“Life begins at conception” is a religious statement, not a medical statement

Reminder: There is no medical evidence that human life exists before the third trimester of pregnancy. A fetus prior to that time has no ability to exist independently of their mother, fails every common test of brain activity, and otherwise flunks every medical test of “human” versus “not human”.

Saying “life begins at conception” is not a medical observation. It is a religious observation. Under the 1st Amendment, we’re not supposed to be legislating religion into law. But the current right-wing jihadists who run the U.S. Supreme Court only care about one amendment of the Bill of Rights — the 2nd Amendment — and that’s because they don’t care about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or rule of law in general, they care about making sure that their fellow right-wing jihadists are well armed so that they can seize power at gunpoint if the population decides they aren’t going to be ruled by the Christian Taliban’s right-wing jihadists.

Look, I can respect your heartfelt religious belief that life begins at conception. But when you want your religious belief to be written into law, you are *WRONG*. The Constitution says you’re wrong, and if you spit on the Constitution, you aren’t a real American.

And what that says about the right wing Christian Taliban jihadists on the U.S. Supreme Court…

— Badtux the 1st Amendment Penguin

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Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court deliberately destroyed its own legitimacy in hopes of destroying rule of law in the United States.

Legitimacy.

It is what a government has when it largely represents the will of the majority of its people. Not the will of a small minority. And not imposing tyranny on that small minority either, it respects and protects the rights of that small minority. But we have a word for when a small minority rules the majority — that word is *tyranny* — and tyrannies are always illegitimate.

In the case of courts in English-speaking countries, they maintain their legitimacy via what’s known as “stare decisis”. That is, they based their opinions in court cases based upon a) current law, and b) previous opinions. This is not a new principle. It is one reason, for example, why the Catholic Church moves so slow — they have 1,500 years of precedents for papal opinions, and if a papal opinion doesn’t comply with that 1,500 years of precedent it can make only a tiny move towards a new position at a time, it can’t just throw out the old position altogether.

Stare decisis was the basis for the Supreme Court’s decisions for the past 150 years. Each new decision was couched in the language of previous decisions, or in the plain language of the law itself. This has at times caused issues when the Court recognized rights that were not currently respected, such as the right of black people to attend the same schools as white people, but even there the opinion was couched in Equal Protection language from prior court decisions. The Supreme Court didn’t come roaring out of 1945 intent upon guaranteeing equal rights to black people and simply ruling that black people had equal rights, it built decision after decision upon prior decision. When it decided “separate but equal is inherently unequal” it did not pull the decision out of its butt, it relied on 50 years of data showing that “separate but equal” never was plus language from previous Equal Protection court decisions showing that if the school segregation law was not treating citizens equally, it could not be law.

In this fashion the Supreme Court has typically been an anchor preventing radical change while providing for preservation of rights. The Court has at times gone off into evil territory — Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson come to mind — but eventually through applying the Constitution to court case after court case managed via stare decisis to come back from the dark side. Stare decisis gave legitimacy to the Court’s opinions and thus legitimacy to the notion of rule of law. And rule of law is important, because without rule of law, what you have is rule of gun, and rule of gun always ends up with the most ruthless and most murderous in charge.

Which is why it’s utter disaster for the United States that last week the Supreme Court basically threw stare decisis into the toilet in favor of a radical coup that remade American law from scratch based upon the ideological notions of the judges. By throwing out stare decisis in favor of imposing their ideology upon the nation, the Supreme Court has basically killed any legitimacy that it had. The Supreme Court fundamentally committed a right wing coup of the U.S. government last week, a coup setting five authoritarians in charge of the nation, and killing any respect that the majority of Americans have for the court.

Why is that important? It’s important because the Supreme Court relies upon other branches of government to do its work. The Supreme Court did not enforce the desegregation of Little Rock High School. The 101st Airborne did, via the intervention of the executive branch. So the Supreme Court ruled that New York’s concealed weapon law was illegal. New York’s concealed weapon law is very popular in New York State. What is the Supreme Court going to do when New York says f**k you, we’re going to continue enforcing our concealed weapon law? Joe Biden isn’t going to dispatch the 101st Airborne to free people imprisoned for violating New York’s concealed weapon law.

