SCOTUS removes Roe V Wade

[Rasulis]

The anti-mifepristone argument was so wholly devoid of merit most of the justices seemed bored by it:

The Supreme Court appeared listless, even bored, during Tuesday’s oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the case asking the courts to ban the abortion drug mifepristone.

Their frustration with the Alliance case is understandable, since they’ve been dealing with it for nearly an entire year. Last April, after two lower courts issued decisions that would have effectively removed mifepristone from the market, the justices voted 7-2 to leave access to mifepristone intact while this case was being appealed.



Senate Republicans object to moves to take control of the executive branch away from Matthew Kacsmaryk...
One way to stop cases like this from getting to the Court as often would be force litigators like Erin Hawley to file lawsuits with actual judges instead of self-appointed President of the United States of America Matthew Kacsmaryk. As it happens, the Judicial Conference of the United States has taken steps in that direction, and Mitch ‘government by judiciary” McConnell says no beuno:

On Tuesday, the little-known Judicial Conference of the United States — the policymaking arm of the federal judiciary — made some unusual headlines by announcing a new effort to make it harder for plaintiffs in certain lawsuits challenging state or federal policies to hand-pick the specific judge who hears their case. This crackdown on “judge shopping” is long overdue. It has also provoked a rather telling reaction from Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis.


But hey, David French and simps claim there's Leftists out the persecuting white christians.... somewhere in Imagination Land.

This is sheer stupidity. Mifepristone been widely available in the US for 20 stinking years. All the FDA did was expand it so it is available through telehealth. Keep in mind that before it was approved in the US, it was already widely available in Europe.

Also, the process to gain FDA approval can take years and is very expensive. The idea that the judicial system can arbitrarily reverse a 20-year old FDA approval will have a chilling effect on drug research and development in the US.

It can take billions of dollars for a manufacturer to get a new drug from the laboratory onto the pharmacy shelf. In a study from the London School of Economics, the median cost was determined to be $985 million. But other studies have estimated up to $2.6 billion. For example, differences can occur due to therapeutic class; for example, cancer and immunomodulators have a median cost up to $2.7 billion.

[s_bushido]

The idea that the judicial system can arbitrarily reverse a 20-year old FDA approval will have a chilling effect on drug research and development in the US.

You think conservatives care? Half of them think the drug industry is a leftist plot to subjugate them to Satan. Plenty of others are unconcerned so long as they continue to get a big enough cut of the artificially-inflated profits.

[Rasulis]

The hell with the polls.

Democrat Marilyn Lands Flips Alabama State House Seat in Massive Upset Victory

In a stunning upset in Alabama, Democrat Marilyn Lands has defeated Republican Teddy Powell in the Special Election for Alabama State House District 10 to fill the seat last held by Republican Rep. David Cole, who was indicted for voter fraud. With 99% of precincts reporting, Lands is beating Powell by 25 points in the solid red district. Lands lost the election to Cole in 2022 by 7 points, making Tuesday's results a 32-point swing in a Trump +1 district.

Internal polling by both campaigns showed a virtual dead heat, with Lands' campaign showing her with only a 3 point lead over Powell in a poll conducted from December 16th-20th. Powell's campaign showed the Republican with an 11 point lead. Another case of polling completely missing the mark in the post-Roe electoral reality.

Lands ran primarily on abortion and IVF rights in the state of Alabama following the Alabama Supreme Court ruling effectively banning IFV in that state.

[Shadowferal]

As I posted earlier, abortion rights and related are going to win the dems...Republicans are going to be an endangered species by end of year if they don't denounce the pro-life charge.

[Gelannerai]

As I posted earlier, abortion rights and related are going to win the dems...Republicans are going to be an endangered species by end of year if they don't denounce the pro-life charge.

Yep. Lands flipping that seat in Tumorville’s backyard should have MAGAts at every level of government shitting their pants.

[s_bushido]

Yep. Lands flipping that seat in Tumorville’s backyard should have MAGAts at every level of government shitting their pants.

Well...let's not get it twisted. As far as I know, Republicans in that state still have a supermajority, and that's unlikely to change any time soon. But stuff like this does give some hope that maybe their grip is starting to slip.

[The Stormbringer]

The hell with the polls.

Democrat Marilyn Lands Flips Alabama State House Seat in Massive Upset Victory

Holy fuck, that's... huge. This is like a little glimmer of hope that's maybe brightening my outlook for the future.

[Rasulis]

Holy fuck, that's... huge. This is like a little glimmer of hope that's maybe brightening my outlook for the future.

Several interesting aspects to her victory.

It was a solid red district. Although, not unlike many suburbs, it had been trending bluer with the passage of time.

It was a special election which historically favored GOP.

All the polls either showed a close race or overwhelming GOP victory. Not one poll showed a 25 pts victory for Democrats.

