News of Note

What? Science? Who Needs Science?

On Monday, we wrote our analysis of the disastrous 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby, which gives greater religious freedom rights to closely held for-profit corporations and less religious freedom rights to natural persons (their words). We also urged you to express your dissent by signing on on to support Planned Parenthood in its defends health care access for women.

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

 

“The decision now says people have the right to ignore science; humans can ignore facts. Science can be contested, disproven, and proven, with experimentation, and the advancement of knowledge. But Hobby Lobby just got a religious exemption from the health care law and basically all science!” — Michelle Garcia at the Advocate 

Closely held for-profit corporations comprise 90% of American companies and millions of workers, and companies are now empowered to intervene in the health care access for women and the men that love them by denying coverage for commonly used, FDA-approved pregnancy prevention pills and devices, such as an IUD (intra-uterine device). We fully agree with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the dissenting opinion, warning that the Court is about to enter “a minefield.”

The New York Times previously tried to explain this, and VenusPlusX, Mother Jones, and others such as Garcia do very well in unpacking the bad science behind the decision. These 5 white men in the majority are uniformed and/or intentionally in denial by misunderstanding that the birth control methods they feel are so at odds with their religions interfere with embryo implantation when in fact they simply prevent fertilization.

These science-deniers and extreme-right wing nuts have driven down the Court’s favorability to 30%, and threaten the balance of government. Last month, VenusPlusX, discussed the impeachment of certain Supreme Court Justices, and this should add more fuel to the fire.

Garcia also makes another very good point of why this decision should worry every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) person. Generations of LGBT activists have always understood that when it comes to progress, equality rights follow women’s rights. Legislation and lawsuits favoring LGBT people are based on this fact, and shows the two movements have be (and should be) inexorably linked for decades.

As a queer woman, it makes me want to shake every LGBT person who doesn’t see the broader implications of this. What if a company could tell employees that they won’t pay for insurance that covers HIV treatment or health care to transgender people because of owners’ “sincerely held religious beliefs”? Justice Samuel Alito, in writing the majority opinion, promised its scope was “very specific.” Still, some of us side with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and foresee a potential onslaught of legal challenges testing the limits.

When I unfurl my brow and relax to get a good night’s sleep I think about the upside of right-wing theocratic extremism — it brings out the voters. The more desperate the right-wing nuts are and the more sloppy they become help focus progressive action. In America, we can use the issues where Republicans fall short (women’s rights, immigration rights, LGBT rights, immigration rights, workers rights, and on and on) to vote them out in November, insuring a super-majority in the Senate will be available there to appoint new progressive Justices as maybe needed in the next few years; and, regaining the House to replace the do-nothing bunch there now.

291679976_f8e1803bf5_oIt’s the political season. Put your boots on the ground to stand up for those whose human rights are under attack. We have to get our own house in order before we can affect similar changes in trouble spots across the world. Two follows one, three follows two, and so on and so on so just take that first step towards change.

See A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom to understand why VenusPlusX believes issues like these are of supreme importance.

 

Express Your Dissent!

It is unbelievable that in 2014
we are still fighting about women’s
access to basic health care like birth control.

If you agree — say so. Just click here now
to add your name to the dissent.
— Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood

Photo by James Palinsad Flickr/creative commons

Photo by James Palinsad
Flickr/creative commons

In a dramatic 5-4 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court today chose to side with corporations over people and set a brand new (and untested) precedent that is just the starting gun for more and more corporations claiming religious freedom superiority over the needs of their employees.

(See a LATE BREAKING UPDATE at the bottom showing the already cascading effect this decision is having in the lower courts, in less than 8 hours.) 

In Burwell v Hobby Lobby, the right-wing justices vacated a portion of the Affordable Care Act that applies to certain for-profit corporations, giving them superior religious freedom rights. They performed this bit of surgery with a dull hack saw. In the the process they perpetuated a fatal misunderstanding of the difference between pregnancy prevention and abortion.

Protecting the free-exercise rights of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them. — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito

It was a good day to be a boss. And a very good day for all the lawyers who will now thrive because of the havoc this decision will fuel. 

Justice Stephen Breyer and the 3 women Justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayer, and Elana Kagan, dissented in consideration of the tens of thousands of working women who are now unable to exercise their religious freedom, or more bluntly, freedom from the religious freedom of others with whom they disagree. Ginsburg called it, “A decision of startling breadth,” and went on to say . . .

The Court’s expansive notion of corporate personhood . . . invites for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faith . . . The Court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield . . .

The longstanding, extreme right-wingnuts’ campaign to dismantle any gains in reproductive freedom is driven solely by their theocratic fundamentalist beliefs that dictate that women shouldn’t control their own bodies, or shouldn’t be wanting to have sex in the first place, and that pregnancy prevention amounts to another form of abortion. Their position is that discrimination against women health care is not discrimination at all — it’s okay for your bosses to know better what you need.

Now it’s up to the Congress to provide a contraceptive work-around, if possible. For now, however, working women have to pay twice, first by their labor which entitles them to health care, and then separately outside of their company’s health care program. For example, a working woman now must pay more than $1000 for a IUD, an intrauterine device that prevents pregnancy, in many cases equal to a month’s pay.

There is an irony here because less available contraception will result in more pregnancies which are even more expensive and more of a strain on women’s overall health and their economic opportunities.

This impasse is a perfect example of an inhumane and coercive system that must be replaced with a humane and voluntary association outside of the influence of governments, corporations, and religious hierarchies. Shall birth control, including abortion, be a matter for the growing theocracy or be a matter between a woman and her health care providers? See A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom to understand why VenusPlusX believes issues like these are of supreme importance.

Join us and Planned Parenthood in expressing your dissent so together we can do everything possible to protect and defend women’s health and rights nationwide.

Related . . .

— A possible (very slim) silver lining in today’s ruling

— Some equally bad decisions this session:  McCullen v Coakley, stripping buffer zones at women’s clinics; and, today’s weakening of unions, and the worker benefits they sponsor with Harris v Quinn

— Two very good decisions: Protecting personal privacy in Riley v California Rulingand denying cert rejecting challenge to California’s law banning gay sex therapy.

— When Will We Move to Impeach Certain Supreme Court Justices, Part 1 and Part 2

— When Free Speech Becomes Sedition

— How Right-wing Nuts are Actually Helping Progressives

UPDATE from SCOTUSblogActing swiftly in the wake of the Court’s ruling on Monday, and relying directly upon that decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Monday blocked all enforcement of the mandate against an Alabama Catholic TV network, a non-profit entity. Dozens of cases similar to Hobby Lobby are in the pipeline and now sure to be viewed with more favor.

 

 

 

Supreme Women Don’t Fail Us Now (again)

It was painful last week to hear the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in McCullen v Coakley, siding with abortion protesters’ free speech right to engage women face-to face in the public square and against those advocating for clinics’ privacy and public safety in consideration of the violence, bombings, and cold-blooded murder that beset them long before there was anything akin to a buffer zone. The case ended the a 35-foot buffer zone in Massachusetts, didn’t rule on a handful of other states that had smaller buffer zones, and, the reasoning of each justice varied wildly.

Photo by Paul Weaver Flickr/creative commons

Photo by Paul Weaver
Flickr/creative commons

Abortion has been legal in this country for 40 years (Roe v Wade , 1973), but discrimination against women has been rising at a fast pace due to the machinations of the explosive theocratic fundamentalist’s discrimination politics that are strangling government, and, it seems, the once-hallowed Supreme Court. Because it would be impossible to reverse Roe v Wade in the courts, the Court is giving these abortion protesters free reign to take it out on women they don’t know.

Why can the Supreme Court itself establish such a wide, no-free-speech buffer around its building (hundreds of square feet, for “decorum and public safety”), and Westboro Baptist Church haters now cannot cross a large buffer zone surrounding veterans funerals, but abortion clinics’ bombs, maiming, and death somehow are not worthy?

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick puts it this way . .

While the decision is not monumentally awful in ways some progressives most feared, and certainly affords the state substantial latitude in its future attempts to protect women seeking abortions from harassment, more than anything it seems to reflect a continued pattern of “free speech for me but not for thee” or, at least, “free speech for people who think like me,” that pervades recent First Amendment decisions at the court. . .

. . . Right now, the commentary is pretty predictably split between those who believe that the rights of “peaceful sidewalk counselors” were vindicated, and those who believe those counselors are actually pro-life bullies. The court opts for the gentle counseling characterization, without acknowledging that it was the extreme conduct of the latter group that led to passage of the law, and that, realistically, in the absence of the buffer zone, both types of protesters will be greatly emboldened. I guess from here on in, you won’t know whether you are being intimidated or “gently counseled” until after it’s happened.