For those of you who have been in the military, there is an important and fundamental principle taught to every officer: Never issue a command that you know is going to be disobeyed. It destroys your legitimacy as an officer and makes it more likely that future commands are going to be disobeyed. This is what last week’s Supreme Court did — they issued a command that they know is going to be disobeyed. They issued that command because they *know* that it’s going to be disobeyed. The Supreme Court knowingly destroyed its own legitimacy. Why? Simple — the Supreme Court in the past has been a major defender of rights for minorities in America. By deliberately destroying the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the right wing is betting that they via rule of gun can then take away rights from minorities that were previously granted by the Supreme Court.

In short, last week’s Supreme Court deliberately destroyed its own legitimacy in hopes that rule of gun rather than rule of law will become the norm in the United States. The right wing believes that because they are the most ruthless and most murderous people in America, they will come out on top when rule of law collapses because the judicial system has lost all legitimacy. Last week’s Supreme Court decisions weren’t an accidental destruction of the Court’s legitimacy — they were a deliberate destruction by people who want to burn it all down. And if you are not a white male Christian with conservative beliefs, you should be very, very worried right now.

— Badtux the “Time to get well armed, people” Penguin

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Some comments on the Supreme Court coup by one of my friends

I wonder how many people who are out tonight, protesting the end of Roe, couldn’t bring themselves to vote for “the lesser of two evils” and rationalized their insane purity test by saying ”Roe is settled law”?

Now that Roe is gone, Clarence Thomas has his eye on Obergefell (same-sex marriage) and Griswold (access to contraceptives. Alito wants to revist Loving (interracial marriage) and Kelo (government seizing property through eminent domain to give to another for private development.

Several want to “modify” (in other words, overturn) Miranda, Escobedo, and Gideon, which provide safeguards for those accused of crimes.

SCOTUS also overturned New York’s concealed carry weapons law, effectively mandating that the whole country is a “must-issue” jurisdiction.

Women can say goodbye to what few rights they have remaining: FMLA, equal pay (such as it is), protection from domestic violence, obtaining credit without a male co-signer, etc.

Racial and ethnic minorities can say goodbye to all of their rights as well.

Jews, Muslims, and other non-“christians” will once again be targeted by vengeful Talibangelicals.

Fundamentalist voodoo will replace science and drive our children’s education.

All those pesky environmental and occupational safety regulations standing in the way of increased corporate profits will be swept away.

A free press, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly will be eliminated in the name of “national security.”

Health care will be available only to the wealthy, after Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are abolished as “wasteful entitlements.”

And this will be the status quo for the rest of our lives, because SCOTUS is a guaranteed lifetime job . Barrett and Kavanaugh are in their fifties: they’ll be there for the next 30 years.

Make no mistake about it: the GQP is bringing us to a theocracy that makes Iran under the Ayatollahs look benign.

Still think they were “both the same”?

Was it worth it? Was your demand for political perfection worth losing America as we knew her? Is your conscience still clear, now that your refusal to vote for the lesser of two evils brought us the far greater evil? An evil that will last for decades, if not longer?

I hope you “conscience voters” are satisfied.

This is on you. You did this. Your arrogant naïveté, your refusal to “compromise” your “principles,” your abject failure to see the world as it was, elected trump, even moreso than the racists and misguided idiots who voted for him.

I hope you’re really some Goddamned proud of yourselves tonight.

Go out and hold your candlelight vigials, sing “We Shall Overcome,” and… BASK IN THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THIS IS ** YOUR** FAULT.

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When Nazis start putting innocent people into concentration camps without trial, the time for talking is over.

By 1939 the Nazis had opened multiple concentration camps and were filling them with political opponents and ethnic minorities such as Jews and Roma. And Republicans were whining that FDR was being mean to those Nazis, that if we only tried to reach out to them and meet them halfway, we could resolve all this unpleasantness between us.

To which I say: Bullshit. Once a party starts putting people into concentration camps, the time for talking is over. The time to remove them from power begins.

As it was then, so it is now. There are those who say we should reach out to the people who are putting innocent kids into concentration camps without trial (remember, in the US system, innocent until proven guilty, and lack of a trial means they’re innocent). Bullshit. Trying to reach out to the kind of people who put kids into concentration camps is pointless. They have already shown that they have no moral compass and that any attempt to appeal to their moral center will fail. At this point the only thing to is the same thing that was done in 1941-1945 with that other group of people who put innocents into concentration camps without trial: Remove them from power.

