everyone acknowledges that the "rights" protected by the Constitution includes the rights inherited from the English tradition. (Liberals believe it encompasses an evolving set of rights based on changing moral standards, but they agree it includes at least those recognized in England in 1789.)
Marriage was one of those ancient rights. Even the Magna Carta includes rights relating to marriage. The question therefore wasn't whether there was a right to marriage, but whether same-sex relationships fell within the scope of the concept of "marriage."
On that question, the science changed dramatically in the period leading up to 2015. Science proved in the late 1990s that same-sex conduct was not a choice to reject conformity, but was rooted in biology. And in the early 2000s there was the first research showing that same-sex couples were living in committed relationships, raising children, etc. You'll notice that Kennedy spends a lot of time talking about these facts in his opinion--because those facts are critical to showing that same-sex relationships can be called "marriage" as historically understood.
If anything, "the science" has worked against Roe. The first real-time fetal ultrasound was conducted in 1971, just a couple of years before Roe was decided. Since then, ultrasounds have become routine, and 3D ultrasound technology allows us to see that a 15-week fetus isn't a "bundle of cells" but has a human face: https://youtu.be/sBmXNOG4s4A
Obergefell is a good contrast to Roe. Everyone acknowledges that the "rights" protected by the Constitution includes the rights inherited from the English tradition. (Liberals believe it encompasses an evolving set of rights based on changing moral standards, but they agree it includes at least those recognized in England in 1789.)
Marriage was one of those ancient rights. Even the Magna Carta includes rights relating to marriage. The question therefore wasn't whether there was a right to marriage, but whether same-sex relationships fell within the scope of the concept of "marriage."
On that question, the science changed dramatically in the period leading up to 2015. Science proved in the late 1990s that same-sex conduct was not a choice to reject conformity, but was rooted in biology. And in the early 2000s there was the first research showing that same-sex couples were living in committed relationships, raising children, etc. You'll notice that Kennedy spends a lot of time talking about these facts in his opinion--because those facts are critical to showing that same-sex relationships can be called "marriage" as historically understood.
If anything, "the science" has worked against Roe. The first real-time fetal ultrasound was conducted in 1971, just a couple of years before Roe was decided. Since then, ultrasounds have become routine, and 3D ultrasound technology allows us to see that a 15-week fetus isn't a "bundle of cells" but has a human face: https://youtu.be/sBmXNOG4s4A
The problem with this approach is that it is very malleable. Technology also changed immensely from when the Founders mentioned "arms", but I would think Conservatives would have a hard time accepting this particular "evolution". The examples you mention are also cherry-picked. We already knew fetuses had heartbeats and human faces many decades before ultrasounds existed. And a vast majority of scientists would agree that abortion is valid within some restrictions, so I don't believe that ascribing this change to the evolution of science does you any favors.
> On that question, the science changed dramatically in the period leading up to 2015. Science proved in the late 1990s that same-sex conduct was not a choice to reject conformity, but was rooted in biology. And in the early 2000s there was the first research showing that same-sex couples were living in committed relationships, raising children, etc. You'll notice that Kennedy spends a lot of time talking about these facts in his opinion--because those facts are critical to showing that same-sex relationships can be called "marriage" as historically understood.
Homosexual "marriages" have existed since Antiquity. And marriages do not necessarily have to lead to children, otherwise old people would be restricted from marrying. I think it is obvious that this decision is a result of the fast change in the zeitgeist rather than a careful evaluation of evidence, no matter what the Justices or their clerks deemed fit to write in their decisions.
> On that question, the science changed dramatically in the period leading up to 2015. Science proved in the late 1990s that same-sex conduct was not a choice to reject conformity, but was rooted in biology. And in the early 2000s there was the first research showing that same-sex couples were living in committed relationships, raising children, etc. You'll notice that Kennedy spends a lot of time talking about these facts in his opinion--because those facts are critical to showing that same-sex relationships can be called "marriage" as historically understood.
Homosexual "marriages" have existed since Antiquity. And marriages do not necessarily have to lead to children, otherwise old people would be restricted from marrying. I think it is obvious that this decision is a result of the fast change in the zeitgeist rather than a careful evaluation of evidence, no matter what the Justices or their clerks deemed fit to write in their decisions.
> one of them illegitimately
From googling, I'm guessing you're referring to the fact that Barrett's appointment was a week ahead of the presidential election and months ahead of the end of trump's presidency.
Federal appointments down to the last minute of a presidency are lawful, and somewhat late appointments happen frequently. I find the suggestion otherwise in this context particularly amusing, because the fantastic drama over some literally 11th hour appointments-- ones so late they were delivered after the end of the presidency-- is how the supreme court took the power to review laws for constitutionality in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison . Even lame-duck supreme court nominations used to be fairly common (even though supreme court nominations are not that common themselves) -- that they aren't common more recently is because an unplanned vacancy is far more rare.
It's true that Obama failed to make a nomination at the end of his term, but the view that he couldn't or that it would have been improper is just not factually supported by the law or the history of the country, including the history of supreme court nominations. Instead there is a clear political explanation: Given the composition of the senate and the weakness of an outgoing president, Obama would have only been able to get through a compromise nomination. There was high confidence that Hillary would win and that the dems would have greater senate influence, allowing a more politically extreme nominee if it was left to her term. This was a grave political error, one I suspect we'll be suffering from for years to come. (The fact that we had a number of unplanned vacancies of late are also political errors, at least to the extent that you consider the justices political actors.)
I find it unfair to the point of outright incivility though to escalate a debate about the fairness of it the level of calling the appointment _illegitimate_, and is disrespectful to a fine and honorable institution. The fact that some politicians and pundits can't restrain themselves doesn't excuse the rest of us.
> you reading some of these decisions [...] to treat any of these decision
It's a big step from some to any. No person or process is infallible.
From googling, I'm guessing you're referring to the fact that Barrett's appointment was a week ahead of the presidential election and months ahead of the end of trump's presidency.
Federal appointments down to the last minute of a presidency are lawful, and somewhat late appointments happen frequently. I find the suggestion otherwise in this context particularly amusing, because the fantastic drama over some literally 11th hour appointments-- ones so late they were delivered after the end of the presidency-- is how the supreme court took the power to review laws for constitutionality in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison . Even lame-duck supreme court nominations used to be fairly common (even though supreme court nominations are not that common themselves) -- that they aren't common more recently is because an unplanned vacancy is far more rare.
It's true that Obama failed to make a nomination at the end of his term, but the view that he couldn't or that it would have been improper is just not factually supported by the law or the history of the country, including the history of supreme court nominations. Instead there is a clear political explanation: Given the composition of the senate and the weakness of an outgoing president, Obama would have only been able to get through a compromise nomination. There was high confidence that Hillary would win and that the dems would have greater senate influence, allowing a more politically extreme nominee if it was left to her term. This was a grave political error, one I suspect we'll be suffering from for years to come. (The fact that we had a number of unplanned vacancies of late are also political errors, at least to the extent that you consider the justices political actors.)
I find it unfair to the point of outright incivility though to escalate a debate about the fairness of it the level of calling the appointment _illegitimate_, and is disrespectful to a fine and honorable institution. The fact that some politicians and pundits can't restrain themselves doesn't excuse the rest of us.
> you reading some of these decisions [...] to treat any of these decision
It's a big step from some to any. No person or process is infallible.
Yes, I was referring to how the nomination was stolen from Obama. The nominee they had in mind was in fact moderate, and in the past Congress had never wielded its power to block a nomination because it was done in the last year of a presidency. The fact that the Republicans pushed their own nomination at the last minute was just adding insult to injury. I think we have to be clear about what is legal and what is legitimate here. It is legal for the Democrats to pack the Court, and there is even precedent for that. They also have congressional majorities that in theory allow for that. However, it would be illegitimate to do so.
> I find it unfair to the point of outright incivility though to escalate a debate about the fairness of it the level of calling the appointment _illegitimate_, and is disrespectful to a fine and honorable institution.
A fine and honorable institution which has upheld slavery, segregation, imprisonment camps, and the list goes on. The SCOTUS is not above criticism, and change can only occur if we treat them for what they are, servants of the people.
> I find it unfair to the point of outright incivility though to escalate a debate about the fairness of it the level of calling the appointment _illegitimate_, and is disrespectful to a fine and honorable institution.
A fine and honorable institution which has upheld slavery, segregation, imprisonment camps, and the list goes on. The SCOTUS is not above criticism, and change can only occur if we treat them for what they are, servants of the people.
Just to add on to the sibling comment: absolutely yes, they should. SCOTUS opinions are written to be read by educated laymen. It is nothing like reading code - the whole point of the institution is that it's the supreme court of a democratic, self-governed people! The law is supposed to be understood. Justices are experts because of their comprehensive knowledge of case law and precedent and their ability to apply it to a given case, not because the method is beyond the grasp of normal people.
You might also be surprised at how, compared to the code analogy, informal and even non-legalistic many opinions are. There's a lot of opinions that read largely like well-informed Internet comments for long stretches until legal citations come back in.
You might also be surprised at how, compared to the code analogy, informal and even non-legalistic many opinions are. There's a lot of opinions that read largely like well-informed Internet comments for long stretches until legal citations come back in.
>And furthermore, are you implying that there are fundamental mistakes in the reasoning of Roe v Wade that emerged just now, 50 years later?
They didn't emerge just now, they were pointed out in scholarly discussions of the case immediately after it was handed down, and throughout the intervening 50 years. It was even criticized by pro-abortion people, they wanted something more soundly reasoned.
They didn't emerge just now, they were pointed out in scholarly discussions of the case immediately after it was handed down, and throughout the intervening 50 years. It was even criticized by pro-abortion people, they wanted something more soundly reasoned.
I would imagine that there is criticism for every decision the Court has ever made. However, this one has been challenged numerous times over these 50 years and stayed in place. Either we believe that law is a purely technical matter and the Court has failed at that job for 50 years, or we believe that politics are far more important and the technical arguments simply follow from that. I find it absurd to believe that you can treat law as some sort of math proof.
Yes, every decision has its share of criticism. Roe is unusual in that it rested on such a remarkably flimsy basis (part of which was rejected in Casey).
It is not the first time that a longstanding doctrine has been completely thrown out, even after a gap of decades. Courts aren't infallible. Are they supposed to persist in error forever?
And yes, Roe absolutely was in error, and yes the Court has been deficient in its duties over the past 50 years in not correcting it, undoubtedly for fear of the political impact.
It is not the first time that a longstanding doctrine has been completely thrown out, even after a gap of decades. Courts aren't infallible. Are they supposed to persist in error forever?
And yes, Roe absolutely was in error, and yes the Court has been deficient in its duties over the past 50 years in not correcting it, undoubtedly for fear of the political impact.
> It is not the first time that a longstanding doctrine has been completely thrown out, even after a gap of decades. Courts aren't infallible. Are they supposed to persist in error forever?
Again, this dichotomy only arises if you subscribe to the view that any decision from the Court is purely technical in the first place. If you think it has been maintained for 50 years because of its political impact, I don't see any reason to discuss the technical aspects at all, as they are irrelevant. What we should be asking is what changed in politics recently, what caused it, and where it is going to take us.
Each political side can always find legal experts and reasonable arguments to justify changing a decision they dislike. Some stones are best left unturned, as there are costs for the Court to act like this. I predict a ton of judicial uncertainty, a weakening of the SCOTUS and eventually radical solutions like court packing.
Again, this dichotomy only arises if you subscribe to the view that any decision from the Court is purely technical in the first place. If you think it has been maintained for 50 years because of its political impact, I don't see any reason to discuss the technical aspects at all, as they are irrelevant. What we should be asking is what changed in politics recently, what caused it, and where it is going to take us.
Each political side can always find legal experts and reasonable arguments to justify changing a decision they dislike. Some stones are best left unturned, as there are costs for the Court to act like this. I predict a ton of judicial uncertainty, a weakening of the SCOTUS and eventually radical solutions like court packing.
(Different person)
The Supreme Court and other appeals courts typically are purely technical, across all political leanings and makeups.
On this topic, the Supreme Court reverted to a purely technical view, auditing those two prior cases on their technical merits because they are outliers in being untechnical. They returned it to the states, not taking any extreme approach at all. The extreme options would be: invalidate all state laws that destroy fetuses, prohibit Congress from having any ability to review. Nope, nothing like that was done because overturning roe v wade was never as political as suggested with regard to a child bearer’s body, they simply returned it to the states, and there has always been an absence of a superseding law from Congress, which is Congress’ fault for never even trying
The Supreme Court and other appeals courts typically are purely technical, across all political leanings and makeups.
On this topic, the Supreme Court reverted to a purely technical view, auditing those two prior cases on their technical merits because they are outliers in being untechnical. They returned it to the states, not taking any extreme approach at all. The extreme options would be: invalidate all state laws that destroy fetuses, prohibit Congress from having any ability to review. Nope, nothing like that was done because overturning roe v wade was never as political as suggested with regard to a child bearer’s body, they simply returned it to the states, and there has always been an absence of a superseding law from Congress, which is Congress’ fault for never even trying
Why did they wait 50 years to correct this obvious outlier? And why did several of the judges lie to Congress when they said they would not change Roe? One would think they could publicly announce their views if they were purely technical.
To be clear, even liberal scholars have recognized the infirmity of Roe as a legal decision for decades: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tim-carney-defense-of-abo...
> "One of the most curious things about Roe," wrote liberal Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe "is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found."
> Alan Dershowitz, another legendary liberal Harvard Law professor, called Roe "judicial activism" lacking "clear governing constitutional principles."
> There are plenty more like this. Pro-choice Yale and Harvard Law professor John Hart Ely wrote that Roe "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."
> Why did they wait 50 years to correct this obvious outlier?
Because once a precedent has been set, the Supreme Court isn't obliged to revisit it, even if everyone comes to believe the decision is wrong. Whereas the merits of the original decision are quite technical, whether to overrule precedent or not is highly discretionary. It considers factors like whether the original decision failed to settle the underlying controversy, whether it creates a rule that is hard to apply in practice, etc. See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis
It's this discretionary aspect that made Roe a sitting duck. Liberals obviously had no reason to overrule Roe even if they, like Justice Ginsburg, believed the decision was flawed. And for a long time, Republicans appointed social liberals to the Court who were happy to kick the can down the road because they were worried about the political ramifications.
Note that the politics doesn't matter for whether the decision is correct or not in the first place, but it's an entirely reasonable basis for deciding whether or not to go to the trouble of overruling an incorrect precedent.
> And why did several of the judges lie to Congress when they said they would not change Roe?
They didn't say they "would not change Roe" they said they recognized "Roe is precedent." As explained above, precedent can be overturned.
> "One of the most curious things about Roe," wrote liberal Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe "is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found."
> Alan Dershowitz, another legendary liberal Harvard Law professor, called Roe "judicial activism" lacking "clear governing constitutional principles."
> There are plenty more like this. Pro-choice Yale and Harvard Law professor John Hart Ely wrote that Roe "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."
> Why did they wait 50 years to correct this obvious outlier?
Because once a precedent has been set, the Supreme Court isn't obliged to revisit it, even if everyone comes to believe the decision is wrong. Whereas the merits of the original decision are quite technical, whether to overrule precedent or not is highly discretionary. It considers factors like whether the original decision failed to settle the underlying controversy, whether it creates a rule that is hard to apply in practice, etc. See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis
It's this discretionary aspect that made Roe a sitting duck. Liberals obviously had no reason to overrule Roe even if they, like Justice Ginsburg, believed the decision was flawed. And for a long time, Republicans appointed social liberals to the Court who were happy to kick the can down the road because they were worried about the political ramifications.
Note that the politics doesn't matter for whether the decision is correct or not in the first place, but it's an entirely reasonable basis for deciding whether or not to go to the trouble of overruling an incorrect precedent.
> And why did several of the judges lie to Congress when they said they would not change Roe?
They didn't say they "would not change Roe" they said they recognized "Roe is precedent." As explained above, precedent can be overturned.
> They didn't say they "would not change Roe" they said they recognized "Roe is precedent." As explained above, precedent can be overturned.
You are right about this point, upon further reading I see that I based my question on social media bullshit that turned out to be biased. I agree with your distinction.
Regarding the rest, I think you still don't quite grasp my point. I understand there can be a technical way of looking at these decisions. I can also concede that Roe is particularly hated by most scholars. But if we both agree that politics is why these technical aspects were overlooked for 50 years, it seems absolutely pointless to discuss this issue from any other standpoint. Political interference is why this decision was made in the first place, because as another user stated, it fit into the more libertarian ideology of the Court at that time. And politics is why it's getting struck down, technical aspects notwithstanding. You can of course disagree, as I think you do, but from my perspective the political aspect is much more interesting and a more powerful predictor than anything else.
You are right about this point, upon further reading I see that I based my question on social media bullshit that turned out to be biased. I agree with your distinction.
Regarding the rest, I think you still don't quite grasp my point. I understand there can be a technical way of looking at these decisions. I can also concede that Roe is particularly hated by most scholars. But if we both agree that politics is why these technical aspects were overlooked for 50 years, it seems absolutely pointless to discuss this issue from any other standpoint. Political interference is why this decision was made in the first place, because as another user stated, it fit into the more libertarian ideology of the Court at that time. And politics is why it's getting struck down, technical aspects notwithstanding. You can of course disagree, as I think you do, but from my perspective the political aspect is much more interesting and a more powerful predictor than anything else.
As an additional example, 110 years ago that same court ruled that “motion pictures” were not subject to 1st amendment protections. punting that to the states and straight up censorship boards for half the century.
a reality not revisited until the 1950s, where the supreme court bought it back under the federal domain, overruling itself because “obviously this has 1st amendment protections” and creating the “free speech and expression” reality that seems profoundly American, but really hasnt been for long.
you can have an opinion, but you need to incorporate what the court actually says and their logic behind. Just because a ruling is convenient for you or your causes (multiple times) doesnt mean its on solid ground. on this specific topic, its important to repeat over and over again that the federal government and even its supreme court could have reached the same outcome of privileging the pregnant person’s choice, but yes, that outcome would need to be closer to a math proof if from that court factoring in very different variables.