This is outright discrimination politics interfering with what should have been a privacy and public safety issue. These are not sweet grandmas trying to talk gently to urge women not to go through with the abortion, these are hellions bent on intimidation based solely on their own personal view of abortion although abortion is something that is entirely legal in this country.

Andrew Gouveia wrote a heart-wrenching op-ed last week in Time magazine, and other horror stories are making the rounds as most women stand in shock that there was no dissent, even from our fellow women on the Court. What were they thinking? I guess we’ll have to wait for their memoirs.

It may be fanciful to think these same women Justices have struck a deal to create a majority tomorrow, Monday, in rejecting Hobby Lobby’s efforts to make corporations exempt from providing health insurance that covers contraceptives (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby) just like some religious entities right now. Under the Affordable Care Act, employers must cover free contraception for women in employee health plans. It is possible, the Court may rule to restrict the exemption to only tightly held private corporations but this would still create a very slippery slope, and set a bad precedent for women’s rights. In their March deliberations, the Justices themselves wondered out loud whether this exemption would let these same companies to disallow coverage for other things such as blood transfusion because their religious beliefs disallow them. And what about protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees?

The possibility of a deal in the works to protect reproductive health for women, might make sense for a court already smeared by some of their bad decisions. It is just a strand of hope against the possibility of another savage and bloody run against human rights.

I’m going to sleep tonight with that strand of hope still alive, that this Supreme Court, especially the women Justices, will find its way to stand up for the law, in this case the Affordable Care Act’s provisions, and the rights of women to control their own health.

However, we have to ask again, what are they thinking?

For more on what’s at stake tomorrow, click here.

Also see: When Will We Move to Impeach Certain Supreme Court Justices, Part 1 and Part 2

And, if you are curious as to why VenusPlusX thinks this is important, read A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, and catch our unique mix of posts and videos 24/7 that will get us all to that better future we deserve, sooner rather than later.

 

Profit from Pain is Inhuman

I just finished reading a June 23 New Yorker magazine article, “Get Out of Jail, Inc.,” exposing on the crushing problems created by the private probation services which are thriving along with the private prison industry. The article references an important but perhaps overlooked February report from Human Rights Watch, cataloguing the lack of transparency in these services, across the South in particular.

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

This 72-page report describes how more than 1,000 courts in several US states delegate tremendous coercive power to companies that are often subject to little meaningful oversight or regulation. In many cases, the only reason people are put on probation is because they need time to pay off fines and court costs linked to minor crimes. In some of these cases, probation companies act more like abusive debt collectors than probation officers, charging the debtors for their services.

The New Yorker article tells many sad stories, including one mother who couldn’t find parking near her home because of construction street closing. She got a few parking tickets she couldn’t afford and was eventually arrested and placed in one these coercive probation programs. Under constant threat of being re-arrested and taken to jail (and away from her children and grandchildren whom she cared for) unless she brought cash to the probation center on weekly basis. These services charge very poor people not only their initial debt but large administration fees to maintain these services so as not be jailed. This mother, who initially owed just a few hundred dollars, was eventually dunned over $4000 which she definitely couldn’t pay.

If one of their clients requires electronic monitoring, the fees for surveillance are even higher, and the debtor becomes responsible for all of it.

Citing tighter and tighter municipal and state budgets, the use of these third-party probation services has skyrocketed despite their draconian tactics. So they save money in their budgets by not jailing or putting on probation their own citizens (their job), and instead farm them out to these third-party corporations, both parties profiting on the backs of poor people. Corporations are in the business of making lots of money, no matter who is exploited.

We have written about the scourge of the private prison industry and these probation service companies extend this same conflict of interest. These corporations profit through their inhumane and coercive system. Like the private prison industry, they lobby public officials to their own benefit, and government fails its own citizens by relinquishing its responsibility to do what tax payers have asked them to do.

We urge you to read the full report, and if you can get it the June 23 New Yorker article by Sara Stillman. It will make you want to get off your couch and do something to end these practices.

More: Mass Incarceration: Follow the Money, Part 1 and Part 2.

United Nations Fails to Protect All Families

UN Human Rights Council Adopts Non-Inclusive Protection of the Family Resolution

“It should not be up to an accidental majority of states
to define what does and what does not
constitute a family. I urge all states to respect,
protect and fulfil the human rights
of all individual members belonging to all
different types of families, including same-sex families.”