Luckily, here in the USA we have this thing called the *vote* which hopefully results in less bloodshed than the last time we had to do this….

– Badtux the “Can’t argue morality with immoral people” Penguin

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Her name was Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin

She was seven years old.

Her father turned her over to the U.S. government because they had been without food and water for several days. He turned her over to the U.S. government in hopes they would provide food and water and shelter. Instead, for eight hours they provided nothing. No food. No water. No medical care. No warm bed to sleep on. Just a cage, that’s all, a cage and some mylar “space blankets”.

She died.

Her father had reported to authorities that she needed medical care. They didn’t provide any. They didn’t try to get an air ambulance to airlift her to the hospital. It was not until she was transferred to a station further inland that had a nurse on staff that she got any medical attention, and it was too late by then.

There are people who are celebrating this death. Who are saying, “this is a signal to all of Central America, don’t come here, we’ll kill you!” These same people call the refugees “animals”. But we all know who the real animals are — they are the ones celebrating the death of a child, not the ones mourning it.

– Badtux the Sad Penguin

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Who would win a new American Civil War?

Talk of another American Civil War is going mainstream. The MAGAts don’t seem to mind. They think they’ll win one if it happens.

They are, of course, wrong.

Wars are generally won by the organized. Most of the MAGA-hats have never organized anything bigger than a church potluck, and a lot of them couldn’t even manage that. Meanwhile we here in the civilized states have organized some of the biggest corporations known to man, with world-wide supply chains and millions of employees. We control the logistical supply chain of the nation from the civilized states. The ships, trains, trucks, and planes that keep the nation’s goods moving are owned by us and run from our states.

The MAGA-hats are expecting the police and military to enter the fray on their side as their margin of victory. That expectation is the only reason why they would even dare try to wage civil war. But that was true in the first American Civil War too, where most of the U.S. Army and its equipment and gear went to the South. In the end it didn’t matter, the South proved unable to manage its economy to maximize its assets and was beset by inflexible leadership that chose generals based upon compatibility with Jefferson Davis rather than based upon competence (thus the sidelining of their best general, General Joseph Johnston, at multiple critical points because Jefferson Davis didn’t like him). In the end guns win battles but logistics are what wins wars — and we have the logistical expertise here in the civilized states.

My guess — in a second American Civil War the eventual outcome would be the same as in the first — the bubbas will mismanage their economy to the point where their armies collapse for lack of food and boots while at the same time food rots in the field because they cannot get it from where it is grown to where it is needed because they lack the logistical expertise, equipment, or mindset. Things would get bloody long before then, of course, and they could probably win some quick victories before lack of a logistical tail takes its toll, but in the end logistics will tell.

– Badtux the History Penguin

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Republican culture is white supremacist conspiracy theories leading to violence

So we had:

• The MAGAbomber, sending letter bombs to prominent Democrats,
• A shooting at Kroger where a white supremacist apparently decided to start shooting black people,
• and a shooting at a Jewish synagogue where a white supremacist killed eleven people.

All within a week.

So I’ll drop this quote here:

“[These deaths] say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 18 September 1963
Birmingham, Ala.

What is the commonality between them all? All three murderers (or wanna be in the case of the MAGAbomber) subscribed to various right-wing conspiracy theories about Jews, Democrats, and black people.

Who is spreading these conspiracy theories? Is it a few nuts and cranks on the Internet? No, it is prominent Republicans, including top cabinet members and officers in our Federal government — including, of course, the President himself.

At which point we’re back to MLK Jr., who was responding to a church bombing that killed four little girls. The bombers were prominent KKK members who were also top officials in local law enforcement. MLK’s point was that if it was not these particular people, it would have been someone else who murdered civil rights workers, because the whole system of white supremacy was based upon violence against black people and their supporters.

At this point, I think we can say that the whole system of Republican supremacy is based upon violence against black people, Hispanic people, Democrats, Jews, and their supporters.

That is all.

– Badtux the Waiting-for-Kristallnacht Penguin

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They called Saul after all!

Trump’s new lawyer is a real scumbag and scam artist. In short, the protagonist of “Better Call Saul” in the flesh.