I get that its comfortable (or at least familiar) to view that the means justify the ends, where any authority using any rationale can extend rights that you like. I get that its scary that rights are so flimsy and people dont trust their states and that they will be immediately denied services they expected to be available. None of that lets the incorrect authority do its job wrong.
a reality not revisited until the 1950s, where the supreme court bought it back under the federal domain, overruling itself because “obviously this has 1st amendment protections” and creating the “free speech and expression” reality that seems profoundly American, but really hasnt been for long.
you can have an opinion, but you need to incorporate what the court actually says and their logic behind. Just because a ruling is convenient for you or your causes (multiple times) doesnt mean its on solid ground. on this specific topic, its important to repeat over and over again that the federal government and even its supreme court could have reached the same outcome of privileging the pregnant person’s choice, but yes, that outcome would need to be closer to a math proof if from that court factoring in very different variables.
I get that its comfortable (or at least familiar) to view that the means justify the ends, where any authority using any rationale can extend rights that you like. I get that its scary that rights are so flimsy and people dont trust their states and that they will be immediately denied services they expected to be available. None of that lets the incorrect authority do its job wrong.
>that most people have not read their religious texts.
What do you think qualifies you to judge if most Hindus have not read the Rig Veda, most sikhs have not read the Adi Granth, most Muslims have not read the Quran, most jews have not read the Torah, etc for every religion?
I find people take the experience they have with one particular religion around them, and then paint all religious people the same way. It's very strange because it makes no sense, yet even in places with very well read people like HN you see it all the time. I certainly agree there is a lot of polarization in the world right now
What do you think qualifies you to judge if most Hindus have not read the Rig Veda, most sikhs have not read the Adi Granth, most Muslims have not read the Quran, most jews have not read the Torah, etc for every religion?
I find people take the experience they have with one particular religion around them, and then paint all religious people the same way. It's very strange because it makes no sense, yet even in places with very well read people like HN you see it all the time. I certainly agree there is a lot of polarization in the world right now
ok. what did you think about the rest of the post besides the topic sentence. have you read supreme court cases that people elevate to the importance of religious texts? if so, what did you think of them, if not have you weighed in on these topics before because that was the actual point.
Sorry, I agree with the rest of it. That part is just a pet peeve of mine so it distracted me-- but actually I do agree. I myself haven't read any detailed judgements by the Supreme Court, very few people do.
I think people judge the outcome of these very consequential lethal decisions morally rather than based on their legal merits. In fact I doubt most people are equipped to judge cases on their lethal merits. At the end of the day if a badly supported law is passed that many people agree with, they'll go along with it. If a well supported law that people disagree with is passed, they'll complain until someone finds a problem with it no matter how minor or abstract. Many people don't understand that legality=/=morality, or they desperately want them to be the same
I think people judge the outcome of these very consequential lethal decisions morally rather than based on their legal merits. In fact I doubt most people are equipped to judge cases on their lethal merits. At the end of the day if a badly supported law is passed that many people agree with, they'll go along with it. If a well supported law that people disagree with is passed, they'll complain until someone finds a problem with it no matter how minor or abstract. Many people don't understand that legality=/=morality, or they desperately want them to be the same
FWIW, I would encourage you to read the leaked text.
I have read a few opinions of the Supreme Court over the years. I have no specific background in law, and I am not even a native English speaker, but I have found them uniformly accessible to a layman. They use a dozen or so boilerplate latin expressions that you need to get used to, but they are otherwise fairly readable.
The leaked text by Mr. Alito is a masterpiece of English prose and scholarship, in my opinion. In 90 pages or so, it explains the history of the issue and the legal theories that common-law judges have advanced since the 14th century. It analyzes the arguments in favor and against Roe and Wade. It also summarizes the legal handling of the issue in various US states.
Irrespective of whether or not you agree with the conclusion, these opinions are one of the few pieces of contemporary literature worth reading. I myself am looking forward to the final form of this text (should the Court decide to uphold it) as well as all the dissenting opinions, which I expect to be of similarly high caliber.
I have read a few opinions of the Supreme Court over the years. I have no specific background in law, and I am not even a native English speaker, but I have found them uniformly accessible to a layman. They use a dozen or so boilerplate latin expressions that you need to get used to, but they are otherwise fairly readable.
The leaked text by Mr. Alito is a masterpiece of English prose and scholarship, in my opinion. In 90 pages or so, it explains the history of the issue and the legal theories that common-law judges have advanced since the 14th century. It analyzes the arguments in favor and against Roe and Wade. It also summarizes the legal handling of the issue in various US states.
Irrespective of whether or not you agree with the conclusion, these opinions are one of the few pieces of contemporary literature worth reading. I myself am looking forward to the final form of this text (should the Court decide to uphold it) as well as all the dissenting opinions, which I expect to be of similarly high caliber.
I actually got a chuckle out of the 30 pages of statutes from places that are now US states and territories from 1850 till 1973.
Thought it was odd and hurried to include Hawaii's 1850 statute. Since it was neither a territory or state then. Wish I knew a news source or discussion board that could find this stuff moderately entertaining, instead of looking for angles to discredit the entire institution.
Thought it was odd and hurried to include Hawaii's 1850 statute. Since it was neither a territory or state then. Wish I knew a news source or discussion board that could find this stuff moderately entertaining, instead of looking for angles to discredit the entire institution.
> liberal lawyers (which is 90% of them)
What is the basis for this claim?
> believe that their position is not only correct but above debate and above the political and legal process
You seem to be accusing everyone who disagrees with you of malice and abandonment of all principles - more or less evil. I would counter that this kind of argument is only ever made in bad faith in an attempt to demonize those who don't agree with you.
> politics and law are merely vehicles for imposing the moral views of highly educated professionals on the unwashed masses.
And one could likewise say that much of conservative thought is an attempt to force people to adhere to certain religious values using state coercion. But that would just be an opinion, not a fact.
What is fact is that many (possibly most?) conservative policies and doctrines do not enjoy majority support in the United States, yet are being rammed down our throats regardless because those policies are a) supported by those in power and b) convenient wedge issues or rallying cries for a small minority of the voting base - a minority that happens to be highly motivated.
Even the current composition of the court was a blatant power grab to deny Obama's constitutional right to appoint a justice with a made-up rule that it was "too close" to an election. Then immediately discarding that so-called rule when Trump was in the same position. In that sense the current conservative majority is illegitimate. Regardless of how you think any specific SCOTUS decision should go I hope you'd agree that a court that the majority of Americans believe to be illegitimately stacked is not a good thing for the stability of our separation of powers.
For that matter the overall tilt toward conservatives in House representation thanks to gerrymandering along with over-representation of conservative thought in the Senate due to the 2-senators-per-state rule undermines the legitimacy of Congress and the entire government. You can only get away with preventing the majority from being able to enact any significant policies for so long before a representative government collapses. Granted that might take tens or hundreds of years but in the long term it erodes the very foundation of our society. I find that very concerning personally but some people would rather win at any cost (witness Trump's recent loss and the fact that some conservatives attempted to sacrifice free & fair elections for a single win of a single presidential term. How cheaply they were willing to sell out!)
What is the basis for this claim?
> believe that their position is not only correct but above debate and above the political and legal process
You seem to be accusing everyone who disagrees with you of malice and abandonment of all principles - more or less evil. I would counter that this kind of argument is only ever made in bad faith in an attempt to demonize those who don't agree with you.
> politics and law are merely vehicles for imposing the moral views of highly educated professionals on the unwashed masses.
And one could likewise say that much of conservative thought is an attempt to force people to adhere to certain religious values using state coercion. But that would just be an opinion, not a fact.
What is fact is that many (possibly most?) conservative policies and doctrines do not enjoy majority support in the United States, yet are being rammed down our throats regardless because those policies are a) supported by those in power and b) convenient wedge issues or rallying cries for a small minority of the voting base - a minority that happens to be highly motivated.
Even the current composition of the court was a blatant power grab to deny Obama's constitutional right to appoint a justice with a made-up rule that it was "too close" to an election. Then immediately discarding that so-called rule when Trump was in the same position. In that sense the current conservative majority is illegitimate. Regardless of how you think any specific SCOTUS decision should go I hope you'd agree that a court that the majority of Americans believe to be illegitimately stacked is not a good thing for the stability of our separation of powers.
For that matter the overall tilt toward conservatives in House representation thanks to gerrymandering along with over-representation of conservative thought in the Senate due to the 2-senators-per-state rule undermines the legitimacy of Congress and the entire government. You can only get away with preventing the majority from being able to enact any significant policies for so long before a representative government collapses. Granted that might take tens or hundreds of years but in the long term it erodes the very foundation of our society. I find that very concerning personally but some people would rather win at any cost (witness Trump's recent loss and the fact that some conservatives attempted to sacrifice free & fair elections for a single win of a single presidential term. How cheaply they were willing to sell out!)
This is a little tangential but it’s kind of funny that both you and the person you’re disagreeing with, and the camps you represent, agree that SCOTUS judges are political. In fact, almost everyone seems to agree with that (myself included) except notably for the judges themselves, who consistently insist their jobs are apolitical. Roberts in particular has embarked on the fool’s errand of convincing the public of that.
It kind of reminds me of this nonsense that universities offering liberal arts degrees still pay lip service to: that everyone is there for education for its own sake, oh no, it’s not a giant machine that gates public employment, it’s there for knowledge!
Uh huh.
It kind of reminds me of this nonsense that universities offering liberal arts degrees still pay lip service to: that everyone is there for education for its own sake, oh no, it’s not a giant machine that gates public employment, it’s there for knowledge!
Uh huh.
SCOTUS is ideological, not political. The ideologies often line up with politics: the Constitution is a 244 year old document with a heavy emphasis on economic liberty and protection of personal and property rights. Interpreting the Constitution according to its text and original intent will naturally lead to conservative outcomes.
Likewise, viewing the Constitution as an evolving document that gives great discretion to judges to fashion rules for a changing world naturally favors liberal outcomes, because lawyers and judges are overwhelmingly liberal, even the republicans. (It was, after all, a majority Republican Court that wrote Roe in the first place.)
Indeed, overruling Roe is a good example of the distinction between ideology and partisanship. 1/3 of republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-te.... (And about 29% of Democrats don’t.)
Republicans are heavily favored in the upcoming 2022 elections. Biden’s approval rating among republicans is 7%. Why would a savvy partisan blow up an issue that fractures the GOP and draws attention away from how unified they are in hating Biden? The GOP has the rural, churchgoing mom vote locked up. Inflation is what they want to be talking about right now to win back suburban moms, not abortion.
Likewise, viewing the Constitution as an evolving document that gives great discretion to judges to fashion rules for a changing world naturally favors liberal outcomes, because lawyers and judges are overwhelmingly liberal, even the republicans. (It was, after all, a majority Republican Court that wrote Roe in the first place.)
Indeed, overruling Roe is a good example of the distinction between ideology and partisanship. 1/3 of republicans don’t agree with their party on abortion: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/18/three-in-te.... (And about 29% of Democrats don’t.)
Republicans are heavily favored in the upcoming 2022 elections. Biden’s approval rating among republicans is 7%. Why would a savvy partisan blow up an issue that fractures the GOP and draws attention away from how unified they are in hating Biden? The GOP has the rural, churchgoing mom vote locked up. Inflation is what they want to be talking about right now to win back suburban moms, not abortion.
The ideologies often line up with politics: the Constitution is a 244 year old document with a heavy emphasis on economic liberty and protection of personal and property rights. Interpreting the Constitution according to its text and original intent will naturally lead to conservative outcomes.
I think that interpreting the Constitution by its literal text yields interpretations different from interpreting according to original intent. And that the literal text reading does not align all that closely with mainstream Republican or Democratic positions.
Consider the text of the First Amendment, for example.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
No abridgment of freedom of speech or of the press. Pretty clear as text. Yet the Sedition Act of 1798 was never overturned as unconstitutional. Nor is there an exception in the plain text for "unless it's obscene" or "unless it's a lie" yet there are Federal laws limiting obscenity and fraud and other kinds of speech that were never struck down on First Amendment grounds. Some such laws were passed in the lifetime of the original framers of the constitution and others are in force today. Some state level blasphemy laws remained in place until the 20th century [1].
As I see it, either the literal text reading of the Second Amendment protects private ownership of machine guns just like it does bolt action rifles and revolvers, or handguns are no more protected than machine guns, whose private ownership was limited by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and then outlawed for all but affluent collectors by the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.
A maximal-individual-liberty interpretation of the literal text of the First and Second Amendments produces a United States in which there are no Federal laws against publishing pornographic videos of minors, nor against private ownership of anti-aircraft missiles. (Among other startling developments.) That's closer to a fantasy of a certain strain of libertarian than anything aligned with mainstream political factions in the United States, either contemporaneously or at any time since independence. The original framers were (at least mostly) not libertarian libertines, devoid of communitarian feeling, while the literal text gestures toward an uncompromising individual liberty that would be equally outside the Overton window in 1792 or in 2022.
[1] Though it's fair to consider that, pre-Civil War, states had more latitude to pass laws that the Federal government was Constitutionally forbidden to pass.
I think that interpreting the Constitution by its literal text yields interpretations different from interpreting according to original intent. And that the literal text reading does not align all that closely with mainstream Republican or Democratic positions.
Consider the text of the First Amendment, for example.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
No abridgment of freedom of speech or of the press. Pretty clear as text. Yet the Sedition Act of 1798 was never overturned as unconstitutional. Nor is there an exception in the plain text for "unless it's obscene" or "unless it's a lie" yet there are Federal laws limiting obscenity and fraud and other kinds of speech that were never struck down on First Amendment grounds. Some such laws were passed in the lifetime of the original framers of the constitution and others are in force today. Some state level blasphemy laws remained in place until the 20th century [1].
As I see it, either the literal text reading of the Second Amendment protects private ownership of machine guns just like it does bolt action rifles and revolvers, or handguns are no more protected than machine guns, whose private ownership was limited by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and then outlawed for all but affluent collectors by the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.
A maximal-individual-liberty interpretation of the literal text of the First and Second Amendments produces a United States in which there are no Federal laws against publishing pornographic videos of minors, nor against private ownership of anti-aircraft missiles. (Among other startling developments.) That's closer to a fantasy of a certain strain of libertarian than anything aligned with mainstream political factions in the United States, either contemporaneously or at any time since independence. The original framers were (at least mostly) not libertarian libertines, devoid of communitarian feeling, while the literal text gestures toward an uncompromising individual liberty that would be equally outside the Overton window in 1792 or in 2022.
[1] Though it's fair to consider that, pre-Civil War, states had more latitude to pass laws that the Federal government was Constitutionally forbidden to pass.
Not political? They are following the dictionary definition of political: "relating to the ideas or strategies of a particular party or group in politics."
Nearly every decision of Bush/Trump appointed judges is directly in line with the Republican platform: anti-abortion, pro Christian supremacy, and pro-corporate.
As to why are they trying to ram this decision through? The point of politics is to gain power and then assert your political leanings as law. Tearing down Roe is the final goal of a long-term Republican power surge: first whinging about activist judges in the 90s, then pushing identity politics in their base, then gerrymandering many states to death to control state legislatures, stonewalling the Supreme Court to push it into it's current radically partisan state, and finally asserting the Republican platform into law.
Nearly every decision of Bush/Trump appointed judges is directly in line with the Republican platform: anti-abortion, pro Christian supremacy, and pro-corporate.
As to why are they trying to ram this decision through? The point of politics is to gain power and then assert your political leanings as law. Tearing down Roe is the final goal of a long-term Republican power surge: first whinging about activist judges in the 90s, then pushing identity politics in their base, then gerrymandering many states to death to control state legislatures, stonewalling the Supreme Court to push it into it's current radically partisan state, and finally asserting the Republican platform into law.
Go look at political donations by employees from your random law firm. 90% is a conservative number.
I had a lot of convo with that poster in another thread. I would suggest not wasting your time by engaging with him, and I say this as someone who agrees with him in certain respects.
> > liberal lawyers (which is 90% of them)
> What is the basis for this claim?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secret...
> You seem to be accusing everyone who disagrees with you of malice and abandonment of all principles - more or less evil.
Not at all. I think they have the best of intentions. But their principles are different than the principles of our parents’ generation of liberals.
> And one could likewise say that much of conservative thought is an attempt to force people to adhere to certain religious values using state coercion. But that would just be an opinion, not a fact.
That’s a good comparison actually. It’s reminiscent of the old religious right. The difference is that these new liberals are ascendant, while the religious right is in the decline, being supplanted by the populist right.
> What is fact is that many (possibly most?) conservative policies and doctrines do not enjoy majority support in the United States
The irony is that liberals have consistently used the Supreme Court to overturn the conservative policies that do enjoy popular support.
Roe, of course, overturned laws that had the support of the public. To this day, Roe draws a line—abortion until viability—that the public rejects: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...
Conservative policies are popular on many other issues. As of 2013, a strong majority of Americans still opposes the Supreme Court’s ban on school prayer: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carol...
If the Supreme Court bans racial preferences in the Harvard case, liberals will attack the Justices as racist for adopting a position most Black and Hispanic people agree with: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ...
It’s “heads I win, tails you lose.” Liberals invoke the “will of the people” when it comes to Obamacare, but insist on edicts from ivory tower elites to override the popular will when it comes to unpopular liberal efforts at social engineering.
> convenient wedge issues or rallying cries for a small minority of the voting base - a minority that happens to be highly motivated.
When folks call abortion a “wedge issue” what they mean is that liberals feel like that they own that issue so completely it’s not even up for debate. Those issues are a therefore a distraction from the ones that they are willing to subject to the political process. Thus the intense outrage over this draft opinion, while extended ETC benefits passed quietly into the night.
