June 30, 2022

SCOTUS just quietly slashed your Sixth Amendment rights

(TheHill) The Supreme Court’s recent assault on our rights has gone far beyond Roe and Dobbs. The Supreme Court quietly issued a 6-3 ruling recently on Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez, siding against two Arizonans on death row who sought to challenge their convictions in federal court after receiving shoddy legal support. The majority’s rationale, which was based on a 1996 federal law, was that state sovereignty and legal expediency must be protected at all costs.

Unfortunately, those costs are clear. The Court’s ruling slashed Americans’ constitutional right to effective counsel by eviscerating the life-saving accountability mechanism that allows people to appeal unjust rulings. The six conservative justices have plainly prioritized the legal system’s power to convict and kill over our human right to live.

What is less clear is why, in a nation where folks will literally risk children’s lives to maintain their Second Amendment rights, Americans seem perfectly happy to hand over their Sixth Amendment rights with hardly a thought. The silence on social media and in our public discourse about this ruling is alarming — we should be very scared and very, very angry.

snip

We live in a world where innocent people are prosecuted every day. This ruling erodes protections for any American who might — at any time — be perceived guilty of any sort of wrongdoing. Whether it be the person in the midst of a miscarriage who is accused of committing an abortion in a red state, or the person who rented a car to visit family and was accused of stealing it despite a complete lack of evidence. It truly could be any of us at any time. All it takes is running into the wrong cop or prosecutor at the wrong time. And after Dobbs, it might take as little as a bad pregnancy outcome, whatever the cause.

Read More: https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3541102-scotus-just-quietly-slashed-your-sixth-amendment-rights/

June 28, 2022

Are "abortion cruises" an option here in America - especially in states like Florida?

I just saw the Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomperts on TV, whose organization Women on Waves does just this exact thing in Europe.

According to Wiki "Services are provided on a commissioned ship that contains a specially constructed mobile clinic, the A-Portable. When WoW visits a country, women make appointments, and are taken on board the ship. The ship then sails out approximately 20 km (12 miles), to international waters, where Dutch laws are in effect on board ships registered in the Netherlands. Once in international waters, the ship's medical personnel provide a range of reproductive health services that includes medical abortion."

June 27, 2022

WATCH LIVE: Planned Parenthood among providers disputing Florida abortion ban

(Local10News) TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida and other reproductive health care providers are challenging Florida’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy on Monday at a state court in Tallahassee.

Attorneys representing Planned Parenthood argued in front of Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper that the ban violates the privacy rights that are protected by the state’s constitution.

House Bill 5, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in April, reduces the existing 24-week ban starting on Friday. The new law doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking.

link to live video and news article: https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/06/27/planned-parenthood-of-south-among-providers-disputing-floridas-ban-on-abortions-after-15-weeks-of-pregnancy/

June 25, 2022

Gloria Steinem: The Roe v. Wade Overturn Has Made Ratifying the ERA More Urgent Than Ever

(snips from a long interview)

Gloria Steinem: First of all, on the global level, I would point out that we are the only democracy in the world that does not have women in its Constitution, which is a travesty in itself. Then, on the more individual level, there are many situations in which the ERA’s absence is felt, whether with regard to property or privacy rights, or others.

snip

What role could the ERA have in helping to curb the assault on women’s reproductive freedom, with Roe having fallen?

If democracy means anything, it means decision-making power over our own bodies—and that means equal decision-making power. Can men be forbidden to have a vasectomy? So why are women uniquely governed—in terms our physical selves—by various state laws? Well, the answer is because we have a womb. We happen to have the one thing guys don’t. And when you look back in history at authoritarian movements around the world, you learn that often the first thing they have done is to outlaw abortion and declare family planning a crime against the state.

What would the ERA do to boost women’s reproductive rights?

It would strengthen rights around our own bodies. The issue of fetal rights would not arise until a fetus could survive outside of women’s bodies. Right now fetal rights do apply, even though the fetus is 100 percent dependent on women’s hearts and lungs and circulation and so on. But it would not come into play until the fetus was at the point of viability. I mean, in a way that’s the kind of popular, sensible understanding already, even though there are differences on the idea of when viability arrives.

What do you think its chances are of passing the Senate now?

Many legal experts think it doesn’t even need to pass the Senate. They say the National Archivist can simply enact it, but so far he hasn’t done that. But one way or the other, we’ve got to get it done!

Read More:

https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/books/a39860562/now-that-roe-v-wade-has-been-overturned-ratifying-the-era-is-urgent-says-gloria-steinem/

June 25, 2022

Abortion Ruling Info Specifically for Floridians:

*Because states differ on what is and isn't allowed anymore - perhaps this info will help someone you know....