His Fraudulency Donald the Trump apparently throws a dart at the White House org chart to choose the new head of the Veterans’ Administration. The new head is White House physician Admiral Ronny Jackson, who, despite the misinformation in the referenced article, has been White House physician since 2012 (i.e., became such under Obama). The biggest thing that Dr. Jackson has ever managed is a surgical pod. Yeah, that’s great preparation for managing an agency with 360,000 employees…

In other news, triggered right wing snowflakes continue attacking children whose friends were murdered, mocking them and making up all sort of vile lies about them. Dudes. Being mean to children is not a good look. Ever. Agree or disagree with them, but being mean to them just makes you look like child-abusing shitbags. Laura Ingraham found out the hard way that nobody wants to associate with child-abusing shitbags, after losing half her advertisers. She then whined and issued an insincere apology. Sorry, Laura. Once you’ve already proven yourself to be a child-abusing shitbag, nobody wants to associate with you, no matter how many apologies you issue. Once a child-abusing shitbag, always a child-abusing shitbag.

And after all that nastiness, we need a cat picture:

The Mighty Fang admires himself in the mirror. He’s not vain, not at all!

– Badtux the Snarky Penguin

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Jeff Sessions’ war on the Constitution is well underway as he sues California in defiance of the Constitution

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, which, under the Constitution, is charged with judging what the Constitution actually says, states cannot be forced to enforce Federal law, nor forced to pass laws. This is because of the 10th Amendment, which reserves those powers to the states. This is backed up not only by significant historical precedent dating back to the 1840’s Fugitive Slave Act, but by two modern decisions in cases brought by right wing groups: Printz v. United States (1997), which held that the U.S. government could not commandeer sheriffs to enforce provisions of the Brady Gun Control Act, and Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), which held that the Federal government could not compel states to pass legislation expanding Medicaid.

In short, the United States Government is prohibited by the Constitution and the 10th Amendment specifically from forcing local law enforcement agencies to enforce Federal law. This is not controversial except amongst fascists who want to overthrow the Constitution. And Jeff Sessions. But I repeat myself.

I am talking about Jeff Sessions suing California for exercising its 10th Amendment rights under the Constitution, of course. The 10th Amendment is clear: The Federal Government may neither commandeer local law enforcement to enforce Federal laws as ICE wants to do, nor is the Federal Government allowed to dictate to states what laws they can or cannot pass, as long as those laws do not violate rights guaranteed by the Constitution or assume powers reserved to the Federal government under the Constitution.

So now here comes Sessions, booming that he should be able to force local law enforcement and governments to enforce Federal immigration law, in contravention of the 10th Amendment. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone from Alabama doesn’t care much for the Constitution, especially that whole 14th and 15th Amendment part (they’re still upset there that Lincoln “stole” their slaves — no, I’m serious, it’s even taught in schools in Alabama) — it’s just weird that he’s going against two right-wing Supreme Court decisions to do it.

But then, I guess IOKIYR.

– Badtux the Baffled Law Penguin

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The tabloid President gets the tabloid treatment, and he is *pissed*.

Trump and his cronies are freaking out about a tabloid book about a tabloid president, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. And incidentally have turned what would likely have been yet another ignored book on Trump into a best seller.

Cheetoh Mussolini’s lawyer threatened to sue the publisher. In response, the publisher released the book four days early and the publisher’s lawyer eviscerates the President’s lawyer in a public letter. BRUTAL.
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Trump surrogate Miller had to be escorted off of CNN property by security after he started ranting at Jake Tapper.

Cheeto Mussolini whines that he can’t sue author of tabloid book for libel, claims new libel laws would make that possible. Except he’ll need a new Supreme Court too, to overturn the actual malice standard set for public figures by the 1st Amendment freedom of press right to cover news.

Steve Bannon fired from Breitbart by the Koch brothers because they’re upset that Bannon said of the Trump kids’ meeting with Russian spies in Trump Tower that it was “treasonous”.

Herr Twitler himself calls Wolff a “loser” and his book “boring”. And boasts about how he fired Steve Bannon, the man who made him President, for being “sloppy”.

All this fire and fury because the book tells us something we already knew: Trump is an unstable and incompetent president who has no business holding the office he didn’t really want all that much anyway. Duh. It’s not like the book tells us anything we didn’t already know. It just slings tabloid sleaze upon a tabloid President. And thus is perfect for this era: a tabloid book, for a tabloid president.

– Badtux the Amused Penguin

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