Imposing the social mores of (mostly white) educated liberals on the population is the #1 priority of the Democratic Party. That’s why abortion is a litmus test—rather than raising taxes on the upper middle class—in a party where 1/3 of the actual voters identify as “pro life.” That’s why Democrats are pissing away historic opportunities created by unforced errors by the GOP, and alienating Hispanic voters they depend on, by doing stuff like trying to convince parents to let them talk about sexuality to young kids. Because that’s the party’s actual priority.
Your point about minorities suppressing the majority is ironic. Leaving aside that the effect you’re talking about is small—look at the Congressional popular vote, where Republicans have won an outright majority half the time since 2000–you’re correct. It is a problem when minorities overrule majorities. That’s why decades of liberal Supreme Court rulings overruling the public on issue after issue have been tremendously damaging to our political process.
After decades of beating down the public and doing stuff like forcing small towns to allow strip clubs to operate in the name of free speech, complaining about the Supreme Court “ignoring the popular will” is the height of irony.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secret...
> You seem to be accusing everyone who disagrees with you of malice and abandonment of all principles - more or less evil.
Not at all. I think they have the best of intentions. But their principles are different than the principles of our parents’ generation of liberals.
> And one could likewise say that much of conservative thought is an attempt to force people to adhere to certain religious values using state coercion. But that would just be an opinion, not a fact.
That’s a good comparison actually. It’s reminiscent of the old religious right. The difference is that these new liberals are ascendant, while the religious right is in the decline, being supplanted by the populist right.
> What is fact is that many (possibly most?) conservative policies and doctrines do not enjoy majority support in the United States
The irony is that liberals have consistently used the Supreme Court to overturn the conservative policies that do enjoy popular support.
Roe, of course, overturned laws that had the support of the public. To this day, Roe draws a line—abortion until viability—that the public rejects: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...
Conservative policies are popular on many other issues. As of 2013, a strong majority of Americans still opposes the Supreme Court’s ban on school prayer: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carol...
If the Supreme Court bans racial preferences in the Harvard case, liberals will attack the Justices as racist for adopting a position most Black and Hispanic people agree with: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ...
It’s “heads I win, tails you lose.” Liberals invoke the “will of the people” when it comes to Obamacare, but insist on edicts from ivory tower elites to override the popular will when it comes to unpopular liberal efforts at social engineering.
> convenient wedge issues or rallying cries for a small minority of the voting base - a minority that happens to be highly motivated.
When folks call abortion a “wedge issue” what they mean is that liberals feel like that they own that issue so completely it’s not even up for debate. Those issues are a therefore a distraction from the ones that they are willing to subject to the political process. Thus the intense outrage over this draft opinion, while extended ETC benefits passed quietly into the night.
Imposing the social mores of (mostly white) educated liberals on the population is the #1 priority of the Democratic Party. That’s why abortion is a litmus test—rather than raising taxes on the upper middle class—in a party where 1/3 of the actual voters identify as “pro life.” That’s why Democrats are pissing away historic opportunities created by unforced errors by the GOP, and alienating Hispanic voters they depend on, by doing stuff like trying to convince parents to let them talk about sexuality to young kids. Because that’s the party’s actual priority.
Your point about minorities suppressing the majority is ironic. Leaving aside that the effect you’re talking about is small—look at the Congressional popular vote, where Republicans have won an outright majority half the time since 2000–you’re correct. It is a problem when minorities overrule majorities. That’s why decades of liberal Supreme Court rulings overruling the public on issue after issue have been tremendously damaging to our political process.
After decades of beating down the public and doing stuff like forcing small towns to allow strip clubs to operate in the name of free speech, complaining about the Supreme Court “ignoring the popular will” is the height of irony.
> Many of the nation’s largest and most influential law firms donated more than 90% to Democrats and President Joe Biden in the last election cycle, confirming their position as one of the most liberal professions in the country.
That does not say what you think it does.
That does not say what you think it does.
I have to say that while I disagree with your overall point - for example, I think the paralysis of the political system is derived from oligarchic economic control of the political process, rather than the distraction created by this culture war bullshit -, I think you made perfectly reasonable arguments, and should not be downvoted simply because they are unpalatable. In particular, the argument that abortion is popular and therefore should be legal does contradict several things that Democrats would like to keep illegal, despite being popular, as you illustrate with prayers in schools.
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If Politico knows the identity of the leaker then I think that reduces the chance that it was conservative aligned. You have to be either mad or have very little to risk to put your trust in Politico. If they are 4D chess enough to come up with this game theory strategy then I assume they would use washington post securedrop (https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/) or something similar or at least leak through a non-mainstream liberal/non-conservative reporter that can be trusted like Greenwald.
If I was leaking something of this magnitude I would be *extremely* paranoid, and frankly require that Politico cannot publish the PDF itself, but must retype the entire document in-full and display it on their website. (Let's hope there aren't different versions of the document floating around with slightly altered sentences to track down a leaked version).
Reality Winner was caught partly by The Intercept's poor opsec, and investigators reviewing the microdots on the PDF scan.
https://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed-reali...
Reality Winner was caught partly by The Intercept's poor opsec, and investigators reviewing the microdots on the PDF scan.
https://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed-reali...
I was just thinking similarly! I would be pretty impressed if the Court had systems where the authoring justice's / clerk's software would insert various difficult-to-detect variations into each copy distributed to the other justices.
For example, slight differences in the footnotes / case reference numbers that would be very hard to detect on casual glance. Or even traps like displaced punctuation marks unique to each copy.
But somehow I doubt it.
For example, slight differences in the footnotes / case reference numbers that would be very hard to detect on casual glance. Or even traps like displaced punctuation marks unique to each copy.
But somehow I doubt it.
If I were leaking something of this magnitude, I'd "forget" a copy at a DC Starbucks frequented by journalists.
Some of Author's conclusions just seem like failures of imagination:
* "it must be someone who only had access to a stapled, printed copy of the draft opinion (If the person had access to the underlying digital file, they wouldn’t have printed & stapled it just to unstaple it.)"
* "I don’t think the leaker was an opponent of the opinion, because there would be no tactical value in doing so."
On the former, that assumes it's less risky to grab a digital copy (copied to some medium plugged into some machine, likely audited, maybe rights protected), than to smuggle out (and smuggle back in?) a physical copy. The latter is super low-tech and in an environment where (as demonstrated by Roberts' press release) the trust level is super high, I wonder how hard it is to smuggle out paper copies. There's all sorts of potential black magic in a digital copy that the tech unsavvy may (rightfully) be afraid of. So even if you had access to both, low-tech may be best.
On the latter, it's usually not wise to put your own rational thoughts into the head of a suspect. You need to understand *their* "rational" thoughts. It's not too hard for me to imagine some perceived benefits that an opponent or proponent of the opinion would see in the leak.
* "it must be someone who only had access to a stapled, printed copy of the draft opinion (If the person had access to the underlying digital file, they wouldn’t have printed & stapled it just to unstaple it.)"
* "I don’t think the leaker was an opponent of the opinion, because there would be no tactical value in doing so."
On the former, that assumes it's less risky to grab a digital copy (copied to some medium plugged into some machine, likely audited, maybe rights protected), than to smuggle out (and smuggle back in?) a physical copy. The latter is super low-tech and in an environment where (as demonstrated by Roberts' press release) the trust level is super high, I wonder how hard it is to smuggle out paper copies. There's all sorts of potential black magic in a digital copy that the tech unsavvy may (rightfully) be afraid of. So even if you had access to both, low-tech may be best.
On the latter, it's usually not wise to put your own rational thoughts into the head of a suspect. You need to understand *their* "rational" thoughts. It's not too hard for me to imagine some perceived benefits that an opponent or proponent of the opinion would see in the leak.
I'm somewhat skeptical of attempts to play out the game theory of what the leaker's motivations would have been. While I generally agree that the author has identified the correct incentives, I'm not so convinced that we can sure the leaker would have arrived at the same conclusions.
I'd still count this sort of reasoning as evidence, but I'd give it significantly lower weight than the author seems to.
I'd still count this sort of reasoning as evidence, but I'd give it significantly lower weight than the author seems to.
> In sum—I’d suppose it’s a friend, spouse, or family member of a Supreme Court justice who has consistently opposed Roe v. Wade, acting with something between autonomy and plausible deniability.
So I'm curious if he wrote this with knowledge about what's been going on around Justice Thomas and his wife's behavior [0]. It fits pretty perfectly with that narrative, though is totally bereft of any actual evidence.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/elections-donald-trump-presidenti...
So I'm curious if he wrote this with knowledge about what's been going on around Justice Thomas and his wife's behavior [0]. It fits pretty perfectly with that narrative, though is totally bereft of any actual evidence.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/elections-donald-trump-presidenti...
Same as lots of other people writing that it's definitely, 100% a liberal clerk, and even linking to their supposed suspects LinkedIn with 0 evidence?
I thought those type of comments were supposed to be flagged to maintain high quality discussion or some nonsense.
Near certainty. Someone familiar with the typography of the Supreme Court would definitely also be aware of high visibility current events around it.
No one seems to have considered the possibility that it’s just a leak in the classic sense - maybe a janitor or electrician or painter came across a copy of the document, recognized its value and sold it to politico purely for monetary gain.
That this was the work of an otherwise uninvolved opportunist is always a possibility (it came to mind while considering that the document was from Feb 10, unmarked, and had been stapled), but I am almost certain it was not done for financial gain. Maybe I am naive, but I do not think news organizations pay their confidential sources very much for their trouble. So it just seems unlikely in this case.
I agree, probably not, but at least worth mentioning
I think the author is spot on when he said the leaker is probably a non-professional close to someone who has legitimate access to these documents. Maybe a soon to be ex-spouse or a politically passionate young family member. WFH would have meant a lot of potential for unauthorized access.
Beware of leaked PDF's. It is very easy to distribute documents with small modifications among workers of a company. If any of these is leaked, it is easy to track down who leaked it.
Are there services that provide this? If so, what are they called and who are the vendors?
The technique is called a "canary trap" or "barium meal test": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_trap
No idea if anyone offers it as a service. It's unlikely because the primary consumer of the service would be someone trying to prevent documents from leaking, so trusting them to the service is itself a major point of failure.
No idea if anyone offers it as a service. It's unlikely because the primary consumer of the service would be someone trying to prevent documents from leaking, so trusting them to the service is itself a major point of failure.
You can just share a document with small differences to suspected moles. You don't jsv to even change the text, typo or comma here and there sufficient.
Football (soccer) coaches have used the tactic to identify who from their own team leaks stuff to the press etc, it's s very old tactic.
It sounds to me like digital watermarking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_watermark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_watermark
I don't know any services, but I do remember years ago that someone was stealing Google's map data so they left a mistake in their map and sued the thieving company with proof in their mistake being in the thief's mapping system.
It might not have been Google, but hopefully someone can chime in and remind me. lol
It might not have been Google, but hopefully someone can chime in and remind me. lol
As I understand it, that is a traditional thing for map publishers to do.
My money is on Ginny Thomas, seeing the tides shifting and not supporting this, decided to put it out.
That news agencies and commentators on the right IMMEDIATELY communicated in Lockstep about "this leak is an egregious affront to the court" points to that.
That news agencies and commentators on the right IMMEDIATELY communicated in Lockstep about "this leak is an egregious affront to the court" points to that.
> My money is on Ginny Thomas, seeing the tides shifting and not supporting this, decided to put it out.
My money is on "no one knows a damn thing," and everyone who says otherwise is just pointing fingers at their partisan hate-objects.
My money is on "no one knows a damn thing," and everyone who says otherwise is just pointing fingers at their partisan hate-objects.
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I would push against using how quickly commentators commentate as an example of a leaker allied with a certain side. Tweeting takes seconds. A group chat can decide what to do in minutes. It likely takes less than an hour to have an emergency press release ready to go and instantly disseminate on the internet.
(Fwiw: I don’t care who leaked or how leaked. I think people should focus more importantly that the legal opinion in the draft uses reasoning applicable to any sense of personal privacy. It’s more than just reproductive rights here, because the reasoning is that any rights logically derived from a right to privacy are illegitimate.)
(Fwiw: I don’t care who leaked or how leaked. I think people should focus more importantly that the legal opinion in the draft uses reasoning applicable to any sense of personal privacy. It’s more than just reproductive rights here, because the reasoning is that any rights logically derived from a right to privacy are illegitimate.)
Disparate news agencies?
Yes. They each maybe have one, maybe two big editors, and there are only a few major conservative news agencies, then they all can definitely be in a group chat! I doubt that list of contacts would be over two dozen people and I definitely have discord chats bigger than that.
News media if you think about it is a really small world. If you’re a conservative reporter on national beats how many companies can you work for, actually? The national review, Fox News, Wall Street journal, OAN? Maybe Cato institute? That’s only a small handful of possible employers.
News media if you think about it is a really small world. If you’re a conservative reporter on national beats how many companies can you work for, actually? The national review, Fox News, Wall Street journal, OAN? Maybe Cato institute? That’s only a small handful of possible employers.
I don't think the right communicating in lockstep about the leak instead of the contents of the leak points to any person in particular. If nothing else, the right is extremely good at keeping their stories in lockstep. In any case, when the majority of Americans support upholding roe v wade, it's in the right's best interest to keep the story on the leak.
Also, Clarence Thomas's copy would be most likely to not contain any markups.
The pdf was probably left on a bar table and a reporter from Politico happened to find it before the waiter cleared the table. That's about as probably as anything else...
It doesn't matter, supreme court justices aren't influenced by anything except what they wanted to do in the first place.
They have lifetime high salary employment, lifetime high salary retirement, lifetime security protection, they openly break laws that other federal judges have to obey (like not associating with political groups)
Point is they do whatever they want. Leaks will annoy them but it's not going to change anything. They do not have to respond to anyone, nor do any interviews, explain themselves, etc.
The time to prevent this was 50 years ago by making it law but then being undone was cemented in 2016 when there were a dozen other more qualified candidates but someone inexplicably was chosen otherwise.
This country is beyond comprehension.
They have lifetime high salary employment, lifetime high salary retirement, lifetime security protection, they openly break laws that other federal judges have to obey (like not associating with political groups)
Point is they do whatever they want. Leaks will annoy them but it's not going to change anything. They do not have to respond to anyone, nor do any interviews, explain themselves, etc.
The time to prevent this was 50 years ago by making it law but then being undone was cemented in 2016 when there were a dozen other more qualified candidates but someone inexplicably was chosen otherwise.
This country is beyond comprehension.
>should court deliberations be confidential? Or should justices be required to post drafts of opinions to the judicial equivalent of GitHub?
I think they should. The court has been granted extreme power to decide the nuances of our rights.
I think they should. The court has been granted extreme power to decide the nuances of our rights.
I'm guessing you mean they should post drafts of opinions to github (your sentence could mean either).
I think it's entirely reasonable not to post drafts until they're ready.
Hell, even on github, you (generally) don't put up a PR until it's ready for review.
I think it's entirely reasonable not to post drafts until they're ready.
Hell, even on github, you (generally) don't put up a PR until it's ready for review.
Oh, yeah I see that. I would like to see the whole history of the opinion github style. Would also like to be able to use git blame.
Or, option (d), the court intends to neither overturn Roe nor the lower court ruling in Dobbs, and deliberately leaked a draft written by the most inflammatory member of the court in order to show people "look it could have been worse". These are, after all, seven of the smartest people in the legal profession. I suspect that they intend to overturn only some very technical aspect of Dobbs appeal and remand it back to the appellate court for further proceedings.
I can almost imagine the conversation between Roberts and Alito: "hey Sam, the debate is pretty evenly split here; why don't you draft us up the text that you'd publish if things lean your way? Then we'd have something tangible to pick through."
I can almost imagine the conversation between Roberts and Alito: "hey Sam, the debate is pretty evenly split here; why don't you draft us up the text that you'd publish if things lean your way? Then we'd have something tangible to pick through."
Out of curiosity, who are the two that you don’t consider the smartest people in the legal profession? I have my ideological qualms with a few justices but would likely consider all nine to be among the smartest people in the legal profession.
> I don’t think the leaker was an opponent of the opinion, because there would be no tactical value in doing so.
This is terrible reasoning. Of course there's tactical value. It would create an outrage before the opinion was official and could potentially turn the tide if justices saw a huge reaction from Americans. The Justices aren't stupid. They know if they release a very unpopular opinion on abortion, it could completely destroy the faith in the Supreme Court. So there's a huge amount of tactical value. For the author to dismiss this is horrible reasoning.
This is terrible reasoning. Of course there's tactical value. It would create an outrage before the opinion was official and could potentially turn the tide if justices saw a huge reaction from Americans. The Justices aren't stupid. They know if they release a very unpopular opinion on abortion, it could completely destroy the faith in the Supreme Court. So there's a huge amount of tactical value. For the author to dismiss this is horrible reasoning.
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SCOTUS rules require submissions use the Century family (Century Schoolbook, etc) font, and it seems reasonable that's what their opinions use (as opposed to CMR which would imply LaTeX).
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On a purely technical note about the leak, I would be pretty impressed if the Court had systems where the authoring justice's / clerk's software would insert various difficult-to-detect variations into each copy distributed to the other justices.
For example, slight differences in the footnotes / case reference numbers that would be very hard to detect on casual glance. Or even traps like displaced punctuation marks unique to each copy.
But somehow I doubt it.
For example, slight differences in the footnotes / case reference numbers that would be very hard to detect on casual glance. Or even traps like displaced punctuation marks unique to each copy.
But somehow I doubt it.
Questions of the timing of the Politico story need to look beyond the decision itself to what other news (documentaries, primaries, economic reports, whatever) are having the oxygen sucked out of them by this leak.
Since our goverment behaves like so many Olympian gods in a perpetual bunfight over the news cycle, one must understand that defelection has a lot to do with the timing.