— Sirpa Pietikäinen, MEP
(Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
,
Vice-President of the LGBT Intergroup

 

Photo by Elvert Barnes Flickr/Creative Commons

Photo by Elvert Barnes
Flickr/Creative Commons

A few years ago the United States crossed a meaningful threshold with respect to untraditional families. For the first time, untraditional families surpassed the number of traditional families. It’s a fact now that fewer families are “nuclear” families, a man, a woman, and children. Same sex parents, single parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, co-parenting among divorced couples, co-parenting with sperm donors, and polyamory families with children are some of the trends that created this statistical change, which we can see in other countries as well.

Getting the world to accept and welcome these variations, however, will be problematical. This week, we saw that the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution on the “Protection of the Family.” On its face perhaps innocuous but the resolution urges the High Commissioner for Human Rights to sponsor a panel discussion on “the issue of the protection of the family.”

Whereas the resolution does not define ‘family’, the reference to a singular ‘family’ could be used as precedent to oppose rights for same-sex couples, single parents, and other forms of families in future UN negotiations.

An amendment tabled by Chile, Uruguay, Ireland and France, which underlined that “different cultural, political and social systems various forms of the family exist,”was not discussed after Russia brought a “no action” motion which was adopted by a 22-20 majority.

Ulrike Lunacek MEP, Co-President of the LGBT Intergroup, reacted: “I am shocked by the tactics used by Russia and 21 other governments to avoid a discussion on the diversity of family forms. In a shameful manner they used a procedural motion to avoid talking about content.”

“Referring to family, without recognising the existence of more types of families, is to look away from reality where we find families in all forms and shapes.”

This turn of events is particularly vexing since the UN’s own Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 16) gave us the right to family since 1948 but, intentionally or not, doesn’t itself define what a family is.

Article 16.

  • (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
  • (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
  • (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State

(The Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

The only conclusion, therefore, is that this new resolution is rooted in discrimination politics rather human rights.

 

Casa Ruby Awards First Dan Massey Trans Ally Award

Last week, we had another wonderful night out in New York City with our friend and current candidate for the Maryland Senate, Dr. Dana Beyer. The Maryland primary election is today and, win or lose, it’s not an exaggeration to say the force is with her. As a trans woman running against an entrenched old boy who happens to be a gay man, she has been heroic in this campaign (and in her previous campaigns for Maryland Delegate) in presenting voters with a true progressive vision that enfranchises all people, not just special interests, not the status quo.

(l. to r.) Dana Beyer, DC Mayor Vincent Gray, and Casa Ruby Distinguished Service Award recipient, Consuella Lopez Photo by Ted Eytan Flickr/creative commons

(l. to r.) Dana Beyer, DC Mayor Vincent Gray, and Casa Ruby Distinguished Service Award recipient, Consuella Lopez
Photo by Ted Eytan
Flickr/creative commons

Dana related to us what transpired a couple of weeks ago at Casa Ruby, a Latino LGBT services and resource center in Washington, DC, a place that has long been a focus of VenusPlusX’s support. We weren’t able to be in DC to attend Casa Ruby’s second anniversary celebration and be present to witness the award of the first Dan Massey Ally Award, but it’s made me and our family very happy. From Dana’s Huffington Post weekly column . . .

Alison, together with her husband Dan Massey, is responsible for making the D.C. trans community the presence in the city that it is today. Through their support of the DC Trans Coalition, and particularly Casa Ruby, the city’s leading nonprofit supporting the daily needs of its trans citizens, they made their indelible mark on us all.

Two weeks ago I had the honor of awarding the inaugural Dan Massey Ally Award to Dr. Ted Eytan, who is working assiduously to make the Kaiser health system completely trans-inclusive, trans-supportive and culturally competent.

Those words, and this wonderful new award in Dan’s name, are heartening to hear, but I’d like to give a little context.

Before moving last year from DC to Brooklyn, New York, a few months after Dan suddenly left for higher shores, Casa Ruby became sort of second home to the both of us.

Following our close involvement with the 2011 Equality March Host Committee, Dan and I joined with Casa Ruby founder Ruby Corado, the DC Trans Coalition, and many other local lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) activists and organizations to bring about better public safety, healthcare access, and employment, especially for transfolk, work that had been ongoing for more than a decade. The high incidence of local attacks and murders of trans women in and around DC drives these activists who give all of their free time (and money) to make things better in a selfless wayk

In 2011, VenusPlusX helped establish a pop-up coalition of more than a dozen local organizations, at the time called the TLGB Police Watch. (Putting the T ahead of LGB was my brainstorm, to put the emphasis on the most-discriminated-against group in the fold). This group worked together, first listening to some very scary stories from trans victims and eventually translating these sacrifices into community-wide concerns, goals, strategies, and non-violent actions.