The odds were stacked Lands. Yet here we are. It must have snowed in hell.

[DarkTZeratul]

Several interesting aspects to her victory.

It was a solid red district. Although, not unlike many suburbs, it had been trending bluer with the passage of time.

It was a special election which historically favored GOP.

All the polls either showed a close race or overwhelming GOP victory. Not one poll showed a 25 pts victory for Democrats.

The odds were stacked Lands. Yet here we are. It must have snowed in hell.

She won the special election by a bigger margin than she lost the general election. That's absolutely insane.

[s_bushido]

She won the special election by a bigger margin than she lost the general election. That's absolutely insane.

I've been wondering when we'd reach the breaking point for the American public putting up with the absolute dogshit coming out of the GOP. Maybe we're getting there sooner than I expected.

[Edge-]

https://abovethelaw.com/2024/03/neil...-the-research/

Conservative judges might be up in arms over efforts to curb right-wing forum shopping, but conservative justices don’t seem as keen on handing the keys to constitutional order over to random judges in isolated courthouses. At the oral argument over the nationwide mifepristone injunction — arguably the decision most responsible for the forum shopping reforms — the justices expressed skepticism that district judges should even have the power to issue the sort of sweeping remedies that made this brand of forum shopping so powerful.

“This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action,” Gorsuch noted to Erin Hawley, the representative of hate group Alliance Defending Freedom arguing the case.

Except by, “I went back and looked,” he means he did not go back and look and by “exactly zero” he means not zero.

Law professor Ezra Ishmael Young flagged a law review article they’d written debunking the “novelty critique” that conservatives level against injunctions.

An early representative example is the 1939 nationwide injunction issued in Lukens Steel Co. v. Perkins. There, the D.C. Circuit reasoned that federal courts have the power to enjoin a federal official and agency from engaging in certain purchasing activities with respect to iron and steel industries and ultimately deemed it of no moment that there was no legislation expressly authorizing such an injunction.

This, of course, places the injunction squarely in the Roosevelt administration.

But these are the knots you tie yourself in if you’re unwilling to call out the Federalist Society mission to empower life-tenured ideologues. The problem isn’t really that district courts can issue equitable relief that’s national in scope, but that cynical actors can forum shop for judges willing to abuse that power.

Pinning blame on injunctions per se doesn’t even make sense. As Professor Young’s article notes, this isn’t Gorsuch’s first foray into these confused waters:

In his concurrence in Department of Homeland Security v. New York, Justice Gorsuch makes an empirical claim about the remedy—that the nationwide injunction’s novelty explains why they create problems that are otherwise not tolerable in federal litigation. Specifically, he argues that nationwide injunctions perversely incentivize forum-shopping, can give rise to conflicting injunctions, interfere with non-party rights, depress percolation of issues in lower courts, and weaken the certiorari process. However, these problems are not unique to nationwide injunctions.

Maybe challenges to FDA approvals should be forced into the D.C. federal courts. Maybe nationwide injunctions should require three-judge panels. Reasonable reforms exist short of pretending that courts don’t have a longstanding power to halt nationwide action if warranted.

Though how hard is it to run a Lexis or Westlaw search? Or more to the point, how hard is it to run a simple query before walking into an oral argument and saying, “I went back and looked and there are exactly zero….”

Don't SCOTUS Justices have staffs who can like, actually research these things on their behalf?

Or is selective ignorance and dishonesty, or some seriously questionable mistakes, a requirement for the latest crop of SCOTUS Justices Republicans delivered??

[Mekh]

Several interesting aspects to her victory.

It was a solid red district. Although, not unlike many suburbs, it had been trending bluer with the passage of time.

It was a special election which historically favored GOP.

All the polls either showed a close race or overwhelming GOP victory. Not one poll showed a 25 pts victory for Democrats.

The odds were stacked Lands. Yet here we are. It must have snowed in hell.

It was apparently also the district that got passed over when picking the new HQ for Space Force, because the military refuses to jeopardize readiness by exposing its people to red state laws re: abortion and LGBTQ rights.

[Rasulis]

I've been wondering when we'd reach the breaking point for the American public putting up with the absolute dogshit coming out of the GOP. Maybe we're getting there sooner than I expected.

The part that I found interesting is how the polls failed to capture the pro-choice voters. The same thing happened with Janet Protasiewicz during the Wisconsin Supreme Court election in 2023. She also ran on pro-choice platform.

[Gelannerai]

Well...let's not get it twisted. As far as I know, Republicans in that state still have a supermajority, and that's unlikely to change any time soon. But stuff like this does give some hope that maybe their grip is starting to slip.

That’s the point. It’s fucking Alabama. Lands shouldn’t have had a shot at winning, let alone curb-stomping the way she did. If blue won that big off abortion and IVF in Alabama, then the Republicans are looking at a nightmare on the national stage.