Since our goverment behaves like so many Olympian gods in a perpetual bunfight over the news cycle, one must understand that defelection has a lot to do with the timing.
> I conclude it must be someone who only had access to a stapled, printed copy of the draft opinion. (If the person had access to the underlying digital file, they wouldn’t have printed & stapled it just to unstaple it.)
That's precisely why, if I were the one who did this, I would have printed, stapled, stressed, and finally unstapled the pages before re-scanning them.
That's precisely why, if I were the one who did this, I would have printed, stapled, stressed, and finally unstapled the pages before re-scanning them.
Although this might be a bit too conspiratorial for the tastes of many. I suspect that this is an act in a larger piece of political theatre. Someone showed me this: https://who.is/whois/jewishrallyforabortionjustice.org
It's an incredible coincidence that someone knew to have this website up and running just ahead of the draft leak: https://web.archive.org/web/20220426203219/https://jewishral...
It could be totally unrelated to this abortion controversy, however that would be amazing coincidence.
The site maintained by this group: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-council-o...
I'm aware of the fact that it's run by Jewish organisations will make me the butt of many accusations. All I'm alleging is that rumours have probably been moving around the right circles for a long time.
It's an incredible coincidence that someone knew to have this website up and running just ahead of the draft leak: https://web.archive.org/web/20220426203219/https://jewishral...
It could be totally unrelated to this abortion controversy, however that would be amazing coincidence.
The site maintained by this group: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-council-o...
I'm aware of the fact that it's run by Jewish organisations will make me the butt of many accusations. All I'm alleging is that rumours have probably been moving around the right circles for a long time.
Everyone has known for months, even years that there would be an opinion on Roe this summer.
I'm just glad to see someone else saying they love the supreme court's typesetting.
Well, they've had 200+ years to get it right!
> the bad news for those who contend that the recent leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion is “unthinkable” or, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, a “singular and egregious breach”—the horse is long out of the barn.
I mean…people know that. The lie is the point. The distraction is by intention the point of making the false claim.
I mean…people know that. The lie is the point. The distraction is by intention the point of making the false claim.
Do scanners mark pages with tracking pixels like the printers do?
> I believe it’s much more likely that the leaker is someone who supports the opinion rather than an opponent
> If [the majority bloc in favor of the opinion has held together], there’s no reason for a supporter or an opponent to leak an old draft now.
I don't find the reasoning behind this convincing at all. It would make for a good plot twist in a book, but in my opinion the leaker was most likely an opponent wanting to spark national outrage ahead of the final ruling, in an effort to either pressure judges if the outcome can still be changed, or as an act of vengeance against the court in retaliation for a ruling they feel extremely strongly about.
> If [the majority bloc in favor of the opinion has held together], there’s no reason for a supporter or an opponent to leak an old draft now.
I don't find the reasoning behind this convincing at all. It would make for a good plot twist in a book, but in my opinion the leaker was most likely an opponent wanting to spark national outrage ahead of the final ruling, in an effort to either pressure judges if the outcome can still be changed, or as an act of vengeance against the court in retaliation for a ruling they feel extremely strongly about.
The issue is that the decision was not final; Chief Justice Roberts was still trying to persuade other justices to adopt a split-the-difference decision (uphold the 15-week law but don't kill Roe v Wade). Justices have switched sides before. Leaking it could kill any quiet negotiations. There was a second leak after the first one about this (about Roberts' position).
So someone on the hard-line anti-abortion side had a motivation to do the leak.
So someone on the hard-line anti-abortion side had a motivation to do the leak.
There's an excellent podcast (What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con[stitutional] Law) with Roman Mars (of 99% Invisible) and Elizabeth Joh (of UC Davis) that discussed many aspects of this leak and potential ruling here.[0]
They discussed the potential value in an anti-Roe-side leak. It may hold justices to an early decision. I'll let Ms Joh make the case better than I could.
[0]: https://learnconlaw.com/63-the-leaked-draft
They discussed the potential value in an anti-Roe-side leak. It may hold justices to an early decision. I'll let Ms Joh make the case better than I could.
[0]: https://learnconlaw.com/63-the-leaked-draft
The domain name "jewishrallyforabortionjustice.org" was registered two weeks before the leak and points at a page protesting the ruling. The leak was coordinated and intentional by an anti-states-rights group.
States rights, that old chestnut we only ever hear about when someone wants to maintain control of other peoples bodies (slavery and abortion, included).
Also, why are you mentioning “ jewishrallyforabortionjustice” completely unprompted?
Also, why are you mentioning “ jewishrallyforabortionjustice” completely unprompted?
It's the only protest I know of that seems to have been planned two weeks before the leak was public, which strongly indicates these people are involved. That they're jewish is incidental and they seem to be inclusive.
And no, states rights isn't about giving people control over other's bodies: it's about maintaining consensus and self determination. Last year people were talking about states rights to prevent from being forced to take a medical treatment they didn't want.
And no, states rights isn't about giving people control over other's bodies: it's about maintaining consensus and self determination. Last year people were talking about states rights to prevent from being forced to take a medical treatment they didn't want.
> It's the only protest I know of that seems to have been planned two weeks before
Who are you trying to convince with this weak argument? Is the fact that it was anticipated in advance somehow invalidating? Nothing you assert follows from what you’ve proffered (separate from the fact that what you assert is wrong).
> Last year people were talking about state's rights to prevent from being forced to take a medical treatment they didn't want.
Oh, so you mean another thing that most people agree with (compulsory vaccination to participate in society) being made into an issue so an rejectionist core can throw a tantrum and get lots of people killed along the way?
Who are you trying to convince with this weak argument? Is the fact that it was anticipated in advance somehow invalidating? Nothing you assert follows from what you’ve proffered (separate from the fact that what you assert is wrong).
> Last year people were talking about state's rights to prevent from being forced to take a medical treatment they didn't want.
Oh, so you mean another thing that most people agree with (compulsory vaccination to participate in society) being made into an issue so an rejectionist core can throw a tantrum and get lots of people killed along the way?
>compulsory vaccination to participate in society
That's extremely far from agreed upon, but if you want to take people's medical choices away as a condition for participating in society I don't see how you can even make an argument for abortion.
> Is the fact that it was anticipated in advance somehow invalidating
It didn't occur to me that they might register the domain in advance of the ruling just in case. That seems a little strange but I've never planned (or even attended) a political protest so I guess I wouldn't know.
That's extremely far from agreed upon, but if you want to take people's medical choices away as a condition for participating in society I don't see how you can even make an argument for abortion.
> Is the fact that it was anticipated in advance somehow invalidating
It didn't occur to me that they might register the domain in advance of the ruling just in case. That seems a little strange but I've never planned (or even attended) a political protest so I guess I wouldn't know.
[deleted]
The opinion piece from about a week ago in the Wall Street Journal reporting this wavering on the margins of the conservative bloc points to a more normal, less unprecedented type of leak.
So then, one view is that the leak of the draft is just a continuation of that effort to hold the line on the full overturning, and that view seems pretty sensible. On the other hand, what to make of the fact that the leak goes to Politico and not somewhere like the Journal? Do you instead see it as a disgruntled partisan opponent trying to counter the likely leaks that led to the WSJ piece? Or simply a minor smokescreen?
I don't think there's any reasonable basis to be particularly sure either way. My gut leans toward the leak having come from the "overturn Roe" camp, but I think most peoples' "gut" on this is pretty highly correlated with their personal views on the topic.
So then, one view is that the leak of the draft is just a continuation of that effort to hold the line on the full overturning, and that view seems pretty sensible. On the other hand, what to make of the fact that the leak goes to Politico and not somewhere like the Journal? Do you instead see it as a disgruntled partisan opponent trying to counter the likely leaks that led to the WSJ piece? Or simply a minor smokescreen?
I don't think there's any reasonable basis to be particularly sure either way. My gut leans toward the leak having come from the "overturn Roe" camp, but I think most peoples' "gut" on this is pretty highly correlated with their personal views on the topic.
The court's top priority, shared by everyone there, is to remain credible. I entertain the possibility that it was leaked to test the public response. So they could make a decision that would be popular (bolster their credibility and appear authoritative).
My opinion is that this issue is too contentious and should have been ignored by the court and the entire problem deferred to Congress...but then that expels the court's credibility capital. They can't resist the occasion for authority and pomp.
My biased opinion out of the way, I think a growing population of the body politic feels the Supreme Court takes on too much (way out of its lane), and Congress likes to be able to dodge contencious issues (happy to have the court insulate them) and then soapbox after the fact.
Waffling on long standing pivotal precident after 50 years smacks of a brewing revolution--in any society.
In the words of my sweet little apolitical wife (and mother) after expressing surprise at seeing her participate in discussions about this on facebook: "They are fucking with the wrong people."
My opinion is that this issue is too contentious and should have been ignored by the court and the entire problem deferred to Congress...but then that expels the court's credibility capital. They can't resist the occasion for authority and pomp.
My biased opinion out of the way, I think a growing population of the body politic feels the Supreme Court takes on too much (way out of its lane), and Congress likes to be able to dodge contencious issues (happy to have the court insulate them) and then soapbox after the fact.
Waffling on long standing pivotal precident after 50 years smacks of a brewing revolution--in any society.
In the words of my sweet little apolitical wife (and mother) after expressing surprise at seeing her participate in discussions about this on facebook: "They are fucking with the wrong people."
Well one main issue for the court is that, having weighed in with Roe and its successors, they can't help being still involved one way or the other now.
More broadly, the ongoing total dysfunction of Congress (and/or the entire political system) has meant both parties have increasingly turned to the relatively-functional court to get their wins. The fact, at least historically, that Supreme Court precedents are seen as quite durable is another factor weighing in favor of the court's involvement. The insulating effect on the politicians is a good point, too.
There's also I think the factor that both parties have found it convenient for the Supreme Court to be very powerful and involved in lots of issues just as a motivational factor for their bases: the dialogue around presidential and senatorial races now routinely revolve around Supreme Court appointments as maybe the only important issue.
More broadly, the ongoing total dysfunction of Congress (and/or the entire political system) has meant both parties have increasingly turned to the relatively-functional court to get their wins. The fact, at least historically, that Supreme Court precedents are seen as quite durable is another factor weighing in favor of the court's involvement. The insulating effect on the politicians is a good point, too.
There's also I think the factor that both parties have found it convenient for the Supreme Court to be very powerful and involved in lots of issues just as a motivational factor for their bases: the dialogue around presidential and senatorial races now routinely revolve around Supreme Court appointments as maybe the only important issue.
> The issue is that the decision was not final
Wasn't it?
From the descriptions I've seen of the process, the decision draft starts circulating once the decision has been taken. The language can be softened or hardened, but from what I understand here Roe would be dead regardless.
I'd think the possible changes would have been with respect to the "blast radius" aka the references to (and explicit targeting of) Obergefell, Lawrence, Eisenstadt.
Wasn't it?
From the descriptions I've seen of the process, the decision draft starts circulating once the decision has been taken. The language can be softened or hardened, but from what I understand here Roe would be dead regardless.
I'd think the possible changes would have been with respect to the "blast radius" aka the references to (and explicit targeting of) Obergefell, Lawrence, Eisenstadt.
As far as I know the decision isn't necessarily final after the initial vote following arguments. A prominent example of this is National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, where Chief Justice Roberts was reported to have initially voted to strike down individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), but later changed his mind.
Yes, this is exactly what I meant when I said that justices have switched sides before. I understand that there was a draft opinion overturning the ACA when Roberts switched sides, though I'm not certain how complete it was.
The leak itself is enough to shape legal precedent, it's made clear that the majority of the court believes that "Roe was deeply flawed". The only way for this to change would be for the court to explicitly rebuke the arguments in the leaked draft in the new majority opinion.
I don't think "precedent" works the way for first sentence seems to think it does. The final decision will be precedent; drafts are not.
And, "the majority believes that Roe is flawed" is interesting information, but it also is not any kind of precedent. Decisions are going to depend on the details of the case before the court.
And, "the majority believes that Roe is flawed" is interesting information, but it also is not any kind of precedent. Decisions are going to depend on the details of the case before the court.
Precedent occurs when a decision is challenged and upheld. If Roe is struck down, that will not be precedent, but overturning precedent, since Row was challenged and upheld in Casey. For a decision overturning Roe to become precedent, it would need to survive at least one future challenge.
In fact, knowing how and why these opinions change during this phase could be quite illustrative and interesting.
Would also be interesting to see if Roberts received a windfall during his deliberations. Insurance companies surely appreciate the individual mandates … it’s the closest thing to printing money they could achieve.
Earlier today I heard someone state that historically the Supreme Court rules in favor of the large corporate interests. My thought at the time was it did not make sense, since technically supreme court justices are beholden to Noone. What explains this bias on the part of the Supreme Court, if it truly exist?
Would also be interesting to see if Roberts received a windfall during his deliberations. Insurance companies surely appreciate the individual mandates … it’s the closest thing to printing money they could achieve.
Earlier today I heard someone state that historically the Supreme Court rules in favor of the large corporate interests. My thought at the time was it did not make sense, since technically supreme court justices are beholden to Noone. What explains this bias on the part of the Supreme Court, if it truly exist?
supreme court justices are beholden to Noone. What explains this bias on the part of the Supreme Court, if it truly exist?
The people who nominate and confirm them may very well be beholden to any number of interests. Lower federal judges are also appointed for life. It would be logical that those who nominate and confirm would select judges with a record that aligns with whatever issues they (and the ones they are beholden to) find important.
The people who nominate and confirm them may very well be beholden to any number of interests. Lower federal judges are also appointed for life. It would be logical that those who nominate and confirm would select judges with a record that aligns with whatever issues they (and the ones they are beholden to) find important.
Which is an inherent part of the process of nominating anyone to any position.
Selection is an inherently political process. The goal is to eliminate post selection influences.
Predicting future human behavior is fraught with disappointment. Many justices act unpredictability and change opinions over time.
They are beholden to no one AFTER they are appointed. They are only appointed, however, if their views match the people who are doing the appointing, who are beholden to many.
Yet there are numerous examples of justices not rendering opinions meeting their appointee’s expectations. Many of these justices serve for decades which is plenty of time for any human to change their viewpoints.
> They are beholden to no one AFTER they are appointed.
Article V of the US constitution makes them ultimately beholden to the states. It describes how the constitution can be amended. Such an amendment can possibly threaten the supreme court. Seems very unlikely to happen, though.
Article V of the US constitution makes them ultimately beholden to the states. It describes how the constitution can be amended. Such an amendment can possibly threaten the supreme court. Seems very unlikely to happen, though.
Congress also has the power to impeach a justice
They are beholden to the people and the people's perception of their credibility. At any time we can dispel that court--or just stop taking it seriously. They are terrified of being waved off. Imagine all the politicians that would jump on board if they saw a large enough groundswell (energized voting bloc) calling for the "non-constitutional illegitimate third branch" to be disbanded in favor of state courts.
We are witnessing the same with the "election fraud" Trump populist fervor right now.
We are witnessing the same with the "election fraud" Trump populist fervor right now.
100% I think this is blind wishful thinking. Roe was dead the second Republicans got their justices.
How could one know about the history and beliefs of these justices, hear their questioning, see who has pushed them onto the bench, read their speeches, hell seen that their significant other believes in q crazy, and yet somehow think they'll change their mind or find some reasonable compromise.
You are correct in the danger of this blast radius.
This is TERRIFYING to me.
I'm skeptical here that this leak any differences though in that:
How can they make this ruling otherwise?
What changes could they make that don't set a scary and dangerous precedent?
without just flat out telling their truth that this is a religious decision and giving fetus' rights greater than actual living humans.
Their argument rests on their narrow view of "deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions."
If that is the logic, as you say, what is left to protect states from outlawing gay marriage, contraception, anal sex, and SOOOO much more.
What moderation could be added to this draft on this fundamental issue?
It's disgusting to me that they argue they are making some ethical stand to overturn 'egregious' decision equating this to Plessy, using this historical traditions argument.
We all know what the constitution actually did say and even worse the practices of the time.
What does history and traditions even mean too. It's obvious to me and not even slightly veiled. Hint it probably doesn't include indigenous history or the history of any non-white, wealthy, christian males in power, nor any traditions created or changed within the last 50 years.
Because if the standard is the status quo of 200 years ago, they will either let a few extreme states say no to basically every right we have lived for the last 100+ years OR they will just be hypocritically veiling their true reasoning.
How could one know about the history and beliefs of these justices, hear their questioning, see who has pushed them onto the bench, read their speeches, hell seen that their significant other believes in q crazy, and yet somehow think they'll change their mind or find some reasonable compromise.
You are correct in the danger of this blast radius.
This is TERRIFYING to me.
I'm skeptical here that this leak any differences though in that:
How can they make this ruling otherwise?
What changes could they make that don't set a scary and dangerous precedent?
without just flat out telling their truth that this is a religious decision and giving fetus' rights greater than actual living humans.
Their argument rests on their narrow view of "deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions."
If that is the logic, as you say, what is left to protect states from outlawing gay marriage, contraception, anal sex, and SOOOO much more.
What moderation could be added to this draft on this fundamental issue?
It's disgusting to me that they argue they are making some ethical stand to overturn 'egregious' decision equating this to Plessy, using this historical traditions argument.
We all know what the constitution actually did say and even worse the practices of the time.
What does history and traditions even mean too. It's obvious to me and not even slightly veiled. Hint it probably doesn't include indigenous history or the history of any non-white, wealthy, christian males in power, nor any traditions created or changed within the last 50 years.
Because if the standard is the status quo of 200 years ago, they will either let a few extreme states say no to basically every right we have lived for the last 100+ years OR they will just be hypocritically veiling their true reasoning.
>this is a religious decision and giving fetus' rights greater than actual living humans.
How is that? There still would be no federal law against killing fetuses, whereas there is a federal law against killing born people.
How is that? There still would be no federal law against killing fetuses, whereas there is a federal law against killing born people.