The TLGB Police Watch coalition brought solid demands directly to DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, elected city officials, and to the US Attorney for Washington, DC, giving trans activists’ public engagement a much-needed reboot. And, sure enough, the next day, our phones started ringing with positive results. The following spring, Ruby, Dan, and I took our experience to a national audience with a panel at the Philly Trans Health conference (the largest LGBT conference in the country) to reach out to activists from other cities who were seeking help figure out what more they can do. Click here more info. (If you live in a city that needs help to advance trans rights, please let us hear from you via columbia@venusplusx.org.)

This group of activists has stuck together and grown in size, and continues to make strides to protect and advance trans rights in DC. At each turn, they manage to feast of adversity, and time after time rescue success from the jaws of defeat. The largest trans rally the city had ever seen took place in the summer of 2012, attracting hundreds, and more than 100 new volunteer allies committed that day to work with us. (The press under-reported the number in attendance; I hand counted 235 people). I remember sitting at the sidelines with tears swelling to see how far we had come in making ourselves heard. 

Thank you Ruby and Casa Ruby, and thank you Dana, for all that you do. You never seek attention or reward, you just go about doing good to others, the greatest legacy of all.

 

 

When Free Speech Becomes Sedition

Chelsea Nesvig's Ripe for A Caption  Flicker/creative commons

Chelsea Nesvig’s
Ripe for A Caption
Flicker/creative commons

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal:
People are ready for a hostile takeover
of Washington, D.C.,
warns of a coming rebellion.

Yeah, he really said that, hostile takeover, and I think he was speaking not only to those present (1000 evangelical leaders) but to all the trigger-happy militias and tea party folks who would savor the opportunity to do just that.

Jindal’s remarks foment unrest and civil war in America even though it would result in nothing less than a fundamentalist theocracy, one just as bad as the Sharia Law they rant against.

As Jindal sees it, religious freedom and the American Dream are being threatened. Someone over the age of 8 should be able to see just who is making threats in this situation, however.

There’s more and more online traffic, and Facebook and Twitter chatter, about the implosion of right-wing extremists, something that seems more inevitable with each passing month.

In a recent set of op-eds, including, Right-wingnuts Bless Progressives, and When Will We Move to Impeach Certain Supreme Court Justices (Part 1 and Part 2), I’ve been speaking out because these miscreants are so mean, so hateful, so exclusionary, but most of all SO SCARED of change anywhere, including in their own lives and behaviors. And, because they are so emotionally troubled and childish in their logic, their pronouncements are simplistic and without a future in the real world. They cause some pain, but there is no there there, no future. But, as I cautioned last week . . .

Make no mistake, these right-wingnuts, all of whom are white christianists with only a handful of exceptions, are just as misguided and murderous as any fundamentalist theocrat you can find in all the world’s trouble spots. And, just like them, right-wingnut politicians have fueled domestic terrorism.

The chief sponsors of this theocratic oligarchy are very sad, and so desperate to make their negative points that they now talk like we can’t see or hear them, resulting in a surreal effect. Lately it seems like one goes down a day, self-destroying their own legacy, self-creating permanent stains on their careers, what they will be most remembered for. 

George Will damning campus sexual assault victims for obtaining a coveted status is relatively benign compared to the seditious comments and speeches of people like Jindal and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia whose words and conduct direct the overthrow of the state and the democratic process. 

Jindal and Scalia are just two of these known threats to democracy, individuals that can be prosecuted under the current laws. If left to their own devices, they and their cohorts will spark a civil war. But what can we do out it? If we don’t know, we better dig deeper.

Limits on free speech are few and far between in an open society like ours, and finding someone guilty of the crime of sedition has faded from use over the last century. But are we ever to draw the line? I think I know where that line of criminal sedition is: Whenever a public servant with authority, or even a celebrity with lots of Twitter followers, uses their conduct or speech to incite people to rebel against the state (especially the U.S., which dominated by duly elected public officials), they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Domestic terrorism is a growing threat, according to the Department of Homeland Security, and these right-wingnuts are making the case for it. They must be stopped. Jindal can be voted out office and Scalia can be impeached but that won’t shut them up unless they are formally prosecuted.

We want to know what you think, so please comment here or on Facebook/Venusplusx, or write to us directly, columbia@venusplusx.