[Resurgo]

That’s the point. It’s fucking Alabama. Lands shouldn’t have had a shot at winning, let alone curb-stomping the way she did. If blue won that big off abortion and IVF in Alabama, then the Republicans are looking at a nightmare on the national stage.

I don't believe that's the only thing she won on...

I think it's also economics at play as well.

Consider what a new armed forces base can potentially do for a place/town/city. The influx of people, money, etc.
Consider that Alabama's conservative/moral agenda makes it toxic for the many lgbtq, or potential folk that might want/need an abortion in the services...
If members of the armed forces don't want to go there because of the state's laws, then readiness becomes an issue.

Now consider Space Command is now in Colorado instead of the very district that Lands won...

[Edge-]

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-gop-m...rtions-1884950

Texas Democrats have released a leaked video, saying it shows Texas Republicans supporting the death penalty for women who seek abortions at a meeting held by an anti-abortion group.

The video shows Hood County Constable Scott London, Hood County GOP Chair Steve Biggers and Hood County GOP Chair candidate Greg Harrell attending a meeting held by Abolish Abortion Texas (AATX) in Granbury in January, according to a news release from the Texas Democratic Party.

Newsweek has contacted London, Biggers, Harrell and the Texas Republican Party for comment via email. AATX has been contacted through a contact form on its website.

The video, which was originally streamed on Facebook, was obtained by Hood County Democrats Chair Adrienne Quinn Martin.

https://twitter.com/MrsAMartini/stat...60427981070620

This is video I put together from a 2 hour meeting held in Granbury. If you want to know where the “ pro-life” movement is headed, watch this. Warning, it is disturbing. Many of our elected officials were in attendance. Including school board, constables and at least one county commissioner. Not one person pushes back or questions an agenda that advocates women possibly receiving the death penalty for abortion, including pregnant minors.

Just a reminder that, largely, the Republican party continues to take these extremist positions. They're just doing so a bit more quietly nowadays because they appear to have received the message that their public examples and expressions of extremism on this topic are incredibly fucking unpopular, so much so that they're losing seats that nobody thought they could lose, apparently largely over this topic.

A great many Republicans still want national abortion bans. A great many Republicans still want no exceptions for rape or incest or allowances for minors who are physically at risk for carrying a pregnancy to term. A great many Republicans would like to punish women seeking abortion services, regardless of why they are seeking them.

Brown is heard saying the AATX is against emergency contraception like the Plan B pill, saying that it is used "to terminate or kill a baby prior to implantation—that is an abortion."

He said that IVF should also be considered a form of abortion, saying that those who destroy fertilized eggs are "terminating or destroying a human life."

Just a reminder that the same people pushing for these extreme positions genuinely have no understanding of the reproductive process or how it works.

[Xyonai]

The only silver lining about these people choosing this hill to die on, is at least they'll be fucking dead (metaphorically).

[Sunseeker]

https://www.newsweek.com/texas-gop-m...rtions-1884950



Just a reminder that, largely, the Republican party continues to take these extremist positions. They're just doing so a bit more quietly nowadays because they appear to have received the message that their public examples and expressions of extremism on this topic are incredibly fucking unpopular, so much so that they're losing seats that nobody thought they could lose, apparently largely over this topic.

A great many Republicans still want national abortion bans. A great many Republicans still want no exceptions for rape or incest or allowances for minors who are physically at risk for carrying a pregnancy to term. A great many Republicans would like to punish women seeking abortion services, regardless of why they are seeking them.



Just a reminder that the same people pushing for these extreme positions genuinely have no understanding of the reproductive process or how it works.

Coming soon to Texas: prisons as forced-birth concentration camps. Woman seeks abortion, gets arrested, locked up, forced to give birth, then executed.

Thats the Republican dream for America right there, a capitalistic wet dream of the industrialized forced production of new impoverished workers and the slaugher of their mothers.

[Rasulis]

Coming soon to Texas: prisons as forced-birth concentration camps. Woman seeks abortion, gets arrested, locked up, forced to give birth, then executed.

Thats the Republican dream for America right there, a capitalistic wet dream of the industrialized forced production of new impoverished workers and the slaugher of their mothers.

And they wonder why they are alienating the suburbs, independent, moderate GOP and college educated voters.

Texas woman sues prosecutors who charged her with murder after she self-managed an abortion

[D Luniz]

Coming soon to Texas: prisons as forced-birth concentration camps. Woman seeks abortion, gets arrested, locked up, forced to give birth, then executed.

Thats the Republican dream for America right there, a capitalistic wet dream of the industrialized forced production of new impoverished workers and the slaugher of their mothers.

with the slavery allowance for prisoners in the 13th amendment, and that they want to consider IVF embros "babies"
mark my words, one of them will suggest using women prisoners