It doesn't really have to do with a law (which is a large part of the issue, the dysfunction of congress forces these controversies).
It's about unenumerated rights and interpretation of liberty under the 14th Amendment.
> nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
So in the past the court said liberty includes a right to privacy, which also includes things like having a right to buy and use contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut). This was extended to include women having a right to an abortion, with some qualifiers (the right was not unlimited, it said states did have some interest in protecting both the mother's health and fetus health).
The current court decision says that, while those other unenumerated rights have been found, they're different because they don't involve an "unborn human being".[1]
Thus they imply that a few cells (under some state laws this would be from the moment of fertilization) have rights that supersede (or at least conflict) with an actual person's right to have their liberty protected from the State.
The Louisiana state legislature has a bill introduced right now that seems to make abortion homicide, both for the mother who receives the abortion and anyone who administers it. [2][3]
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435/scotus-initi...
[2] https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1276214
[3] https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legisl...
It's about unenumerated rights and interpretation of liberty under the 14th Amendment.
> nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
So in the past the court said liberty includes a right to privacy, which also includes things like having a right to buy and use contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut). This was extended to include women having a right to an abortion, with some qualifiers (the right was not unlimited, it said states did have some interest in protecting both the mother's health and fetus health).
The current court decision says that, while those other unenumerated rights have been found, they're different because they don't involve an "unborn human being".[1]
Thus they imply that a few cells (under some state laws this would be from the moment of fertilization) have rights that supersede (or at least conflict) with an actual person's right to have their liberty protected from the State.
The Louisiana state legislature has a bill introduced right now that seems to make abortion homicide, both for the mother who receives the abortion and anyone who administers it. [2][3]
[1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435/scotus-initi...
[2] https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1276214
[3] https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/legisl...
> Thus they imply that a few cells (under some state laws this would be from the moment of fertilization) have rights that supersede (or at least conflict) with an actual person's right to have their liberty protected from the State.
This is a bizarre misreading. It doesn't say that. It says that the Constitution does not grant them the power to invalidate a state law against abortion, because Roe erred in determining that the 14th Amendment right to privacy entailed a right to abort a pregnancy.
(I'm not against abortion, for the record, but I'm increasingly disappointed with the facile arguments I hear about it. Of course this Supreme Court decision is not a 'religious decision that the fetus is a human being', my God.)
This is a bizarre misreading. It doesn't say that. It says that the Constitution does not grant them the power to invalidate a state law against abortion, because Roe erred in determining that the 14th Amendment right to privacy entailed a right to abort a pregnancy.
(I'm not against abortion, for the record, but I'm increasingly disappointed with the facile arguments I hear about it. Of course this Supreme Court decision is not a 'religious decision that the fetus is a human being', my God.)
That loses the context of what I wrote. I'm trying to say that basically one of these two things are true.
if this ruling's argument is: ( unenumerated && !fit with history/traditions 200 years ago ) == states can ban
then every other 'right' we have like gay marriage, contraception, porn, anal sex, basically anything not written in the constitution that a bunch of white people 200 years ago didn't do regularly, could be made illegal state by state.
OR
This is a sham justification to further their religious beliefs and the ruling should simply write that a fetus has some type of special rights that supersede.
At least that ruling would be honest about their obvious bias and plain intent.
if this ruling's argument is: ( unenumerated && !fit with history/traditions 200 years ago ) == states can ban
then every other 'right' we have like gay marriage, contraception, porn, anal sex, basically anything not written in the constitution that a bunch of white people 200 years ago didn't do regularly, could be made illegal state by state.
OR
This is a sham justification to further their religious beliefs and the ruling should simply write that a fetus has some type of special rights that supersede.
At least that ruling would be honest about their obvious bias and plain intent.
> What sharply distinguishes the abortion right from the rights recognized in the cases on which Roe and Casey rely is something that both those decisions acknowledged: Abortion destroys what those decisions call “potential life” and what the law at issue in this case regards as the life of an “unborn human being.”
How is that not saying that because abortion specifically involves a few cells then the right to an abortion is not the same as other privacy rights?
Yes, elsewhere they make other arguments about tradition with regards to abortion not being a privacy right. They don't use a singular argument.
How is that not saying that because abortion specifically involves a few cells then the right to an abortion is not the same as other privacy rights?
Yes, elsewhere they make other arguments about tradition with regards to abortion not being a privacy right. They don't use a singular argument.
This may give the fetus the right to kill its host (an actual person) since a state may not allow any exceptions for abortion, including the health of the mother.
Texas passed a law denying abortions in the case of rape or incest, but I guess the notion of having a right to forced inception is hard for something that doesn't exist beforehand.
Texas passed a law denying abortions in the case of rape or incest, but I guess the notion of having a right to forced inception is hard for something that doesn't exist beforehand.
I don't think ending of these life of mother exceptions in certain states is that far fetched.
It's half way there in some states through vague language, using legal system to intimidate, ban by bureaucracy, and religious hospitals who won't even abort when there is an ectopic pregnancy.
This source is an opinion piece, but worth reading imho. The author includes state's legal language on when life of mother exception can be used.
A lot of them are vague or require an immediate emergency. Though to be fair some she includes aren't super persuasive to her argument imho.
When you empower every nut job in the state to sue it intimidates MDs to not use that very judgement.
Medicine isn't black and white and even if it was the government or citizens empowered by the govt should not get to arbitrate in the middle. Every miscarriage becomes suspect. Was her life really in danger? Etc
Basically, I'm no longer shocked at the kind of stuff that is now being said out loud or publicly fought for.
From healthcare, attacking elections, attacks on queer people etc.
I think we will increasingly see a group of states continue this trajectory and push this country to the brink. And the Supreme Court continue to enable all of this dangerous behavior.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/28/the-new-ab...
It's half way there in some states through vague language, using legal system to intimidate, ban by bureaucracy, and religious hospitals who won't even abort when there is an ectopic pregnancy.
This source is an opinion piece, but worth reading imho. The author includes state's legal language on when life of mother exception can be used.
A lot of them are vague or require an immediate emergency. Though to be fair some she includes aren't super persuasive to her argument imho.
When you empower every nut job in the state to sue it intimidates MDs to not use that very judgement.
Medicine isn't black and white and even if it was the government or citizens empowered by the govt should not get to arbitrate in the middle. Every miscarriage becomes suspect. Was her life really in danger? Etc
Basically, I'm no longer shocked at the kind of stuff that is now being said out loud or publicly fought for.
From healthcare, attacking elections, attacks on queer people etc.
I think we will increasingly see a group of states continue this trajectory and push this country to the brink. And the Supreme Court continue to enable all of this dangerous behavior.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/28/the-new-ab...
Overruling a case isn’t an all-or-nothing thing. Upholding Mississippi’s 15-week ban would simply require the Court to acknowledge that Roe’s protection of elective second trimester abortions turned out to be an error that continues to defy international norms and attract public opposition.
Overruling that part of Roe doesn’t require a meandering rant about abortion rights writ large.
Overruling that part of Roe doesn’t require a meandering rant about abortion rights writ large.
Abortion: one of the few times an american conservative will speak approvingly of “international norms”.
Conservatives would assert that the Constitution says what it says and means what it was intended to mean, and that what the EU does,[1] or what the polls say,[2] don't matter.
But given that nobody seriously argues that Roe has a foundation in the text or original intent of the Constitution, it's certainly fair for them to point out that Roe can't be defended by saying, as liberals usually do, that we have a "Living Constitution" that incorporates "evolving social norms." Because what the EU does and what the polls say are certainly evidence of what those "evolving social norms are."
Roe raises the question of "where exactly do those 'evolving social norms' come from anyway?" And I suspect the honest answer is "the opinions of highly educated lawyers."
[1] Just two EU countries, comprising 6% of the EU population, allow elective abortions after 14 weeks: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268439/legal-abortion-t...
[2] 65% of Americans think abortion should generally be illegal after the first trimester: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...
But given that nobody seriously argues that Roe has a foundation in the text or original intent of the Constitution, it's certainly fair for them to point out that Roe can't be defended by saying, as liberals usually do, that we have a "Living Constitution" that incorporates "evolving social norms." Because what the EU does and what the polls say are certainly evidence of what those "evolving social norms are."
Roe raises the question of "where exactly do those 'evolving social norms' come from anyway?" And I suspect the honest answer is "the opinions of highly educated lawyers."
[1] Just two EU countries, comprising 6% of the EU population, allow elective abortions after 14 weeks: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268439/legal-abortion-t...
[2] 65% of Americans think abortion should generally be illegal after the first trimester: https://apnews.com/article/only-on-ap-us-supreme-court-abort...
And completely forget international norms for health care :)
International norms?
According to [1], in 1973, Roe v. Wade said abortion is legal US-wide at 27/28 weeks and earlier, then in 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey said abortion is legal US-wide at 22/23/24 weeks and earlier. I'm not exactly sure whether the ages are inclusive or exclusive or how rounding/truncating works with the ages, which is why I made them fuzzy with the slashes.
According to [2], there are 203 countries listed. I'll look at "on request" abortions.
* North Korea is marked "unclear".
* 6 allow abortion at 23 weeks (24 weeks is also an identical list): China, Colombia, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, South Ossetia
* 2 additional allow abortion at 22 weeks: Iceland, Vietnam
* 191 ban abortion at 22 weeks.
* Australia ranges from completely prohibited to no limit, depending on region.
* Canada ranges from 12 weeks and 6 days to 24 weeks and 6 days depending on region.
* United states ranges from (ignoring the recent laws that prompted the ongoing cases) 20 weeks to no limit depending on region.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#Planned_Parenthood...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Independent_count...
According to [2], there are 203 countries listed. I'll look at "on request" abortions.
* North Korea is marked "unclear".
* 6 allow abortion at 23 weeks (24 weeks is also an identical list): China, Colombia, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, South Ossetia
* 2 additional allow abortion at 22 weeks: Iceland, Vietnam
* 191 ban abortion at 22 weeks.
* Australia ranges from completely prohibited to no limit, depending on region.
* Canada ranges from 12 weeks and 6 days to 24 weeks and 6 days depending on region.
* United states ranges from (ignoring the recent laws that prompted the ongoing cases) 20 weeks to no limit depending on region.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#Planned_Parenthood...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Independent_count...
Interesting, thanks.
I feel like nobody brings up other countries when it comes to abortion, but the context seems pretty helpful (as it is for most issues, I suppose). Esp since, looking at Australia and Canada, people get on and tolerate internal divergences, and maybe we should too. I suppose is it's because they accept that their federalism is much less centralized than ours.
I feel like nobody brings up other countries when it comes to abortion, but the context seems pretty helpful (as it is for most issues, I suppose). Esp since, looking at Australia and Canada, people get on and tolerate internal divergences, and maybe we should too. I suppose is it's because they accept that their federalism is much less centralized than ours.
Men arguing over women's wombs. Love it. So this doesn't paint a complete picture. It turns out that 93% of abortions in the U.S. happen at <= 13 weeks gestation:
Among the 43 areas that reported gestational age at the time of abortion for 2019, 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation, and nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation (Table 10).
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm
So it's not like we're a country of monsters despite what's technically allowed by Roe. Now I want you to imagine for a moment what's happening in the life of a woman who chooses to have an abortion well into her pregnancy, likely after quickening when she can feel movement. Well it turns out you can't, because every case will be different. And I don't trust the state to insert itself into that decision. But I'll bet every one of these women has a story to tell and that it's heartbreaking, and that we don't make those women's lives better by forcing them to carry to term.
Data from the Turnaway Study has resulted in the publication of more than 50 peer-reviewed studies, and the answer to nearly all the questions asked, said Foster, is that the women who got abortions fared better in respect to economics and health, including their mental health, compared with those who did not have abortions.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/21/1074605...
So that's my first point, but I acknowledged some will disagree.
Now, Mississippi's law is to limit abortions to 15 weeks, so you may think it's a reasonable compromise. But with Roe overturned, it will not stop there. It's only a matter of time till some states ban abortion entirely. Some already have:
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-polici...
Anti-choicers will push for restrictions at the Federal level. They'll try to ban pharmaceutical abortion pills through the mail. They'll try to prevent women from traveling out of state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ba...
https://khn.org/news/article/texas-medication-abortion-crimi...
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/03/24/inside-missouris-pus...
Finally, outlawing abortions won't stop abortions. Never has and never will. What it will do is to punish poor women who don't have the means to travel to where abortion is legal. This is already the case under Roe, and w/o Roe it will be worse.
So sure, Roe may have been poorly reasoned. Perhaps a decision based on equal protection instead of privacy would have been better. But it's what we have, and given the virtual impossibility of amending the constitution, it's the only way we can have a Federal standard.
And no, I don't think handing it over to the states is workable, any more than it was workable to allow the states to decide segregation, voting rights, contraception, or interracial and gay marriage.
Women are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that includes deciding whether to carry a baby to term.
Overturning Roe is a travesty.
Disclosure: I'm a guy.
Among the 43 areas that reported gestational age at the time of abortion for 2019, 79.3% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation, and nearly all (92.7%) were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation (Table 10).
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/ss/ss7009a1.htm
So it's not like we're a country of monsters despite what's technically allowed by Roe. Now I want you to imagine for a moment what's happening in the life of a woman who chooses to have an abortion well into her pregnancy, likely after quickening when she can feel movement. Well it turns out you can't, because every case will be different. And I don't trust the state to insert itself into that decision. But I'll bet every one of these women has a story to tell and that it's heartbreaking, and that we don't make those women's lives better by forcing them to carry to term.
Data from the Turnaway Study has resulted in the publication of more than 50 peer-reviewed studies, and the answer to nearly all the questions asked, said Foster, is that the women who got abortions fared better in respect to economics and health, including their mental health, compared with those who did not have abortions.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/01/21/1074605...
So that's my first point, but I acknowledged some will disagree.
Now, Mississippi's law is to limit abortions to 15 weeks, so you may think it's a reasonable compromise. But with Roe overturned, it will not stop there. It's only a matter of time till some states ban abortion entirely. Some already have:
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-polici...
Anti-choicers will push for restrictions at the Federal level. They'll try to ban pharmaceutical abortion pills through the mail. They'll try to prevent women from traveling out of state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ba...
https://khn.org/news/article/texas-medication-abortion-crimi...
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2022/03/24/inside-missouris-pus...
Finally, outlawing abortions won't stop abortions. Never has and never will. What it will do is to punish poor women who don't have the means to travel to where abortion is legal. This is already the case under Roe, and w/o Roe it will be worse.
So sure, Roe may have been poorly reasoned. Perhaps a decision based on equal protection instead of privacy would have been better. But it's what we have, and given the virtual impossibility of amending the constitution, it's the only way we can have a Federal standard.
And no, I don't think handing it over to the states is workable, any more than it was workable to allow the states to decide segregation, voting rights, contraception, or interracial and gay marriage.
Women are entitled to equal protection under the law, and that includes deciding whether to carry a baby to term.
Overturning Roe is a travesty.
Disclosure: I'm a guy.
> Men arguing over women's wombs. Love it.
Men and women have similar views on abortion: https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-p.... Indeed, abortion is one of the political issues with the smallest gender gap in views. Women diverge from men much more on questions like the size of the social safety net. In Mississippi, the State whose law this Supreme Court case is about, the majority of women, and people of all races, oppose abortion.
Abortion advocates are no different than any other kind of progressive advocate--they claim the mantle of an entire group to champion extreme positions that most members of the group don't support, while seeking to suppress the voices of other members of the group. In reality, all the people I know who oppose abortion are women. They're moms, typically religious, and are rarely represented in discussions among educated elites like on HN. (I myself, like most educated elites, support some level of abortion rights, though I find myself favor limiting it to the first trimester, like most Americans.)
The backbone of the pro-life movement is conservative women, just like the backbone of the pro-choice movement is liberal women. Many conservative women--and slightly more women identify as conservative than liberal--deeply care about abortion. Many prioritize abortion more highly than libertarian economics, which is why the impetus for the GOP to take action on abortion has grown as women gain more power in the party. Conservative women almost uniformly love Justice Barrett. Many Republican men, by contrast, (the Justice Roberts type, or the four Republican men who voted to uphold Roe in Casey) would love to drop or at least moderate on abortion to capture more votes in affluent suburbs.
> So this doesn't paint a complete picture. It turns out that 93% of abortions in the U.S. happen at <= 13 weeks gestation. So it's not like we're a country of monsters despite what's technically allowed by Roe.
What the laws "technically allow" are an expression of society's values and sense of morality. Laws create not only legal effects, but social norms. In many cases, the social norms are more important than the legal effect. If we made stealing legal, most people, in the short term, wouldn't steal, because of the strong social norm against it. But over time and generations, we would have normalized stealing.
And even before that, we will have legalized conduct that is immoral and wrong, even if it's rare. by your numbers, you're talking about over 40,000 second trimester abortions a year. Some of which I'm sure would be justified regardless due to fetal deformity or health risks, but you could still be talking about thousands of monstrous acts a year where neither of those factors is implicated.
> And no, I don't think handing it over to the states is workable, any more than it was workable to allow the states to decide segregation, voting rights, contraception, or interracial and gay marriage.
Leaving abortion to legislatures has worked just fine in the rest of the world. Roe was heard within a few years of similar cases in Austria, France, Italy, and Germany, except Germany which found legalized abortion to violate the Basic Law. All of those Courts determined to leave abortion to the legislature. The courts in the EU left same-sex marriage to legislatures as well: https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-...
It's fundamentally mistaken to view every social issue through the lens of segregation of Black people. Black people were a minority, brought to the U.S. in slavery, and after they were freed, they were excluded from white society. The white majority had no common bond with the Black minority, and no material interest in their welfare. Segregation laws did not affect, directly or indirectly, the white people who voted for them. Democracy could not operate in this situation.
Contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion are completely different, because they effect everyone. Women and gay people are uniformly distributed throughout the population. The women who support restrictions on abortion are supporting restrictions on themselves. And the men who support such restrictions will be directly affected if they have to raise an unplanned child. Because the population as a whole has an interest in the outcome, democracy can operate to find a socially acceptable resolution of a contentious issue.
Liberals have used this mistaken analogy to segregation to champion a view of the Supreme Court that wrests control of society's moral and cultural development away from the public and entrusts it to highly educated elites. Abortion is legal to 24 weeks not because the public wants it, but because a bunch of libertarian-leaning Republican judges in the 1970s and 1980s did. Had Roe gone the other way, I strongly suspect we would have reached an equilibrium today that reflects public opinion of supporting elective abortion in the first trimester, but only in exceptional cases after that.
Men and women have similar views on abortion: https://www.vox.com/2019/5/20/18629644/abortion-gender-gap-p.... Indeed, abortion is one of the political issues with the smallest gender gap in views. Women diverge from men much more on questions like the size of the social safety net. In Mississippi, the State whose law this Supreme Court case is about, the majority of women, and people of all races, oppose abortion.
Abortion advocates are no different than any other kind of progressive advocate--they claim the mantle of an entire group to champion extreme positions that most members of the group don't support, while seeking to suppress the voices of other members of the group. In reality, all the people I know who oppose abortion are women. They're moms, typically religious, and are rarely represented in discussions among educated elites like on HN. (I myself, like most educated elites, support some level of abortion rights, though I find myself favor limiting it to the first trimester, like most Americans.)
The backbone of the pro-life movement is conservative women, just like the backbone of the pro-choice movement is liberal women. Many conservative women--and slightly more women identify as conservative than liberal--deeply care about abortion. Many prioritize abortion more highly than libertarian economics, which is why the impetus for the GOP to take action on abortion has grown as women gain more power in the party. Conservative women almost uniformly love Justice Barrett. Many Republican men, by contrast, (the Justice Roberts type, or the four Republican men who voted to uphold Roe in Casey) would love to drop or at least moderate on abortion to capture more votes in affluent suburbs.
> So this doesn't paint a complete picture. It turns out that 93% of abortions in the U.S. happen at <= 13 weeks gestation. So it's not like we're a country of monsters despite what's technically allowed by Roe.
What the laws "technically allow" are an expression of society's values and sense of morality. Laws create not only legal effects, but social norms. In many cases, the social norms are more important than the legal effect. If we made stealing legal, most people, in the short term, wouldn't steal, because of the strong social norm against it. But over time and generations, we would have normalized stealing.
And even before that, we will have legalized conduct that is immoral and wrong, even if it's rare. by your numbers, you're talking about over 40,000 second trimester abortions a year. Some of which I'm sure would be justified regardless due to fetal deformity or health risks, but you could still be talking about thousands of monstrous acts a year where neither of those factors is implicated.
> And no, I don't think handing it over to the states is workable, any more than it was workable to allow the states to decide segregation, voting rights, contraception, or interracial and gay marriage.
Leaving abortion to legislatures has worked just fine in the rest of the world. Roe was heard within a few years of similar cases in Austria, France, Italy, and Germany, except Germany which found legalized abortion to violate the Basic Law. All of those Courts determined to leave abortion to the legislature. The courts in the EU left same-sex marriage to legislatures as well: https://eclj.org/marriage/the-echr-unanimously-confirms-the-...
It's fundamentally mistaken to view every social issue through the lens of segregation of Black people. Black people were a minority, brought to the U.S. in slavery, and after they were freed, they were excluded from white society. The white majority had no common bond with the Black minority, and no material interest in their welfare. Segregation laws did not affect, directly or indirectly, the white people who voted for them. Democracy could not operate in this situation.
Contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion are completely different, because they effect everyone. Women and gay people are uniformly distributed throughout the population. The women who support restrictions on abortion are supporting restrictions on themselves. And the men who support such restrictions will be directly affected if they have to raise an unplanned child. Because the population as a whole has an interest in the outcome, democracy can operate to find a socially acceptable resolution of a contentious issue.
Liberals have used this mistaken analogy to segregation to champion a view of the Supreme Court that wrests control of society's moral and cultural development away from the public and entrusts it to highly educated elites. Abortion is legal to 24 weeks not because the public wants it, but because a bunch of libertarian-leaning Republican judges in the 1970s and 1980s did. Had Roe gone the other way, I strongly suspect we would have reached an equilibrium today that reflects public opinion of supporting elective abortion in the first trimester, but only in exceptional cases after that.
> Men and women have similar views on abortion
I never made any claim about support for abortion rights of men vs women. My point is only that men should be especially circumspect about restricting what a woman can do with her body.
> Abortion advocates
First of all, I'm not an abortion advocate. I'm an abortion-rights advocate. Let me lay out my position so that it is clear:
The way to reduce abortions is to reduce unintentional pregnancies and to better support women and mothers.
To wit, I want free and universal contraception and sex education. I want better birth control options for men (and I put my money where my mouth is by having a vasectomy after my wife and I had two children). I support a stronger social safety net than America provides.
I believe we can reduce second and third term abortions by making first term abortions easier. But should a woman, for whatever reason, need an abortion after the first term, that should be between her and her medical provider. I don't think any woman wants to have an abortion, especially one after the first trimester, and so I trust women to make that decision for themselves.
> are no different than any other kind of progressive advocate--they claim the mantle of an entire group to champion extreme positions that most members of the group don't support, while seeking to suppress the voices of other members of the group.
Supporting abortion rights is not an extreme position among men or women. A majority of Americans, men and women, support Roe and think abortion should be legal in "most or all cases":
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-i...
I am not trying to suppress anyone's voice. I am arguing against those who aim to restrict what I believe is fundamentally a woman's right.
> In reality, all the people I know who oppose abortion are women.
This is neither here nor there, but I happen to think that women who "oppose abortion in most or all cases" have fortunately never had to face a decision like this:
https://joshandrebeccashrader.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/my-cr...
> And even before that, we will have legalized conduct that is immoral and wrong, even if it's rare. by your numbers, you're talking about over 40,000 second trimester abortions a year. Some of which I'm sure would be justified regardless due to fetal deformity or health risks, but you could still be talking about thousands of monstrous acts a year where neither of those factors is implicated.
In Germany in 2020 there were 2,226 abortions in weeks 12 to 21. There were 648 at 22 and more weeks:
https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Health...
Which of those were immoral and wrong? Which were monstrous acts? Who decides?
The vast majority of women who have abortions after the first trimester don't realize they are pregnant, don't have resources to get an abortion sooner, or there is a fetal deformity.
https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2013/11/who-seeks-a...
What's immoral and wrong is to decline them the right to decide for themselves.
> Leaving abortion to legislatures has worked just fine in the rest of the world.
The U.S is not the rest of the world. We either let state legislatures decide or leave it to Congress. It is immoral to leave it to the states because it will disproportionally harm women who do not have the means to travel or who wish or need to obtain an abortion confidentially. It will increase abortions after the first trimester.
Leaving it to Congress is anti-democratic due to the Senate. But say we do leave it to Congress, which presumably has the authority to grant or restrict abortion access under the Commerce Clause. Then we're right back to the Supreme Court to rule on that authority.
> It's fundamentally mistaken to view every social issue through the lens of segregation of Black people. [...] Contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion are completely different. [...] Liberals have used this mistaken analogy to segregation.
The analogy to segregation is because its supporters defended it as as states rights issue, just like supporters of restricting abortion access. Similarly for the other issues. These are all issues that should not be left to the states.
> Champion a view of the Supreme Court that wrests control of society's moral and cultural development away from the public and entrusts it to highly educated elites.
Do you think that Griswold, Loving, and Obergefell are also issues that should have (should still be?) left to the states?
Here's what I think: Only 6% of the country could vote when the country was founded. Since that time, we've been on a path to greater democracy. But the country still retains anti-democratic institutions, and they are currently held by conservatives and allow a minority viewpoint to restrict the rights of others. At the same time, I think the constitution and representative democracy are what protects us from mob rule.
If resting control away from the states by finding implied rights in the constitution in order to allow interracial marriage, gay marriage and so forth is what is required due to the particulars of America's government, so be it.
> Abortion is legal to 24 weeks not because the public wants it, but because a bunch of libertarian-leaning Republican judges in the 1970s and 1980s did. Had Roe gone the other way, I strongly suspect we would have reached an equilibrium today.
America has highly conflicting views on abortion:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abo...
If Roe had gone the other way, I expect we'd be exactly where we're about to end up with restrictions varying by state, and with constant arguments over it in Congress.
> that reflects public opinion of supporting elective abortion in the first trimester, but only in exceptional cases after that.
Which is where we are as a practical matter in any case.
I never made any claim about support for abortion rights of men vs women. My point is only that men should be especially circumspect about restricting what a woman can do with her body.
> Abortion advocates
First of all, I'm not an abortion advocate. I'm an abortion-rights advocate. Let me lay out my position so that it is clear:
The way to reduce abortions is to reduce unintentional pregnancies and to better support women and mothers.
To wit, I want free and universal contraception and sex education. I want better birth control options for men (and I put my money where my mouth is by having a vasectomy after my wife and I had two children). I support a stronger social safety net than America provides.
I believe we can reduce second and third term abortions by making first term abortions easier. But should a woman, for whatever reason, need an abortion after the first term, that should be between her and her medical provider. I don't think any woman wants to have an abortion, especially one after the first trimester, and so I trust women to make that decision for themselves.
> are no different than any other kind of progressive advocate--they claim the mantle of an entire group to champion extreme positions that most members of the group don't support, while seeking to suppress the voices of other members of the group.
Supporting abortion rights is not an extreme position among men or women. A majority of Americans, men and women, support Roe and think abortion should be legal in "most or all cases":
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-i...
I am not trying to suppress anyone's voice. I am arguing against those who aim to restrict what I believe is fundamentally a woman's right.
> In reality, all the people I know who oppose abortion are women.
This is neither here nor there, but I happen to think that women who "oppose abortion in most or all cases" have fortunately never had to face a decision like this:
https://joshandrebeccashrader.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/my-cr...
> And even before that, we will have legalized conduct that is immoral and wrong, even if it's rare. by your numbers, you're talking about over 40,000 second trimester abortions a year. Some of which I'm sure would be justified regardless due to fetal deformity or health risks, but you could still be talking about thousands of monstrous acts a year where neither of those factors is implicated.
In Germany in 2020 there were 2,226 abortions in weeks 12 to 21. There were 648 at 22 and more weeks:
https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Health...
Which of those were immoral and wrong? Which were monstrous acts? Who decides?
The vast majority of women who have abortions after the first trimester don't realize they are pregnant, don't have resources to get an abortion sooner, or there is a fetal deformity.
https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2013/11/who-seeks-a...
What's immoral and wrong is to decline them the right to decide for themselves.
> Leaving abortion to legislatures has worked just fine in the rest of the world.
The U.S is not the rest of the world. We either let state legislatures decide or leave it to Congress. It is immoral to leave it to the states because it will disproportionally harm women who do not have the means to travel or who wish or need to obtain an abortion confidentially. It will increase abortions after the first trimester.
Leaving it to Congress is anti-democratic due to the Senate. But say we do leave it to Congress, which presumably has the authority to grant or restrict abortion access under the Commerce Clause. Then we're right back to the Supreme Court to rule on that authority.
> It's fundamentally mistaken to view every social issue through the lens of segregation of Black people. [...] Contraception, same-sex marriage, and abortion are completely different. [...] Liberals have used this mistaken analogy to segregation.
The analogy to segregation is because its supporters defended it as as states rights issue, just like supporters of restricting abortion access. Similarly for the other issues. These are all issues that should not be left to the states.
> Champion a view of the Supreme Court that wrests control of society's moral and cultural development away from the public and entrusts it to highly educated elites.
Do you think that Griswold, Loving, and Obergefell are also issues that should have (should still be?) left to the states?
Here's what I think: Only 6% of the country could vote when the country was founded. Since that time, we've been on a path to greater democracy. But the country still retains anti-democratic institutions, and they are currently held by conservatives and allow a minority viewpoint to restrict the rights of others. At the same time, I think the constitution and representative democracy are what protects us from mob rule.
If resting control away from the states by finding implied rights in the constitution in order to allow interracial marriage, gay marriage and so forth is what is required due to the particulars of America's government, so be it.
> Abortion is legal to 24 weeks not because the public wants it, but because a bunch of libertarian-leaning Republican judges in the 1970s and 1980s did. Had Roe gone the other way, I strongly suspect we would have reached an equilibrium today.
America has highly conflicting views on abortion:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/05/06/americas-abo...
If Roe had gone the other way, I expect we'd be exactly where we're about to end up with restrictions varying by state, and with constant arguments over it in Congress.
> that reflects public opinion of supporting elective abortion in the first trimester, but only in exceptional cases after that.
Which is where we are as a practical matter in any case.
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They would have to be very convinced that someone was going to flip. And even then there's a good chance that the wavering Justice would see this as a ploy the same as you do, and take offense.
> would have to be very convinced that someone was going to flip
The only element making me question the amateurishness of this leak is its timing, on the eve of bellwether primaries.
The only element making me question the amateurishness of this leak is its timing, on the eve of bellwether primaries.
There is a similar concept used in commerce, where a product or service is "artificially" overpriced and then discounted to make it seem like the buyer is getting a good deal.
In the same way, it makes sense to leak an "extreme" draft and then modify it after the fires have burned a bit, because you still get the benefit of passing unpopular legislation while seeming like you compromised on the details (when perhaps the final outcome is the one you wished for all along).
On the other hand, it makes some sense to me in some cynical ways for the opposition to leak this. We've already seen e-mail blasts going out asking for fundraising in the wake of this event, which certainly will solicit funds for numerous PACs and midterm war chests. Still, though, it's not like public opinion often ways heavily on the minds of the court -- they are not elected, after all, and do not face the perils of the election cycle very much. In fact, this puts much, much more pressure on the opposition's comrades in the presidential and congressional seats to come together and act. Pressure which may not be welcome ahead of said midterms...
In the same way, it makes sense to leak an "extreme" draft and then modify it after the fires have burned a bit, because you still get the benefit of passing unpopular legislation while seeming like you compromised on the details (when perhaps the final outcome is the one you wished for all along).
On the other hand, it makes some sense to me in some cynical ways for the opposition to leak this. We've already seen e-mail blasts going out asking for fundraising in the wake of this event, which certainly will solicit funds for numerous PACs and midterm war chests. Still, though, it's not like public opinion often ways heavily on the minds of the court -- they are not elected, after all, and do not face the perils of the election cycle very much. In fact, this puts much, much more pressure on the opposition's comrades in the presidential and congressional seats to come together and act. Pressure which may not be welcome ahead of said midterms...
It's mostly not at all something one can deduce from the PDF.
This guy is doing some pretty basic 'forensic' work ('ooh, there were staples') and then jumps to a completely self-made conclusion. It's ridiculous.
This guy is doing some pretty basic 'forensic' work ('ooh, there were staples') and then jumps to a completely self-made conclusion. It's ridiculous.
It's always annoying when something tries so hard to have the trappings of logical reasoning but is completely lacking in the substance.
I found the historical discussion more interesting and thoughtful than the deductions.
The timing makes this more convincing.
If the leaker is someone who is outraged by the decision, why didn't they leak it in February when it was first circulated? Why wait until now?
Also, keep in mind that the final decision was going to be made public in June, several months before the midterm elections. That's next month -- the outrage was going to happen soon enough. Why jump the gun at such a late date, so close to when the decision was going to be public anyway?
If the leaker is someone who is outraged by the decision, why didn't they leak it in February when it was first circulated? Why wait until now?
Also, keep in mind that the final decision was going to be made public in June, several months before the midterm elections. That's next month -- the outrage was going to happen soon enough. Why jump the gun at such a late date, so close to when the decision was going to be public anyway?
Another line of reasoning in this vein is that one group of politicians is eager to find and prosecute the leaker, the other is not. If they thought it was someone from the other side, they'd probably want a scalp.
Also, the conclusion of the article is that there's basically no metadata in this PDF. This article doesn't mention that it was created something like 7 minutes before the Politico story ran. It's going to be pretty hard to work that fact into any scenario where Politico didn't scan a paper document themselves or have someone assist them in doing so as I don't think they wrote the article in 7 minutes.
Also, the conclusion of the article is that there's basically no metadata in this PDF. This article doesn't mention that it was created something like 7 minutes before the Politico story ran. It's going to be pretty hard to work that fact into any scenario where Politico didn't scan a paper document themselves or have someone assist them in doing so as I don't think they wrote the article in 7 minutes.
Or, you know, set the clock wrongly on purpose. Or just have an incorrectly set clock. Maybe a timezone thing. Maybe a VM.
Most computers are set up to use NTP automatically and it'd take a heck of a coincidence to get the time 7 minutes before the article was published. If they wanted to fake the time they'd pick something like midnight Jan 1 that gives no info.
More likely is that they were waiting for someone to help them scrub the info from it and they hit the publish button on an already prepared article right after they got the file.
More likely is that they were waiting for someone to help them scrub the info from it and they hit the publish button on an already prepared article right after they got the file.
This models the leaker as unsophisticated/naive. It’s not clear to me that’s warranted given they were likely part of the Supreme Court staff. The actual effect of leaking this as opposed to waiting for it to be announced seems beneficial for supporters of the decision not detractors.
> This models the leaker as unsophisticated/naive. It’s not clear to me that’s warranted given they were likely part of the Supreme Court staff.
One thing I’ve learned the past few years is that we’ve all greatly overestimated the people in governments. I’m not sure if it’s because of movies or what that influenced that. The reality is that people are, for the most part, as dumb as anyone else. It’s just that the people are generally more private (often because it’s legally compelled) so we don’t see all the mistakes as obviously as we do in other fields.
America is also going through a wave of activism on all fronts, so being naive or unsophisticated isn’t really relevant to that.