More:

Bobby Jindal Says Rebellion Brewing in Washington

When will we move to impeach certain Supreme Court justices? Part 1 and Part 2 

Right-wingnuts Bless Progressives

Budowsky: History to Impeach Roberts

Sign petitions to impeach John RobertsAntonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.

And, to learn why VenusPlusX thinks this is important, read A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, and catch our unique mix of posts and videos 24/7 that will get us all to our better future, sooner rather than later.

 

 

 

When will we move to impeach certain Supreme Court justices? (Part 2)

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

“In the Potemkin justice of the Roberts
court, the right to vote 
is under attack,
while the power to buy elections

is sanctified by law. Corporations
are called people under a
faux doctrine
of free speech, while women are denied
standing 
to combat discrimination.”
– Brent Budowsky Editorial from The Hill, April 9, 2014.

 

 

Most of us came of age with nearly blind trust in this once-austere body, this third branch of government charged with deciding the most challenging questions of our time. But times have changed, and so has the purpose and direction of the Supreme Court. It’s literally gone off the rails, insane. 

So, yesterday, we formally joined the national conversation by asking when the grassroots-at-large will rise up, start paying more attention to this judicial menace, and act by using the formidable power vested in the people to reshape The Supreme Court?

Budowsky’s April 9 editorial offers a prescription for us, a place to start in the near term:

Democrats, liberals and populists should promote a constitutional amendment to reverse Supreme Court decisions, propose statewide ballot initiatives to take back America from special interests, and make corruption in Washington a defining issue to mobilize the Democratic base, rally political independents and transform the 2014 and 2016 elections.

 

It’s one thing to make corruption in Washington a defining issue, but what of the larger picture? Which body reigns above us all and makes possible the Koch Brothers and their spawn? stands with the National Rifle Association in its total misunderstanding of the Second Amendment? restricts voting among known Democrats wherever and whenever possible? The list of shame goes on and on.

We have seen the rise of something worse than winning or losing a couple of elections. Pre-eminent constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe calls it the “Roberts Anti-court Court,” not just for the Court’s dismal showing, especially in the last several years with it’s rash of constitution-shredding decisions in favor of monied, self-interested litigants, but for it’s dramatic restructuring of the procedures and rules they formerly operated within, delimiting class actions, and forcing involuntary binding arbitration.

Tribe’s must-read book is entitled, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution.

“Since 2005, the Roberts Court has issued a string of decisions that make it harder to hold the government accountable in court when it violates the Constitution.”

“The result is a shrinking judicial role in enforcing the Constitution and protecting our liberty.”

[The Roberts Court is] “far more sensitive to the substantial burdens of litigation than to the potential benefits of lawsuits.”

“Whereas the midcentury court saw itself as a protector of the powerless, the Roberts Court is mostly uninterested in that role . . . it has dealt critical legal rules a death of a thousand cuts—leaving many of our rights intact but making them effectively impossible to enforce in any court”

Tribe urges us to “seek justice elsewhere . . . the democratic process, social movements, arbitration, our communities and families, consumer report websites and other means of ensuring that everyone comply with the law. Indeed, the Constitution presumes that democracy, not litigation, is how we’re supposed to resolve many disputes.”

Arthur Bryant, Chairman of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm, writing Thursday for the National Law Journal, agreed with Tribe’s analysis but goes a step further, “We must keep fighting for justice in the courts” and “keep working hard to make the Supreme Court a pro-court court. We need courts to provide access to justice to all.”

First, we need to keep using the courts, as much and as best we can, to hold corporations, the government and the powerful accountable—exposing the truth, righting wrongs and making the wrongdoers pay.

Second, we need to keep fighting to preserve and expand access to justice. Nothing could be more important.

The bottom line is that we cannot accept an anti-court Supreme Court. We need to develop a pro-court court. Then we need to do what everyone in America should be able to do: Go to court and get justice.

 

You can learn more about some of the more egregious recent decisions by the Court by taking a look at  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, unconscionably awarding people’s free speech to corporations who have exploited this new right only further consolidate corporate and political power; Shelby County v. Holder, a gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, legalizing political graft.

Educate yourself for this inescapable campaign to unseat the worse of the worse as it revs up into full gear. Sign the petitions against Chief Justice John RobertsAntonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. And, connect with organizations and people in your own community who want to step forward to rescue America from these misguided justices. We need really, really wise justices to protect the voiceless, and these three are not that.

Click here for yesterday’s Part 1.

