They're doing some weird live-posting thing where new paragraphs bury the old ones, so here's the text:
Foreign officials and observers have expressed surprise at the news coming from the US Supreme Court.
A spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that while the issue should be decided by the US, the UK - where abortions are legal until the 24-week mark - "defends the productive rights of women globally".
Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, tweeted that "the right of women to decide what happens to our bodies is a human right".
In Spain - where abortions are broadly legal until 14 weeks of pregnancy - a senior government official said that the overturning of Roe v Wade would be "an alarming step back with terrible consequence for American women".
"We need to continue protecting sexual and reproductive rights, in the US and in all the world," said Yolanda Diaz, the country's second deputy prime minister.
In Canada, commentator and political consultant Warren Kinsella wrote in the Toronto Sun that the overturn of Roe v Wade would have "big Canadian political consequences".
"Abortion is the ultimate political wedge — one that mobilizes most Canadian women, of all stripes, to vote to maintain control over their bodies," he wrote. Article share tools
It's fascinating to see the US Gov't described in the same language that has been/is currently levied against, say, Saudi Arabia banning women from driving. I get the sense most Americans haven't noticed how much international perception of us has shifted in the last few years.
I'm very interested to follow the leak investigation. Obviously the initial news over Roe v. Wade is dominating the headlines but whoever leaked this is going to be hunted to the ends of the earth.
I've seen suggestions that the leaker was rightwing and leaked it because they were expecting Roberts and maybe Kavanaugh to try to weaken it slightly, so this was an attempt to get the more extreme opinion "locked in" so to speak, since the court would see it as embarassing to be seen to jockey and horsetrade.
If that's true, part of me expects the investigation to never amount to anything
That's...jesus.
Even in the face of something terrible coming, liberals can't bring themselves to break meaningless decorum (but chuds do because they want their way and don't care how they get it)
That's interesting, I hadn't considered that perspective. I imagine the person may still be found out, but just not face any consequences. Although they probably would have a bright future as a political strategist because that's a pretty 4D chess move.
i doubt that the internecine conflicts on the right are so pronounced that the Justices would destroy their sacred collegiality, esp. when they are authoring the opinion anyway. and, if roberts didn't want alito to write the opinion, he wouldn't have assigned it to him lol.
there is no need for conspiracy theories: the best and simplest explanation is that it was leaked by some liberal tracy flick.
Oh I didn't say that a Justice did it. If what I said is correct, it's probably a clerk.
I saw this floated by a former liberal SCOTUS clerk. On one hand, I'm not super keen to trust a liberal to understand power. But I do think a former clerk, lib or no, is likely to understand how the processes work.
According to them, it's been the strategy of liberals in the court to use this time to negotiate to make bad decisions slightly slightly less bad, which is just pathetic enough that I'm completely willing to believe it. Because of that, they think that liberal clerks would see leaking this as counterproductive to their whole strategy. You would also expect a lib to have leaked this back in February, when it would have first dropped- the timing of how this actually went makes it likely that this was in response to Roberts having written a separate opinion that still overturns Roe, but does so in a less complete way. That would still be enough to overturn it, but this person guessed that Roberts's opinion would have been enough to make Kavanaugh waver- not enough to sign on with Roberts, but enough to want to soften the majority opinion slightly.
interesting points.
so the idea there is that Roberts plus Kav could agree in the judgment but write separately, leaving the other conservatives with only a plurality opinion, meaning, probably, that the holding of the case is the narrower articulation by Rob/Kav, yes?
I believe that's the idea, yeah
EDIT: Oh wait, no. What this person suggested was that Kav wouldn't actually sign on with Roberts, but that Roberts's argument would sway him enough to argue to lighten the majority opinion slightly
That seems unlikely given how this gives the Democrats a big advantage - distract people from student loan forgiveness and get a great guilt trip to get people ready to :vote: no matter what. On the other hand, the Right does love to overstep and try to get the big prize rather than just take a clear victory coming.
American institutions love to get more outraged about the leakers than the content of the leak.
I mean yeah they already knew the stuff, so to them the leak is the only thing 'that happened'.
I guess by institutions I also include the media, since they're alway scandalized about Career Ghoul #1000 being (angry about being) exposed as a swamp creature before even thinking of interrogating why these people are evil. "Muh precious norms, why cant these withered husks disintegrate our rights behind closed doors in peace"
whoever leaked this is going to be hunted to the ends of the earth.
i mean, who cares? assuming this wasn't a deliberate leak by the conservative justices, the leaker is (presumably) an HYS grad who clerked for the Court -- their credentials are bullet proof, and if they get outed, they'll be able to parlay the leak into a gig at whatever lib non-profit, or some tenure-track position, with lifetime appearances on MSNBC,
they’ll be able to parlay the leak into a gig at whatever lib non-profit, or some tenure-track position, with lifetime appearances on MSNBC,
Iirc top law firms give you a 6 figure signing bonus + you start at the equivalent of having worked 3 years at the law firm if you clerked at the Supreme Court. But I think that's conditional on a good relationship, so it'd be genuinely a big loss to get caught.
again, if you graduated top of your class at yale, the fact that (maybe) some white shoed firm is too risk adverse to hire you is small potatoes.
Or they could throw you in solitary, leaving you to wonder what (or, worryingly, if) your lawyer is arguing to get you out.
lol, then you're the Cause célèbre for several news cycles, and your star burns brighter. literally no downside.
I hope the European countries take this as a warning to what could happen if they continue to be vassal states to America. But I'm not holding my breath.
My hopium is that the French left continues down the path of Melenchon. Keep France as distinct from the US as possible, and France should move on from its colonial past. Sixieme Republique when?
Marine Le Pen? Eric Zemmour? They claim to be patriots but their hatred towards the French tradition of reason and equality will just Americanize us. They are not French, they are Americans!
We are witnessing the end of liberal democracy, the battle over the next few years will be to see what type of autocratic system replaces it. If I had to rank the contenders at this point it would be corporate neo-feudalism, fascism and socialism in that order.
if I have to have feudalism at least give me OG feudalism w/o all the surveillance
Yeah if I'm stuck living under feudalism then the least they could do is let me be a sheep herder or some shit instead of sitting at a desk.
we'd even have some common areas again - would be nice(r than what we have now).
France should move on from its colonial past.
good luck with that, France doesn't even want to acknowledge that colonialism might be bad.
I think that boat has sailed. They all became permanent vassals the moment they passed sanctions and refused to de-escalate the buildup to the war
Toronto Sun
"big Canadian political consequences"
this guy is hoping to see the same shit in canada
Abortion is a pretty explicit right in the Canadian constitution, so it'll be a much tougher sell. The status quo is also supported by more than 3/4 of the population.
GovernmentRegimeArmySecurity ForcesPresidentChairmanPrisonConcentration campweird live-posting thing where new paragraphs bury the old ones
It never fails to amaze me how many very popular sites have so much shitty coding.
The code works as designed. A lot of shitty code still works as designed. The problem isn't shitty code, the problem is shitty design.
