Crooked Media - What A Day: The Roe must go on

The Supreme Court has made one thing abundantly clear to both court-reform advocates and anyone in Texas in need of an abortion: It’s time to start packing.
 

• ICYMI, the Supreme Court’s far-right bloc allowed Texas’s horrendous near-total abortion ban to go into effect last week—first by ghosting the filers of an emergency request to block it, then by announcing in a 5-4 decision that they would leave the law in place while legal challenges played out. (Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals.) The Texas law bans all abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, when most people don’t know they’re pregnant, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It also incentivizes local creeps to become vigilante bounty hunters, offering a $10,000 reward to any Texas resident who successfully sues an abortion provider, Uber driver, or anyone else they suspect of helping someone violate the ban.
   
• It’s the most extreme abortion law to take effect in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade. By letting it stand, the Court has effectively overturned Roe in Texas using the shadow docket, which the conservative majority has increasingly abused to quickly and quietly issue radical decisions outside the normal judicial process. Justice Sonya Sotomayor condemned the decision in a scathing dissent that’s worth reading in full: “The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”
   
• The ruling has several stomach-churning implications. First, this law will have immediate, devastating consequences for people seeking care in Texas—primarily low-income people of color. Texas abortion providers have already seen appointment numbers plummet, and had to turn away patients who are more than six weeks pregnant. Second, the ban’s survival will encourage other red states to replicate it at their earliest convenience. And third, it sure looks likely that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade altogether—either explicitly or effectively—when it gets the chance next term. 

So what can Democrats do to fix this?
 

• Plenty, if they can get over a few dumb hang-ups! Democrats could take this ruling as their cue to expand the Supreme Court, and stop the illegitimate far-right majority from continuing to impose a harmful, unpopular GOP agenda on Americans who never voted for it. They could also nuke the filibuster to pass a federal law protecting abortion access, and/or get creative with workarounds like qualified immunity for abortion providers. 
   
• So far, President Biden has called for a “whole-of-government” effort to respond to the decision, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a Monday statement that the Justice Department would explore its options to challenge the law and do what it could to protect people in Texas seeking abortions. In the meantime, pro-choice advocates have seen a few reprieves: On Friday, a Texas county judge temporarily blocked an anti-abortion group’s attempt to sue abortion providers at Planned Parenthood clinics. That group’s website soliciting abortion snitches has been twice taken offline by hosting providers (after a heroic TikTok troll army flooded it with memes), and Lyft and Uber have both pledged to cover the legal fees of any drivers who get sued for driving someone to a clinic. 

There can no longer be any doubt that without intervention, the ultraconservative Supreme Court will work to impose a minority vision on the country, even when it means flouting the law of the land. Democrats can either implement the court reforms necessary to protect reproductive rights and a functioning democracy, or gamble on a future where any progressive gain can be hastily reversed in the middle of the night.

This one goes out to our California readers! Voting is under way for the September 14th recall election and polls are unbelievably close. The only way to block a Republican takeover of California is to vote NO on Question 1: “Should Gov. Newsom be recalled?”

If you're a registered voter, you should have already received your ballot in mail. So, whether you're thinking of dropping off your ballot or voting in-person, be sure you to make plan ASAP and tell your friends while you're at it! 

This information was not authorized by a candidate or a committee controlled by a candidate. To get more details on how and when to vote, visit votesaveamerica.com/california.

In other charming new features of the Texas Legislative Hellscape, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has signed Republicans’ atrocious voter-suppression bill into law. The final version bans 24-hour and drive-through voting, targeting Black and Latino voters in Harris County, and makes it a felony for county election officials to send out unsolicited mail-in voting applications—even to voters over age 65, who automatically qualify to vote by mail. It also offers new protections for partisan poll watchers, inviting voter intimidation at the polls. The law is scheduled to go into effect in time for the 2022 primaries, but it already faces at least five legal challenges in state and federal courts, which could slow it down. Anyway, it’s yet another beautiful day for President Biden to bust out the White House megaphone and directly urge Senate Democrats to reform the filibuster and pass the For The People Act.

• Idaho public health officials have activated crisis standards of care for at least 10 hospitals for the first time in state history, as coronavirus patients overwhelm the health-care system. 
   
• President Biden surveyed damage from Hurricane Ida in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday, and administration officials said the White House planned to ask Congress for at least $10 billion in additional disaster aid for Ida, to be included in September’s government funding bill (which will also include the debt limit hike that Republicans have pledged to block). Ida’s death toll has now risen past 60.
   
• As the latest supercharged hurricane was flooding out New Jersey, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) published a Wall Street Journal op-ed demanding a “pause” on Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. 
   
• In other fun Manchin facts, Heather Bresch, Manchin’s daughter and the former CEO of the drugmaker Mylan, appears to have played a direct role in the EpiPen price inflation scandal.
   
• Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe warned on Monday that law enforcement needs to take an upcoming pro-insurrectionist rally “very seriously.” The “Justice for J6” rally, organized by former Trump campaign staffer Matt Braynard, is scheduled to take place on September 18 outside the Capitol. 
   
• The Taliban have announced a hardline interim government for Afghanistan, mostly made up of senior figures who served in similar roles in the ‘90s regime. 
   
• A Colorado grand jury has indicted three Denver police officers and two paramedics in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man whom they placed in a chokehold and injected with ketamine. Each has been charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
   
• Britney Spears's father has filed a petition to end her conservatorship. Spears's attorney called the filing a victory, but suggested it was an effort to avoid a deposition.
   
• Donald Trump’s PAC has been paying more than $37,000 a month for office space at Trump Tower, as other major tenants back away or fall behind on rent.
   
• Actor Michael K. Williams, best known for playing Omar Little on The Wire, died on Monday. He was 54.
   
• Behold the inner workings of Brandy Melville, a racist nightmare brand run by a racist nightmare man. More like (it's not too late to stop reading) Klandy Hellville, amirite? (Now it is too late.)

Former Trump advisor and proud GETTR CEO Jason Miller was briefly detained in Brazil on Tuesday, coincidentally just as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was flipping to a new page in the ol’ Donald Trump Power Grab Playbook. Miller had appeared at Brazil’s version of CPAC over the weekend, and was reportedly detained by order of Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes as part of an investigation into “anti-democratic acts.” Meanwhile, Bolsonaro called on his supporters to rally across the country on Tuesday, Brazil's Independence Day, and declared that he would no longer abide by rulings from de Moraes, who will lead Brazil’s election tribunal next year when Bolsonaro is up for reelection. Polls show that Bolsonaro would lose in a landslide if the election were held today, and he’s previously said that he might reject the election results. On a Monday, a group of more than 150 heads of state and lawmakers released a statement expressing concern that Tuesday’s rallies would be a prelude to a coup.

Seventy-five percent of U.S. adults have now received at least one vaccine dose.

Getting vaccinated drastically reduces the risk of long-haul COVID, according to a new U.K. study.

Mexico’s supreme court has voted to decriminalize abortion. 

New polling found that 66 percent of likely Latino voters in California won’t support the recall effort.* (*No Complacency Clause: By reading this good news, you have agreed to sign up for one (1) phone bank shift.)