Florida Senator Lauren Book (D-District 32) wanted to make it clear that abortions are still legal in Florida.

“What’s important to know is that you can still get legal and safe abortions in the state of Florida today, tomorrow and starting July 1 up until 15 weeks. That’s really important to know. We are not one of those 13 trigger states where abortions stopped today.”

June 24, 2022

wtf, why does msnbc have on an anti-abortion person on rambling about how great today is????

this pisses me off so much., wtf msnbc

June 6, 2022

"PEOPLE MUST PAY ATTENTION. PEOPLE MUST WATCH": THE JAN. 6 COMMITTEE IS TRYING TO MAKE THE MOST OF

ITS PRIME-TIME TV SLOT (*not my "all caps", it was in the title)

(Vanity Fair) The January 6 committee is apparently not taking any chances with their media strategy on Thursday, when the first in a series of public hearings will air in prime time. Veteran network executive James Goldston, the former president of ABC News, “has joined the committee as an unannounced adviser,” Axios reported Monday. The committee tapped Goldston, whose storytelling expertise breathed life into programs such as Nightline, to shape the cache of material that the committee has amassed over the past year, which reportedly includes more than 140,000 documents and disclosures from over 1,000 depositions and interviews. Thursday’s prime-time hearing, which Goldston is producing, is said to feature both live witnesses and pre-produced video—including clips from some depositions. Goldston “plans to make it raw enough so that skeptical journalists will find the material fresh, and chew over the disclosures in future coverage,” while also getting the attention “of Americans who haven't followed the ins and outs of the Capitol riot probe,” Axios’s Mike Allen reports.

Read More: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/06/the-jan-6-committee-is-trying-to-make-the-most-of-its-prime-time-tv-slot

June 1, 2022

Florida Republicans beat the gun lobby. Congress hasn't followed.

(Washington Post) In 2018, Florida banned weapons sales to those younger than 21, imposed a three-day waiting period and created a “red flag” law. Republicans doubt the same can happen at the federal level. After a teenage gunman killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers inside a Texas elementary school Tuesday, Democrats on Capitol Hill quickly lamented Republican lawmakers’ years of intransigence on gun control.

“No matter the cause of violence and no matter the cost on the families,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday, “nothing seems to move them.” But that broadside wasn’t entirely accurate: Not long ago, GOP lawmakers bucked ferocious pressure from the National Rifle Association to pass significant new gun restrictions after a deadly school shooting, which were then signed into law by a fiercely conservative Republican.

It just didn’t happen in Washington.

Three weeks after 17 people were gunned down in 2018 inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed into law a bill that included provisions banning weapons sales to those younger than 21, imposing a three-day waiting period on most long-gun purchases, and creating a “red flag” law allowing authorities to confiscate weapons from people deemed to constitute a public threat.

snip

In a different political reality, what worked in Florida — a huge center-right state that is often seen as a bellwether of national political trends — might well be seen as a template for a national compromise to address mass acts of gun violence, such as Tuesday’s shooting in Uvalde, Tex. Yet it’s not. Interviews this week with Republican senators revealed little stomach for the sort of sprawling bill that Florida Republicans passed in 2018. None said they are open to a federal waiting period. Some are curious about “red flag” laws but skeptical about their implementation on the federal level. And asked about age limits for rifle purchases, one key GOP negotiator, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said, “I don’t think that’s on the table.”

(Read more) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/28/florida-gun-laws/

May 31, 2022

Michael Sussmann found not guilty of lying to FBI in Durham investigation

(CNN)Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann was acquitted Tuesday of lying to the FBI, in the first trial of special counsel John Durham's investigation.

The verdict is a major defeat for Durham and his Justice Department prosecutors, who have spent three years looking for wrongdoing in the Trump-Russia probe. He claimed Sussmann lied during a 2016 meeting in which he passed a tip to the FBI about Donald Trump and Russia.

The Washington, DC, federal jury deliberated for six hours over two days before reaching its verdict.

snip

Trump has treated Durham's probe as a political weapon, stoking excitement in the right-wing ecosystem that Durham will deliver Watergate-caliber indictments against Clinton loyalists and the "deep state" government agents who supposedly conspired against him. He has even suggested that Sussmann's and other Democrats' conduct should be "punishable by death."

(Read More) https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/31/politics/sussmann-verdict/index.html

May 27, 2022

Even crazy Florida changed their gun laws after the school massacre in Parkland, why can't Texas?

After the shooting at MSD, all the repubs in FL including Sick Rick Scott voted yes! They raised the age to 21 and created red flag laws and there were ZERO repercussions for the repub politicians because of it - they didn't lose voters, they held on to their power (we are still a disgustingly red state) and even the NRA never came after them. So what are you afraid of, Texas? Just do it already!