For more:

Budowsky: History to Impeach Roberts

We Cannot Let and “Anti-court Court Eliminate Access to Justice

Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution

And, to learn why VenusPlusX thinks this is important, read A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, and catch our unique mix of posts and videos 24/7 that will get us all to that better future, sooner rather than later.

When will we move to impeach certain Supreme Court justices? (Part 1)

“Five conservative Republican men serving on the Supreme Court,
led by a chief justice who has violated 200 years of judicial precedent,
despite pledging under oath during his confirmation hearings to respect
judicial precedent, are waging a legal war of mass destruction against
core principles of American democracy . . .”

Brent Budowsky Editorial from The Hill, April 9, 2014.

 

Antonin Scalia Flickr/creative commons

Antonin Scalia
Flickr/creative commons

Every June, I get nervous about the Supreme Court, and the Roberts’s court in particular. My knees have been shaking at the very idea that they may rule anyway now to give Hobby Lobby and all corporations/employers’ the right to disallow contraception coverage, something that is mandated by and totally funded by for the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

When I was growing up in the 50s, my parents impressed upon me the reverence they paid to the Supreme Court, whose justices served selflessly for life to decide the hardest decisions American’s face. I held this view up until the retirement of Justice William J. Brennan in 1990. At the time, I was close friends with his daughter and happen to be privy to the fact that he stayed on longer than he wanted to boost the progressive voices then on the court. But a lot has changed since then. George Bush was elected in 2000 and proceeded to pack the court with conservative judicial activists instead of stalwarts of justice. So now, we find ourselves looking for grounds for impeachment starting with the two of the worse, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, along with their enabler, Chief Justice John Roberts.

This right-wing majority in the Supreme Court is now forcing us to endure the most terrible, constitution-shredding rulings I never could have imagined: In 2009, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates by giving organizations free speech prerogatives, formerly reserved for individuals, in allowing political spending by outside groups, something that has since clearly hijacked the democratic political process. Then in 2013, the court decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted, savaged really, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, striking down its Section 4 as unconstitutional, the formula that subjected certain jurisdictions (mostly in the South with its bad voter protection histories) to pre-clearance by the Department of Justice before implementing new changes in their voting laws and practices. And, also last June, in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Court held that aggregate campaign contribution limits were invalid under First Amendment, newly legalizing a long-ago rejected form of outright political graft.

There are already numerous petitions to call for the impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Roberts has even prompted a petition from his own right wing, for siding with the progressive side of the court which upheld that people can be forced to get coverage under Affordable Care Act, just as with car insurance, a widely accepted premise.

Both Thomas and Scalia have been participated in partisan fundraising, which would be be considered a clear violation of ethics. Thomas’ wife, Ginni, was also on the payroll of at least one of these organizations, Thomas says he “forgot” to disclose. An analysis of Scalia’s public statements and speeches could hold the key to his ouster because they were seditious. Unfortunately, ethics censure is voluntary for Supreme Court justices. They are not held the same standard of conduct that all other federal judges are held to, and under which they can be impeached.

Budowsky urges us to mobilize:

Democrats, liberals and populists should promote a constitutional amendment to reverse Supreme Court decisions, propose statewide ballot initiatives to take back America from special interests, and make corruption in Washington a defining issue to mobilize the Democratic base, rally political independents and transform the 2014 and 2016 elections (from The Hill)

What will you do to address this most important threat to American democracy in our history?

This post continues in Part 2 with a discussion and analysis of Laurence Tribe‘s new book, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution.

For more:

Budowsky: History to Impeach Roberts

We Cannot Let and “Anti-court Court Eliminate Access to Justice

Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution

And, to learn why VenusPlusX thinks this is important, read A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, and catch our unique mix of posts and videos 24/7 that will get us all to that better future, sooner rather than later.

 

 

Right-wingnuts bless progressives

“The Republican base is driving the party toward a political agenda
that makes its candidates increasingly unelectable
for national and statewide offices.”
Howard Dean, former Vermont Governor,
the preceding Chair of the Democratic National Committee,
and founder of Democracy in Action, speaking to Politico Magazine

We spent the entire year before the 2008 presidential election, we only realized later, in a state of distress as we contemplated the downfall of our country should it be taken over by right-wing extremists or nut jobs like PTSD-sufferer John McCain. On election night, with Obama victorious, the tears flowed and flowed. We felt like we had rescued triumph from the jaws of defeat, and then felt the same way when he was re-elected in 2012.