One thing I’ve learned the past few years is that we’ve all greatly overestimated the people in governments. I’m not sure if it’s because of movies or what that influenced that. The reality is that people are, for the most part, as dumb as anyone else. It’s just that the people are generally more private (often because it’s legally compelled) so we don’t see all the mistakes as obviously as we do in other fields.
America is also going through a wave of activism on all fronts, so being naive or unsophisticated isn’t really relevant to that.
It seems highly unlikely anyone who leaked this was part of the core of the institution of the Supreme Court. Selection bias kind of leads to an assumption that those who work for the court support the neutrality and processes of the court, and have much to lose from this action vs possibly marginal potential upside. Much more likely is this was either a low level or external actor imo.
>Selection bias kind of leads to an assumption that those who work for the court support the neutrality and processes of the court
That may be true, but a key issue with this reasoning is that there has been an increasing opinion that the move to overturn Roe v Wade is an explicitly partisan affair precipitated by bad-faith manipulations of recent SC appointments from the conservative side.
That may be true, but a key issue with this reasoning is that there has been an increasing opinion that the move to overturn Roe v Wade is an explicitly partisan affair precipitated by bad-faith manipulations of recent SC appointments from the conservative side.
Clerks work at the Supreme Court for short periods of time, and most of these clerks are brilliant people that would succeed in almost any job. If a clerk felt strongly enough about a polarizing, complex issue such as abortion and also knew they would be considered heroes by others of similar beliefs, taking an action such as this is not only implausible but could quite possibly vault the leaker into legendary status.
I think you have an extra "im-" (or a missing "not") around "implausible" there.
Institutions with any sort of money prestige power to hand out only value loyalty and societies destroy defectors because they ultimately don't now and have never valued ethics decency or morality. We only like rebellion when its a prepackages story about someone whose values and loyalty are aligned with the present winners about their rebellion against now disgraced and powerless losers. We aren't good people we just play them on TV.
They would be more likely to get a legendary amount of shares on facebook while their actual life crashed even if folks didn't find a way to put them in jail based on a usefully broad interpretation of the CFAA for example.
One could imagine that they face merely professional ruin NOW but face actual legal action only years hence when the administration changed for example. It would an extremely dubious position to be in.
They would be more likely to get a legendary amount of shares on facebook while their actual life crashed even if folks didn't find a way to put them in jail based on a usefully broad interpretation of the CFAA for example.
One could imagine that they face merely professional ruin NOW but face actual legal action only years hence when the administration changed for example. It would an extremely dubious position to be in.
Roe v Wade is already a result of the politicization of the US Supreme Court, which is used an an upper-upper-house to pass legislation for which there is no consensus, by both parties. This has resulted in a continued erosion of institutions.
[deleted]
>...and have much to lose from this action vs possibly marginal potential upside
That would be my assumption as well. Clerking at the Supreme Court seems like one of the top appointments one could possibly achieve. Requiring top tier academics and some number of personal connections to secure the position. This stunt would destroy all of their future prospects.
That would be my assumption as well. Clerking at the Supreme Court seems like one of the top appointments one could possibly achieve. Requiring top tier academics and some number of personal connections to secure the position. This stunt would destroy all of their future prospects.
> This stunt would destroy all of their future prospects.
Or is a high-risk, high-reward way to launch a political career. I can see someone running for office with this as a cornerstone of their campaign.
I don't think it's a good plan, but maybe it is or is perceived to be by the leaker.
Or is a high-risk, high-reward way to launch a political career. I can see someone running for office with this as a cornerstone of their campaign.
I don't think it's a good plan, but maybe it is or is perceived to be by the leaker.
> Selection bias kind of leads to an assumption that those who work for the court support the neutrality and processes of the court
Certainly hasn't been true for those who make up the court. It's one of the least legitimate legal courts in the land.
Certainly hasn't been true for those who make up the court. It's one of the least legitimate legal courts in the land.
> Certainly hasn't been true for those who make up the court. It's one of the least legitimate legal courts in the land.
It certainly seems comprised of partisan hacks these days. I see no other way to describe the recent appointments prior to this year. They certainly weren't endorsed by the American Bar Association.
It certainly seems comprised of partisan hacks these days. I see no other way to describe the recent appointments prior to this year. They certainly weren't endorsed by the American Bar Association.
They ABA doesn’t “endorse” any appointees. They rate them, and Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett all received ratings of “well qualified” which is the ABA’s highest rating.
These three were completely obvious Republican picks a decade ago when I was in law school. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were so-called “feeder” judges on the courts of appeals, meaning they were well regarded and sent many of their clerks to clerk on the Supreme Court. (Just like RBG and Breyer and Garland). And Barrett was a star law professor.
These three were completely obvious Republican picks a decade ago when I was in law school. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were so-called “feeder” judges on the courts of appeals, meaning they were well regarded and sent many of their clerks to clerk on the Supreme Court. (Just like RBG and Breyer and Garland). And Barrett was a star law professor.
I mean the implication here doesn't seem all that subtle.
I think he's kind of pointing in the direction of Clarence Thomas's wife, who is a batshit crazy right wing activist that was involved in the events of January 6th.
No idea if he's right but it's well within the range of plausibility.
I think he's kind of pointing in the direction of Clarence Thomas's wife, who is a batshit crazy right wing activist that was involved in the events of January 6th.
No idea if he's right but it's well within the range of plausibility.
[deleted]
Yup. The closer to the election this is announced the more impact it will have. We will surely get another wave but outrage goes away quick with short attention spans.
What if this leak did not come from within? What about the possibility of a certain country with a history of hacking institutions and using that information to create division at key moments? Seems like an obvious play. I have no evidence of this and the simple answer is more likely. Was my initial thought though;
Because working in politics myself, this doesn't seem optimal for either side imho.
What if this leak did not come from within? What about the possibility of a certain country with a history of hacking institutions and using that information to create division at key moments? Seems like an obvious play. I have no evidence of this and the simple answer is more likely. Was my initial thought though;
Because working in politics myself, this doesn't seem optimal for either side imho.
What skills transfer from working at the supreme court transfer to effective leaking?
I could see relevant skills to nursing at a nursing home?
I could see relevant skills to nursing at a nursing home?
[deleted]
The actions after the leak, like the barricades going up I think was more telling. The intelligence was good enough to prompt a knee jerk reaction to protect the building, yet the intelligence is not good enough to find the leaker. Something doesnt add up!
It doesn't take much intelligence, under any definition, to know that once this leaked there would be protests.
> Something doesnt add up!
Like your timeline. Please at-least get that right before you go spreading lies. The barricades got setup before this leak in response to the guy lighting himself on fire.
Like your timeline. Please at-least get that right before you go spreading lies. The barricades got setup before this leak in response to the guy lighting himself on fire.
That makes no sense.
Anyone can predict that this could prompt protests. It's a no-brainer to put up barricades.
Anyone can predict that this could prompt protests. It's a no-brainer to put up barricades.
I read there were barricades before because the person lit themselves on fire recently.
The argument I heard elsewhere is that the draft was circulated a few months ago and therefore if they were against the decision, they likely would have leaked it then. However, that argument collapses when you consider that it circulated in ~Feb but doesn't mean the leaker had it then.
It’s leakers all the way down.
Maybe, but that would be stupid and ineffective. It would be more likely to make them feel like they could not change it.
However, I submit that a supporter of the ruling actually has a smart reason to release it early, namely that it's better for them to let any possible backlash calm down before the midterm elections.
However, I submit that a supporter of the ruling actually has a smart reason to release it early, namely that it's better for them to let any possible backlash calm down before the midterm elections.
[deleted]
> I believe it’s much more likely that the leaker is someone who supports the opinion rather than an opponent
I only want this to be true and it to be a justice to see how quickly Josh Hawley backs off his threat to impeach said justice.
I'm also curious, what kind of source control / collaborative tools do they use inside the supreme court? These decisions look like LaTeX.
I only want this to be true and it to be a justice to see how quickly Josh Hawley backs off his threat to impeach said justice.
I'm also curious, what kind of source control / collaborative tools do they use inside the supreme court? These decisions look like LaTeX.
Sarah Isgur and David French of The Dispatch ran through basically all of the possibilities and basically came to the conclusion it could be anyone but most likely it was just a stupid young clerk that never had a real job (University to Law School to probably at least two clerkships before a SCOTUS clerkship) trying to play politics and not having a strategy, or at least a good strategy for what they might accomplish here. Theoretically this benefits Republicans, conservatives and the religious right more by dropping this bomb early, but that’s just speculation about future possibilities and we’re talking about judicial clerks, not political operatives. Given that applies to mostly if not all of the clerks under any of the Justices, all you’re really doing is reading soggy tea leaves.
Sarah also pointed out that the Chief Justice has, technically, firing power over all of the clerks under any of the Justices, and there’s maybe a case to be made for him exercising that power here to fire all of them if they cannot definitively prove who it was after investigation in order to defend the integrity of the Court’s deliberation process. If they can at least narrow down that it was in fact a clerk and not some other staffer and definitely not a Justice (probably wasn’t, but still better to go through the investigation), then I can’t say I would disagree with that outcome.
Sarah also pointed out that the Chief Justice has, technically, firing power over all of the clerks under any of the Justices, and there’s maybe a case to be made for him exercising that power here to fire all of them if they cannot definitively prove who it was after investigation in order to defend the integrity of the Court’s deliberation process. If they can at least narrow down that it was in fact a clerk and not some other staffer and definitely not a Justice (probably wasn’t, but still better to go through the investigation), then I can’t say I would disagree with that outcome.
"and there’s maybe a case to be made for him exercising that power here to fire all of them if they cannot definitively prove who it was after investigation in order to defend the integrity of the Court’s deliberation process. If they can at least narrow down that it was in fact a clerk and not some other staffer and definitely not a Justice (probably wasn’t, but still better to go through the investigation), then I can’t say I would disagree with that outcome."
That would be a batshit bonkers move, frankly.
Luckily, that doesn't seem to be Roberts's style.
That would be a batshit bonkers move, frankly.
Luckily, that doesn't seem to be Roberts's style.
Maybe, but while the intention wouldn't be to punish these people, the outcome would amount to collective punishment. Collective punishment is bad, like so bad it is a war crime, if done during a war.
It’s the loss of a job with the nearly guaranteed promise of a new one. The hiring bonus for a former SCOTUS clerk presently going into a private firm is >$400K. It would be a terrible outcome to be sure, but we are a long ways away from what you can even think to call a war crime and the integrity of the Court is vastly more important to me than the integrity of the jobs of its staff.
By the way, the June-July recess is about when clerkships turnover and they choose to stay on for another term (at the Justice’s discretion) or move on in their careers. Clerkships aren’t forever.
By the way, the June-July recess is about when clerkships turnover and they choose to stay on for another term (at the Justice’s discretion) or move on in their careers. Clerkships aren’t forever.
I hear lot of noise about integrity of the court.
My opinion is that if you have some papers that would hurt your integrity to come out, then their release is never the problem, it is the papers in the first place.
Doubly so in the case of a government agency.
My opinion is that if you have some papers that would hurt your integrity to come out, then their release is never the problem, it is the papers in the first place.
Doubly so in the case of a government agency.
There has never been a leak like this in the court’s history; and the way the court works is that an opinion is not an opinion of the court until the moment it is handed down. This is a first draft from February while the court is still in its deliberative process and it has the potential to undermine the trust between Justices and between Justices and their staff not because of the contents of the draft—each and every Justice already had access to it—but because a leak happened at all and it was a politically motivated leak.
So yeah, this matters, and so does the state of the court’s integrity not because of what the general public thinks, but because if the court is to function at all, the court itself needs to believe in its own integrity.
So yeah, this matters, and so does the state of the court’s integrity not because of what the general public thinks, but because if the court is to function at all, the court itself needs to believe in its own integrity.
You have not really given any arguments. Please tell me why this should not have been routinely published.
I am aware that this is not the finished product, but I think it is clear to everyone that it is not.
I am aware that this is not the finished product, but I think it is clear to everyone that it is not.
And such a clerk could be particularly welcomed by an ideologically aligned firm, but less so if they have been disbarred as a result, which seems to be a real possibility. It could be a great boost to a media or political career, but not so much for a legal career.
If it’s a mass firing, do you think disbarring would be likely for any or all of them?
I think it’s incredibly likely if they determine exactly who it is and that person would deserve to see their career ended and at that point you would just fire that one clerk; but I don’t think it is likely at all if they were fired en masse because the Court couldn’t determine the exact culprit. It’s not great, but we’re still talking about a group of people who know how the Court operates because they worked there recently, and I think it would be difficult to make a case for disbarment for the whole lot if the Chief Justice actually did exercise this option.
I think it’s incredibly likely if they determine exactly who it is and that person would deserve to see their career ended and at that point you would just fire that one clerk; but I don’t think it is likely at all if they were fired en masse because the Court couldn’t determine the exact culprit. It’s not great, but we’re still talking about a group of people who know how the Court operates because they worked there recently, and I think it would be difficult to make a case for disbarment for the whole lot if the Chief Justice actually did exercise this option.
Roberts should simply have the FBI ask each clerk if they leaked the document.
If the clerk says yes, fire them.
If the clerk says no, they are either telling the truth or committing a felony. Would the real leaker risk catching a felony charge if they don't know whether the FBI actually knows the identity of the leaker?
If the clerk refuses to answer, apply "adverse inference" and fire them, because they are either the leaker or are hindering an investigation.
If the clerk says yes, fire them.
If the clerk says no, they are either telling the truth or committing a felony. Would the real leaker risk catching a felony charge if they don't know whether the FBI actually knows the identity of the leaker?
If the clerk refuses to answer, apply "adverse inference" and fire them, because they are either the leaker or are hindering an investigation.
An investigation of what? According to Legal Eagle's short (https://youtube.com/shorts/vUqsegzWbKo), the leak is not illegal.
Let’s just grant the point for the purposes of this conversation (which is not to say I agree, this has not ever actually happened before but could be considered theft of government property, but just for this conversation we’ll set that aside): would you want to keep someone on staff that violates your trust for politically motivated reasons?
It’s not just the current Justices and staff that want to know either. There has never been a before-the-fact wholesale leak of a draft opinion, but there have been months after-the-fact leaks that saw the leaker completely shunned by the community around SCOTUS independent of political affiliation or judicial philosophy from former and current clerks to the Justices themselves. They keep it tight, and clerkships, SCOTUS or otherwise, are usually the ultimate networking opportunity. Simply put, it was unprofessional and everyone involved has an interest in determining who it was no matter what the political motivations were or the hoped for outcome.
It’s not just the current Justices and staff that want to know either. There has never been a before-the-fact wholesale leak of a draft opinion, but there have been months after-the-fact leaks that saw the leaker completely shunned by the community around SCOTUS independent of political affiliation or judicial philosophy from former and current clerks to the Justices themselves. They keep it tight, and clerkships, SCOTUS or otherwise, are usually the ultimate networking opportunity. Simply put, it was unprofessional and everyone involved has an interest in determining who it was no matter what the political motivations were or the hoped for outcome.
Who says firing is the right option, vs some lesser disciplinary action?
Is the leaker the fall guy for somebody else?
Is the leaker the fall guy for somebody else?
Maybe I haven’t made it clear from this comment chain, but I view Sarah’s proposal as a last resort if investigatory measures fail, as I think Sarah did too when she presented it. Right now the Court is conducting its own investigation and while Roberts could bring the FBI in, he can’t control how they conduct an investigation and it would present its own dangers to the Court itself.
True, he can't control but that's federal law enforcement 101 - "get the suspect to lie to you".
Or, you know, maybe, they would know their rights and plead the fifth, as any idiot making that far into laws school would do?
They can absolutely plead the fifth. But Roberts could also fire them for refusing to answer.
The FBI is the wrong actor. The US Marshals is the appropriate federal agency to deal with court security.
I can’t see any blue state bar taking action on this.
This may be your own prejudices here, since Bar orgs are almost exclusively about fitness and good practice, not political point-making
Not recently: https://businesslawtoday.org/2020/10/anti-racist-speech-acti.... In particular the ABA recently adopted a vague and sweeping model rule of ethnics that could be construed to, for example, prevent Muslim lawyers from advocating against policies on same sex marriage inconsistent with their religion.
It is an extreme departure for a profession that historically prides itself on protecting the political process over making substantive judgments—a profession where the representation of nazis and murderers and terrorists in the name of access to the legal system for all is exalted.
In the end only Vermont’s bar, adopted the rule (even Illinois rejected it: https://www.2civility.org/isba-assembly-opposes-adoption-8-4...). But that just seems to me to be a minor bump in the road before the current crop of graduates from elite schools start replacing the folks in those bars as well.
It is an extreme departure for a profession that historically prides itself on protecting the political process over making substantive judgments—a profession where the representation of nazis and murderers and terrorists in the name of access to the legal system for all is exalted.
In the end only Vermont’s bar, adopted the rule (even Illinois rejected it: https://www.2civility.org/isba-assembly-opposes-adoption-8-4...). But that just seems to me to be a minor bump in the road before the current crop of graduates from elite schools start replacing the folks in those bars as well.
Being a warcrime isn't about the level of badness, just the level of inconvenience to the warring nations and actual utility of the outlawed practice. Chemical weapons were outlawed only after they proved utterly impractical, for example.
Nah. The only one who wins is Alito. It undermines Roberts attempts to be more “moderate”.
I lean to this - It was leaked by an opponent, but the timing was in consultation with a political strategist as to timing. Primaries are starting up, and that's why it's now and not earlier or later. This is the perfect time to fire up the base and get them watching primaries and contributing dollars. The leaker may have had idealistic reasons, but the timing feels like it's much more cynical.
> > there’s no reason for a supporter or an opponent to leak an old draft now.
It's a big assumption that it's an old draft. It could also be the last draft circulated, and that everything since has been on concurrences or minority opinions.
It's a big assumption that it's an old draft. It could also be the last draft circulated, and that everything since has been on concurrences or minority opinions.
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Another explanation that I have considered today:
Someone really doesn't like that US for once stand united (in support for Ukraine).
That someone pulled some strings to leak (or "leak", has it been confirmed yet?) this document.
I.O.W. a sign that Gerasimov and his ideas aren't completely dead, yet.
(I'm no specialist, this just struck me today as I realized none of the Americans I follow at Twitter care about the ongoing genocide in Europe anymore.)
Someone really doesn't like that US for once stand united (in support for Ukraine).
That someone pulled some strings to leak (or "leak", has it been confirmed yet?) this document.
I.O.W. a sign that Gerasimov and his ideas aren't completely dead, yet.
(I'm no specialist, this just struck me today as I realized none of the Americans I follow at Twitter care about the ongoing genocide in Europe anymore.)
It would explain why the draft was written in the first place: Russia is known for supporting extremist groups.
The leak presents one side of the argument. It doesn’t make sense for a dissenting Justice to leak the majority opinion and not be able to present their alternative view.
> I don't find the reasoning behind this convincing at all.
It's a very convincing argument, if you are referring to only this article then try it re-writtern here -
https://mobile.twitter.com/akapczynski/status/15214945538779...
Now that anyone can diff the final version it's very hard to change the draft in a lot of ways.
The best argument against this theory is that's it's too logical and people are not logical. It took a day for the hive mind to think of this.
Pressure and vengeance don't make sense, but nor do people.
It's a very convincing argument, if you are referring to only this article then try it re-writtern here -
https://mobile.twitter.com/akapczynski/status/15214945538779...
Now that anyone can diff the final version it's very hard to change the draft in a lot of ways.
The best argument against this theory is that's it's too logical and people are not logical. It took a day for the hive mind to think of this.
Pressure and vengeance don't make sense, but nor do people.
It's not about reasoning. It's about excuses for partisan squabbling.
nbbbshmbdy(1)
ComradePhil(1)
This is all just a wedge issue to distract from the disastrous management of the US economy, the US border with Mexico, and failed COVID policies. The timing - 6 months before midterms - is deliberate.
The final opinion would come out 2 or 3 months before midterms either way, because all opinions come out over summer.
Have you consider grasping at different straws?
Have you consider grasping at different straws?
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But it gives time to shift the narrative-- create lots of anger and then start with the "donate to our side, we'll fight to maintain this/undo this". I mean I don't have any reason for thinking this is more likely than any other possibility, but really at this point there's not enough evidence to narrow it down at all. Hell maybe it was Putin-- who can really say at this point
there are lots of opportunities and lots of opportunists who have initially nothing to do with the action or thought process and coordination leading up to the action
there is a group of people susceptible to the idea of trying to tie them all together
and there are opportunities to lead those kind of people on too
I mainly caution against being one of the people susceptible to connecting unrelated strings, and providing an alternate framework on how random things happen in reality
there is a group of people susceptible to the idea of trying to tie them all together
and there are opportunities to lead those kind of people on too
I mainly caution against being one of the people susceptible to connecting unrelated strings, and providing an alternate framework on how random things happen in reality
It's a little early for that, IMHO. Unless they were worried the final ruling wouldn't become public until after the midterms, I rather suspect they would have preferred an August or late September release to cover up their poor polling.
OTOH, if I were motivated to prevent this from affecting the midterms, I'd want it out as soon as possible to let people blow off their steam and for the news cycle to move onto other issues before the campaign season begins again.
Although support for late term abortions is quite low, support for Roe v. Wade itself is quite high (insofar as that it legalizes abortion, in general). As an election season issue, overturning Roe v. Wade hurts the republicans more than it helps the democrats.
OTOH, if I were motivated to prevent this from affecting the midterms, I'd want it out as soon as possible to let people blow off their steam and for the news cycle to move onto other issues before the campaign season begins again.
Although support for late term abortions is quite low, support for Roe v. Wade itself is quite high (insofar as that it legalizes abortion, in general). As an election season issue, overturning Roe v. Wade hurts the republicans more than it helps the democrats.
If the government was that competent at releasing propaganda to distract from ongoing crisises at hyper convenient moments wouldn’t you think they’d have much better ways of convincing people to mask, isolate, and vax?
Making sense in your head isn't enough to make a claim factual.
the economy was up before the war in Ukraine, dow had its best time ever even through covid, the caravans never arrived and covid killed itself. Are we living in different countries or are you just mad?
In speaking with a biologically female friend, she commented how she knows many men who are upset by the draft, always vote on the "right" side of issues, etc., but none cried with her hearing about this draft. The author's being a straight, white male could potentially also lead him into dismissing justices or clerks too quickly.
>Justices understand that they don’t always end up in the majority. Clerks rely on these jobs as a calling card for the rest of their careers. To be exposed as a leaker would amount to setting that future career on fire. It’s not worth the risk.
To Matthew Broderick, certainly, this risk isn't worth it. To a woman or minority who is genuinely afraid of the consequences for either themselves or can immediately put themselves in the shoes of those who it could harm? I don't know. Maybe it is worth it if they think that public outcry could sway a justice, particularly one who has previously and recently talked about it being settled precedent even if it may come at the cost of her career.
>Justices understand that they don’t always end up in the majority. Clerks rely on these jobs as a calling card for the rest of their careers. To be exposed as a leaker would amount to setting that future career on fire. It’s not worth the risk.
To Matthew Broderick, certainly, this risk isn't worth it. To a woman or minority who is genuinely afraid of the consequences for either themselves or can immediately put themselves in the shoes of those who it could harm? I don't know. Maybe it is worth it if they think that public outcry could sway a justice, particularly one who has previously and recently talked about it being settled precedent even if it may come at the cost of her career.
> none cried with her
I'm not understanding - these men aren't as upset as biological women are?
I'm not understanding - these men aren't as upset as biological women are?
I think that's pretty much what the comment is saying, yeah. Doesn't seem like a controversial POV that being a man could bias expectations when considering who leaked the memo (because the emotional investment is different). I know the GP uses language people here don't like, but it's not an unreasonable point to make when the core issue primarily impacts women.
More that lots of men who are upset still won't experience it with the same emotional resonance that many women are. Not because women are more emotional or men aren't empathetic but just that the fear lives closer to the surface for those who can really see themselves in the shoes of someone this decision will hurt. Dismissing clerks because they fear risking their career makes sense unless that clerk fears more for the lives of people they know/people like them.
On the flip side - many are speculating a conservative justice (edit: or staffer) leaked it in an attempt to effectively cement the decision in place before it could be watered down.
Any justice that would be the target of the proposed influence campaign knows that the process of deliberation is not decided in the first draft. Moreover, none of the justices would need to explain their apparent vacillation to the public. None of their power is derived from public opinion, so they are not incentivized to align themselves with public opinion or public pressure. Is leaking this actually likely to influence a ruling in the more conservative direction?
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That would be career suicide for a justice and almost certainly result in impeachment. Furthermore there's almost no reason for any justice to do such a thing.
>almost certainly result in impeachment.
That is awfully optimistic, considering the track record of impeachment in general , and the fact that only one justice has ever faced impeachment and it was over 200 years ago. Not to mention, leaks (as pointed out by the author of this post) are not new, nor are draft opinions protected by any sort of law or classification that would warrant impeachment (that I am aware of, happy to be corrected on this point).
>Furthermore there's almost no reason for any justice to do such a thing.
Some plausible reasoning has been posited here and elsewhere.
That is awfully optimistic, considering the track record of impeachment in general , and the fact that only one justice has ever faced impeachment and it was over 200 years ago. Not to mention, leaks (as pointed out by the author of this post) are not new, nor are draft opinions protected by any sort of law or classification that would warrant impeachment (that I am aware of, happy to be corrected on this point).
>Furthermore there's almost no reason for any justice to do such a thing.
Some plausible reasoning has been posited here and elsewhere.
You are coming to the wrong conclusion. The fact that almost no Justice has faced impeachment is precisely why it's unlikely a Justice leaked this document. Also impeachment does not require any statute to be broken, an officer of the United States can be impeached for any conduct deemed incompatible with the duties of their respective office. Surreptitiously leaking a draft opinion would almost certainly count as conduct unbefitting a Supreme Court Justice, after all if it weren't there'd be no need to be secretive about it.
>The fact that almost no Justice has faced impeachment is precisely why it's unlikely a Justice leaked this document.
My conclusion wasn't that a Justice leaked the document. My conclusion was that is optimistic to think they would be successfully impeached if it ends up being a Justice. What you've written has not convinced me otherwise.
Surely in the previous 200 years, some Justice has done something of similar unbecoming-ness, and yet a successful impeachment of a Justice has never happened.
My conclusion wasn't that a Justice leaked the document. My conclusion was that is optimistic to think they would be successfully impeached if it ends up being a Justice. What you've written has not convinced me otherwise.
Surely in the previous 200 years, some Justice has done something of similar unbecoming-ness, and yet a successful impeachment of a Justice has never happened.
>Surely in the previous 200 years, some Justice has done something of similar unbecoming-ness.
If something is surely true, then you can surely point to an example of it.
If something is surely true, then you can surely point to an example of it.
Hah. I am nowhere near invested enough in this conversation to sift through 200+ years of uninteresting history because of a snarky request.
If it makes you happy, I can edit the word "surely" to "moderately probable"?
If it makes you happy, I can edit the word "surely" to "moderately probable"?
Potter Stewart leaked large amounts of inside knowledge to Bob Woodward for the book 'The Brethren' (which is excellent BTW) though it didn't come out until his death. Abe Fortas eventually resigned under a cloud of partisanship and questionable financial decisions, but was not impeached. I'm sure there are others.
The honest truth is, though, that impeachment simply isn't going to happen. If a conservative leaked, essentially no Republican will vote to convict, and if a liberal essentially no Democrat. Impeachment is fundamentally a political process, the issue is partisan, and neither side has a sufficient supermajority. The facts are irrelevant, even if you think a leak is impeachable (which I don't, FWIW).
The honest truth is, though, that impeachment simply isn't going to happen. If a conservative leaked, essentially no Republican will vote to convict, and if a liberal essentially no Democrat. Impeachment is fundamentally a political process, the issue is partisan, and neither side has a sufficient supermajority. The facts are irrelevant, even if you think a leak is impeachable (which I don't, FWIW).
If you need to sift through 200 years of history to find an example of something you are certain is true, then you should reconsider the standard by which you distinguish truths from pure speculation. You are welcome to speculate that one of the 115 Supreme Court Justices engaged in behavior that would compromise the trust of the institution they serve, but you should not be so certain of it without being able to present some kind of evidence.
Furthermore your use of the term "successfully impeached" suggests that you don't understand the meaning of the term, which is fine since it's actually a commonly misunderstood legal term that most people confuse with conviction, but it's a further indication that your speculation on this matter is poorly informed. There is no such thing as a successful impeachment anymore than there is a successful trial, they are both processes rather than outcomes.
Furthermore your use of the term "successfully impeached" suggests that you don't understand the meaning of the term, which is fine since it's actually a commonly misunderstood legal term that most people confuse with conviction, but it's a further indication that your speculation on this matter is poorly informed. There is no such thing as a successful impeachment anymore than there is a successful trial, they are both processes rather than outcomes.
"Successful trial" is a normal phrase and you're trying too hard to be dismissive.
Yes it's a common term when discussing clinical/medical trials, for example when testing a new drug, but it's not a common term used to describe a legal trial and a simple Google search confirms this, feel free to conduct the search yourself.
A party can be successful at trial, but note here that in any given trial at least one of the two parties will be successful so it makes no sense to use "successful trial" to describe the trial itself, it only makes sense to describe one of the two parties as being successful, which is not how OP used that term.
The closest thing OP could mean by "successful impeachment" is that the judge would be convicted. I am dismissive of OP's use of this word because it's a common misunderstanding of what an impeachment is. An impeachment is not a conviction and I am not claiming that a conviction would be the outcome of an impeachment. That misunderstanding is materially important to the point being made as well as an indication that OP is likely misinformed on this subject (especially when combined with the fact that he has stated he has no evidence to support to his assertion and has no desire to seek any evidence). I don't think it's unreasonable to call someone out on a statement they are sure of when they have no evidence for that assertion and make mistakes of this kind.
A party can be successful at trial, but note here that in any given trial at least one of the two parties will be successful so it makes no sense to use "successful trial" to describe the trial itself, it only makes sense to describe one of the two parties as being successful, which is not how OP used that term.
The closest thing OP could mean by "successful impeachment" is that the judge would be convicted. I am dismissive of OP's use of this word because it's a common misunderstanding of what an impeachment is. An impeachment is not a conviction and I am not claiming that a conviction would be the outcome of an impeachment. That misunderstanding is materially important to the point being made as well as an indication that OP is likely misinformed on this subject (especially when combined with the fact that he has stated he has no evidence to support to his assertion and has no desire to seek any evidence). I don't think it's unreasonable to call someone out on a statement they are sure of when they have no evidence for that assertion and make mistakes of this kind.
>That would be career suicide for a justice and almost certainly result in impeachment
This seems naive. If Trump can make it past 2 impeachments I have no faith that a Justice would be impeached also not at all clear that this is even impeachable.
This seems naive. If Trump can make it past 2 impeachments I have no faith that a Justice would be impeached also not at all clear that this is even impeachable.
>not at all clear that this is even impeachable.
What is your understanding of what an impeachment is?
What is your understanding of what an impeachment is?
It is harder for men to cry due to their biology, this is supported by first hand experiences of trans women. This is not to say that men don't experience emotions or are not as empathetic or that women are emotional, but that the physical process itself is hindered.
[deleted]
I don't post on reddit much, but I've gotten more off-channel messages asking for details about my quip in a post about how my friend realized her period was 2 weeks late, and how she got her period to come back. Then she went to Planned Parenthood for a free blood test. She was told she'd had a miscarriage, and don't do that again.
The essential oil of the plant that Nirvana sang about is highly toxic. The tea is relatively safe. My friend used a 3-prong approach to inducing her period, not just the tea.
This tweet makes the case that the leaker was probably Justice Bryer's clerk: https://twitter.com/willchamberlain/status/15216859689396305...
The essential oil of the plant that Nirvana sang about is highly toxic. The tea is relatively safe. My friend used a 3-prong approach to inducing her period, not just the tea.
This tweet makes the case that the leaker was probably Justice Bryer's clerk: https://twitter.com/willchamberlain/status/15216859689396305...
> This tweet makes the case
Please stop sharing nonsense like this, because those people will get death threats as a result of their LinkedIn profile being shared in this context. The tweet isn't "making a case"; it's wild speculation about someone he just looked up on LinkedIn. The whole "case" being made here is that this particular clerk is passionate about abortion rights, and she has some second degree connection to the Politico journalist who published the leaked documents. That's it. That is the flimsiest case I've ever heard in my life. That's a high school gossip level evidence right there.
Please stop sharing nonsense like this, because those people will get death threats as a result of their LinkedIn profile being shared in this context. The tweet isn't "making a case"; it's wild speculation about someone he just looked up on LinkedIn. The whole "case" being made here is that this particular clerk is passionate about abortion rights, and she has some second degree connection to the Politico journalist who published the leaked documents. That's it. That is the flimsiest case I've ever heard in my life. That's a high school gossip level evidence right there.
Absolutely insane thread. And any speculation is extremely premature and dangerous at this point. But, hey, whatever gets you that "social engagement," right? Can't believe Mr. Chamberlain is a lawyer; I'd fire him on the spot.
I am a bit surprised that Justice Bryer's clerk is allowed to have a LinkedIn, though. An old classmate of mine clerked for a justice on the Supreme Court of California, and they had to disable all their social media by policy.
I am a bit surprised that Justice Bryer's clerk is allowed to have a LinkedIn, though. An old classmate of mine clerked for a justice on the Supreme Court of California, and they had to disable all their social media by policy.
> Can't believe Mr. Chamberlain is a lawyer; I'd fire him on the spot.
I don't think the sort of organizations Chamberlain affiliates with are the sort who'd object to premature and dangerous behavior, as long as it targets the right people: https://fedsoc.org/contributors/will-chamberlain
I don't think the sort of organizations Chamberlain affiliates with are the sort who'd object to premature and dangerous behavior, as long as it targets the right people: https://fedsoc.org/contributors/will-chamberlain
You would hope a lawyer would know better than to name names with absolutely zero evidence other than speculation. Hopefully this will not lead to her harassment, but based on history, I wouldn't be surprised if she's already received threats.
For those who don't want to click through the tweets by the Human Events guy (Will Chamberlain), the "case" is basically that the clerk is married to a journalist who shared a byline on a couple of articles with one of the Politico journalists several years ago.
[deleted]
That's an interesting point!
> But Politico has a strong incentive to protect their source. By making their own scan from a paper original, they wouldn’t open themselves up to the disclosures of confidential information that have tripped up others. (That said, printed documents are not necessarily free of metadata, as Reality Winner found out the hard way.)
If you color-scan a printed document at low-enough resolution, will it corrupt the color-printer dot patterns or are they resilient to that?
> I conclude it must be someone who only had access to a stapled, printed copy of the draft opinion. (If the person had access to the underlying digital file, they wouldn’t have printed & stapled it just to unstaple it.)
IMHO, the author is reading too much into that and many other things. The impression I get is he already has a favored suspect (who is obvious though he doesn't name her), and his whole analysis is looking to find a path to finger that person.
It's totally plausible to me that a moderately savvy leaker with a digital file would leak a printed copy to protect themselves from metadata, and that Politico just used lesser equipment that the author assumes they would have. Quick and dirty is more often the rule than careful and perfect.
Even the meaning of the staple may be very unclear: at work I print everything stapled, because I set it as a default in my print settings. If for some reason I realize I don't want it, it's actually easier for me to remove it than to go back to my desk to print another copy after changing the setting and go back to the printer.