In spite of Obama’s shortfalls politically since he took office, the trend towards sanity, particularly with respect to equality rights, has been brighter than it has ever been, despite the racial hatred expressed by the opposition on a daily basis.

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

With the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 2010 our joy over Obama has been tampered by the awareness of just how much harm and chaos can still be wrought by hate-filled right-wingnuts. Things were likely to get much worse before they could get better, especially with the rise of tea party madness. Make no mistake, these right-wingnuts, all of whom are white christianists with only a handful of exceptions, are just as misguided and murderous as any fundamentalist theocrat you can find in all the world’s trouble spots. And, just like them, right-wingnut politicians have fueled domestic terrorism.

Since that 2008 election eve, however, we also came to understand that each misstep the opposition makes is a gift because their’s are are always self-repudiating, always damaging to their cause, always distancing the speaker further and further from reality, always a sentiment with no legs therefore no future, always a simplistic hope that is destined to die by its own negativity. The more stupid they behave, the better for progressives, even if the results are not immediately apparent.

It used to be that right-wingnuts kept their racism and sexism under wraps, as much as was possible. For example, Nixon’s “southern strategy,” to enrage poor, low educated, white people to resist progressive ideas and candidates, was a direct result of and backlash against the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, just as much as Jim Crow laws were a reaction against the end of slavery. But since the 60s everything was done behind the scenes, as secretive as possible, civil on the outside but treacherous on the inside.

The inevitability of the population shift toward a non-white America, and in particular the election of a black president, has created another backlash, one so fearsome that right-wingnut’s deepening paranoia and hatred has been fully unmasked. For the last 6 years, they speak and act like we can’t see or hear them, a sure sign of mental disease, making their self-repudiation more rapid and complete, hastening their demise. This modern backlash is good for progressives because it brings our opponents into sharper relief, easier to criticize, and, most important, unseat.

When Mr. Brat, an economics professor of dubious merit, can ride Tea Party ideals to unseat a Republican establishment candidate like Cantor in a Virginia primary, that can only be a gift to the opposition if used well. Unfortunately, in this case, Brat’s Democratic opponent is also another economic professor of dubious merit, from the very same small-bore college in the woods of Virginia, so it’s impossible to say which one will be victorious, but the silver lining is nonetheless there for progressive to take note.

Howard Dean deftly defined this silver lining on Monday in Politico Magazine.

First, competing in every state and every district is still vital. You never know when an opportunity will arise to pull off an unexpected victory . . . Democrats can win everywhere only when we run everywhere. That requires committing to and developing grass-roots talent in the deepest-red and darkest-blue corners of the electoral map.

Second, Americans are so fed up with Congress that even the tea party wants to kick it out. . .  House leaders have engaged in very little serious work that would benefit the American people, and voters are sick of it.

Third, organization and shoe leather can beat big money. . . In an upcoming election in which Republicans’ secret corporate money could dwarf Democrats’ progressive message on the airwaves, Cantor’s defeat should remind us that phone calls, door knocks and one-on-one conversations with neighbors can beat back a tidal wave of cash.

Fourth, base support wins elections — unless it drives you outside the mainstream. Cantor’s loss has largely been attributed to his failure to retain the support of a GOP grass-roots base that opposes everything from gun-violence prevention to comprehensive immigration reform. That was bad news for Cantor, but it is even worse news for the GOP nationally. The Republican base is driving the party toward a political agenda that makes its candidates increasingly unelectable for national and statewide offices.

This dynamic stands in stark contrast to the one between Democrats and their progressive grass-roots base, which pushes the party to embrace policy ideas that enjoy broad popular support.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, Democrats need to learn from Cantor’s loss that anything can happen in 2014. Even on the morning of the election, not a single major pundit or politician thought the majority leader would lose. Cantor was considered invincible, and Republicans were expected to win big in November. But voters have minds of their own and the tea party’s right-wing base helped it usher in a truly unexpected result.

The fact is, the Democratic base is much larger than the tea party, and polling shows that most Americans stand with us on issue after issue, from expanding Social Security to raising the minimum wage to getting big money out of politics. If Democrats mobilize our base, stand up for what’s right and force a fight on vote-inspiring issues connected to combating income inequality, we can rack up wins that will stun many in Washington’s pundit class — and elect Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in November.

(The full article, “The Lesson in Cantor’s unexpected defeat” can be found here.)

So progressives take note: Foolish Republicans are there for plucking. Find and support your local candidates who can articulate what we stand for. Let’s sweep both houses of Congress this November!

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons