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-Do they continue to chip away at abortion rights a piece at a time as they have been doing for decades
-Or do they finally bite the bullet, and just do it, kicking off a mess.
Yes, I think this is it exactly. Now that they (think they) have a 6-3 majority, they're going for goal. They might recognize that McConnell's bull[stew] is bull[stew], and they might feel that the Democrats would be completely justified in expanding the Court (after all, the number of Justices on the Court is something else that isn't written in the Constitution), so maybe they figure they've got a little window here that could slam shut at any moment.

Yesterday, a left-leaning analyst on the radio referred to the conservative Justices as "Republican" Justices. Part of me hopes said Justices will say "Now wait just a [goshdarned] minute, mister, I am not a Republican Justice!" but otoh, I really want SC Justices to put themselves above the political football match.

Ultimately, the question is whether and when the conservatives believe that government should be empowered to invade an individual's privacy (I guess I'm taking the liberal justices' position on this issue for granted - evidently, I'm okay with doing that, at least for now). Generally speaking, conservatives are supposed to resist the urge of government to reach its arm into individual's homes and lives. So it should be even harder to make the case that the government can make such a personal decision for people when there are 6 conservatives sitting on the Court. Theoretically. I guess Mississippi is gambling that these conservatives aren't that type of conservative.
 
Yes, I think this is it exactly. Now that they (think they) have a 6-3 majority, they're going for goal. They might recognize that McConnell's bull[stew] is bull[stew], and they might feel that the Democrats would be completely justified in expanding the Court (after all, the number of Justices on the Court is something else that isn't written in the Constitution), so maybe they figure they've got a little window here that could slam shut at any moment.
It seems to me that repealing Roe vs. Wade would be opening the door wide for those who want to expand the court. It is widely popular in the general population isn't it?
 
Yes, I think this is it exactly. Now that they (think they) have a 6-3 majority, they're going for goal. They might recognize that McConnell's bull[stew] is bull[stew], and they might feel that the Democrats would be completely justified in expanding the Court (after all, the number of Justices on the Court is something else that isn't written in the Constitution), so maybe they figure they've got a little window here that could slam shut at any moment.

Yesterday, a left-leaning analyst on the radio referred to the conservative Justices as "Republican" Justices. Part of me hopes said Justices will say "Now wait just a [goshdarned] minute, mister, I am not a Republican Justice!" but otoh, I really want SC Justices to put themselves above the political football match.

Ultimately, the question is whether and when the conservatives believe that government should be empowered to invade an individual's privacy (I guess I'm taking the liberal justices' position on this issue for granted - evidently, I'm okay with doing that, at least for now). Generally speaking, conservatives are supposed to resist the urge of government to reach its arm into individual's homes and lives. So it should be even harder to make the case that the government can make such a personal decision for people when there are 6 conservatives sitting on the Court. Theoretically. I guess Mississippi is gambling that these conservatives aren't that type of conservative.

The entire point of the Heritage Foundation and similar groups is to make sure that all these Justices are Republican judges. It's entirely apt to call them so. It's literal conservative philosophy to put partisan hacks on the bench and make them rule the right way. Barrett is literally a cultist, the People of Praise, a 'Catholic' (really evangelical) group who speak in tongues, literally call female members handmaids because they are that insanely patriarchal and widespread sexual abuse including in Barretts local faith community, that they covered up. She was put through law school while living in one of the church leader's homes. They handpicked her to be a legal toady.

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh wasn't actually investigated by the FBI, they handed the tips to the trump white house, he had a ton of mysterious debts that were all paid off and openly committed perjury.

Ironically it was Stevens and Souter, the 'traitor' Republicans who ended up on the 'liberal' side, who strategically retired under Obama to be replaced by young Liberal judges. But the Clinton appointees, RBG and Breyer are embarking on this insane nonsense about never retiring, and dying in their seat, to 'remain about the political football fight', when the Republicans are open partisan hacks.

As for the legality. It really doesn't matter. Republicans right now are using the same arguments for abortion, about 'bodily autonomy' and the rights of individuals, to justify refusing to wear a harmless mask or get a vaccine to stop spreading the literal plague. But think it's okay to be forced to raise a child, a multi decades-long investment of time and money, often even if the woman had no choice in the matter. They pick a position and backfill it. It's only some of the lawyers who care about the legal arguments, and the rest knows it's just exercising power through fancy words.

It seems to me that repealing Roe vs. Wade would be opening the door wide for those who want to expand the court. It is widely popular in the general population isn't it?

Maybe, if the US electoral system was designed to reflect the will of the populace. But it doesn't, so Democrats are at the mercy of Manchin and Sinema, who are just odd and stupid. She is literally the least popular statewide Federal Democrat in Arizona.



Barely majority approval with Democrats



Less popular with independents as well.



and already 2/3rds want her replaced in a primary



When wielding power, you want your opponent to know you can do something. But Sinema and Manchin have already taken the court-packing and filibuster reform out of the Democrats quiver, so if Republicans destroy Roe v Wade ... they can't do anything. There will be a big march and fervour in the media for a while. And then nothing will happen, because they don't have 50 votes, because they rely on the bipartisan king of coal mountain, and a ex-Green party wacko with a personality disorder.
 
But think it's okay to be forced to raise a child, a multi decades-long investment of time and money, often even if the woman had no choice in the matter.

I'm not going to touch on the rest, but this pisses me off. A lot. Blindness can be willful.

But, I guess let us start with the assumption it is not.
 
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I'm not going to touch on the rest, but this pisses me off. A lot. Blindness can be willful.

But, I guess let us start with the assumption it is not.

I'm sorry. What's your point? You never properly explain what you mean.

Even if you disagree, and think that women should be forced to give birth, that logic should extend to people who should be forced to wear a mask or take a vaccine, which in terms of burden is nothing in comparison to birthing and raising a child. Instead conservative logic is, forcible births for women, but how dare you require me to wear a mask or get a vaccine. I will kill people and myself with my idiocy.

Giving birth runs a real risk of death, and can cause permanent health complications. Even if the child is immediately put up for adoption, that is a very long period of carrying it, and then recovery time afterwards. Which conservatives made sure there would be as little available to help mothers afterwards like maternity leave or healthcare.
 
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Republicans piss me off fairly frequently too.

But sure, let's just go with that.
 
It seems to me that repealing Roe vs. Wade would be opening the door wide for those who want to expand the court. It is widely popular in the general population isn't it?
I think the popular opinion is mixed. I don't have it at my fingertips right now, but iirc, roughly two-thirds of people who identify as Republican oppose it right now. People who identify as Democrats are less certain, I think less than 50% approve of the idea, and another ~30% are unsure. In either case, I think it's probably a political calculation. Presumably so many Republicans oppose the idea because they recognize that expanding the Court would be used to balance against the conservative majority (Rep. Ed Markey, a Democrat, proposed expanding it to twelve, so we could assume it would then be 6-6). At the same time, many Democrats are worried that "packing" the Court would push a lot of people to vote Republican in the upcoming mid-term elections, which tend to tilt against the party in power anyway. It's going to be difficult for the Democrats to hold onto what they have, as it is, and many Democrats argue strenuously for not doing anything that would alienate anyone (always, I don't just mean now).

Giving birth runs a real risk of death, and can cause permanent health complications. Even if the child is immediately put up for adoption, that is a very long period of carrying it, and then recovery time afterwards. Which conservatives made sure there would be as little available to help mothers afterwards like maternity leave or healthcare.
Indeed. And iirc, pregnancy is especially risky in the United States, compared with other 'developed' countries, and riskier still in some US states when compared to others. If we look at Mississippi specifically, they find that their maternal mortality rate was 33.2 per 100,000 live births from 2013-2016. In Canada, maternal mortality was 8.3 deaths per 100,000 births, as of 2018. Google says it was 7 in the UK and 5 in Australia. That's just deaths, and doesn't account for any other complications from pregnancy, but I don't think there's any reason to think that other complications from pregnancy are handled any better by the US healthcare system. I would expect all other health outcomes short of death to be just as bad. I guess I would expect infant mortality rates and birth complications to be crummy as well, just 'cause our healthcare system isn't intended for most people to get a good outcome from, generally speaking, but I haven't looked those up.


EDIT: An article I read noted that the US is the only industrialized country where the maternal mortality rate is going up, not down. Part of that might be that reporting has gotten better, which doesn't let us off the hook, since that would mean our mortality rate was always even worse than we knew, and we're only just finding out.

EDIT 2: And do we even need to bring up the racial disparities?
 
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Woe, woe.
 
ABC News, 22 July 2021 - "Mississippi asks Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade"

They're also asking the Court to overturn Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). I don't recall the details of the two cases right now. The Mississippi case was actually taken by the Court in May, but yesterday the Mississippi lawyers broadened their case somehow. I'm not quite sure how that works, from a legal perspective, but from a political perspective, they're simply trying to reverse a woman's right to choose. I'm not a fan of "slippery slope" arguments, but I still can't help thinking that the brief submitted by the state's lawyer seems to suggest that she doesn't believe in unenumerated rights (e.g. the right to privacy, the right to marry, etc.*).




EDIT: I haven't read the whole brief, so I'm just going by the quotes selected by this ABC News article, but...

So they're not arguing that when a child becomes viable has changed. They're just arguing that when a fetus starts to look recognizable should be our benchmark instead. That just seems like another way of saying, "You shouldn't be allowed to do anything that makes me feel icky."



* I've always wondered how a textualist reconciles unenumerated rights. Probably a separate question from this case, but it made me think of it.

We absolutely have unenumerated rights. That's the ninth amendment FFS!
 
The CEO of NSO Group, whose spyware tools have reportedly been used to target journalists and
activists, says that people who aren't criminals shouldn't be afraid of being surveilled.
AppleInsider reports:
Shalev Hulio, 39, recently spoke to Forbes after investigations indicated that NSO Group's
Pegasus spyware was used by authoritarian governments to hack and surveil the mobile devices
of world leaders, high-profile journalists, and activists. NSO Group says that it sells its
tools to governments to help them catch serious criminals like terrorists or gangsters. However,
Hulio admitted that it can't control what governments ultimately do with the tools. "We are
selling our products to governments. We have no way to monitor what those governments do," he
said.

Hulio did note that NSO Group has mechanisms in place to detect when abuse happens so that the
company can "shut them down." He says that NSO Group has "done it before and will continue to
do so. On the other hand, he said that NSO Group shouldn't be responsible for government misuse.
Additionally, Hulio said that the average smartphone has nothing to worry about. While NSO
Group's spyware can break into the latest iPhones running up-to-date software, often without
any action from the user, it's only aimed at criminals. "The people that are not criminals, not
the Bin Ladens of the world -- there's nothing to be afraid of. They can absolutely trust on the
security and privacy of their Google and Apple devices," Hulio said.


https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/0...abiding-citizens-have-nothing-to-be-afraid-of
 
The CEO of NSO Group, whose spyware tools have reportedly been used to target journalists and
activists, says that people who aren't criminals shouldn't be afraid of being surveilled.
AppleInsider reports:
Shalev Hulio, 39, recently spoke to Forbes after investigations indicated that NSO Group's
Pegasus spyware was used by authoritarian governments to hack and surveil the mobile devices
of world leaders, high-profile journalists, and activists. NSO Group says that it sells its
tools to governments to help them catch serious criminals like terrorists or gangsters. However,
Hulio admitted that it can't control what governments ultimately do with the tools. "We are
selling our products to governments. We have no way to monitor what those governments do," he
said.

Hulio did note that NSO Group has mechanisms in place to detect when abuse happens so that the
company can "shut them down." He says that NSO Group has "done it before and will continue to
do so. On the other hand, he said that NSO Group shouldn't be responsible for government misuse.
Additionally, Hulio said that the average smartphone has nothing to worry about. While NSO
Group's spyware can break into the latest iPhones running up-to-date software, often without
any action from the user, it's only aimed at criminals. "The people that are not criminals, not
the Bin Ladens of the world -- there's nothing to be afraid of. They can absolutely trust on the
security and privacy of their Google and Apple devices," Hulio said.


https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/0...abiding-citizens-have-nothing-to-be-afraid-of
I mean, some people are still using whatsapp. Perhaps they agree with him.
 
The CEO of NSO Group, whose spyware tools have reportedly been used to target journalists and
activists, says that people who aren't criminals shouldn't be afraid of being surveilled.
AppleInsider reports:
Shalev Hulio, 39, recently spoke to Forbes after investigations indicated that NSO Group's
Pegasus spyware was used by authoritarian governments to hack and surveil the mobile devices
of world leaders, high-profile journalists, and activists. NSO Group says that it sells its
tools to governments to help them catch serious criminals like terrorists or gangsters. However,
Hulio admitted that it can't control what governments ultimately do with the tools. "We are
selling our products to governments. We have no way to monitor what those governments do," he
said.

Hulio did note that NSO Group has mechanisms in place to detect when abuse happens so that the
company can "shut them down." He says that NSO Group has "done it before and will continue to
do so. On the other hand, he said that NSO Group shouldn't be responsible for government misuse.
Additionally, Hulio said that the average smartphone has nothing to worry about. While NSO
Group's spyware can break into the latest iPhones running up-to-date software, often without
any action from the user, it's only aimed at criminals. "The people that are not criminals, not
the Bin Ladens of the world -- there's nothing to be afraid of. They can absolutely trust on the
security and privacy of their Google and Apple devices," Hulio said.


https://yro.slashdot.org/story/21/0...abiding-citizens-have-nothing-to-be-afraid-of

How reassuring, we little people can carry on as normal.
 
Here is what Reporters Sans Frontieres are saying to do to protect yourself. I cannot believe the only apps they recommend avoiding are Apple Music, FaceTime, iMessage and [iPhone] Mail when whatsapp has been the primary attack vector. RSF paid by google/Zuckerberg shocker? Amnesty found the iPhone much easier to examine for pegasus.

Also TIL:

Secure your smartphone:
- Turn your smartphone off at least once a day. This simple measure may be enough to thwart the operation of many spyware apps.​
 
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Amnesty found the iPhone much easier to examine for pegasus.
And the CCP and NSA found the iPhone much easier to examine for Amnesty. :p

Also TIL:
Secure your smartphone:
- Turn your smartphone off at least once a day. This simple measure may be enough to thwart the operation of many spyware apps.​
That might have to be re-assessed when the new iPhones come out. OTOH, maybe only mainland Chinese will be
able to buy new ones for the next few months. :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factories partially resume production, shipping issues could delay delivery of iPhone 13
...
Flooding across the "world's largest iPhone city" will likely to inevitably delay the production of
Apple's new iPhone 13 series in the short-term, industry observers said. While capacity being
hampered could rebound soon, a more severe issue has to do with the shipment, as major
transportation routes throughout the city were still partly cut off and could take a long period
for traffic to return to normalcy.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1229458.shtml
 
Amnesty found the iPhone much easier to examine for pegasus.

I wouldn't recommend iPhones for Amnesty workers or Uyghurs. Wonder why Amnesty likes them...

An Award-Winning iPhone Hack Used by China to Spy on Uyghur Muslims
...
Any iPhone that accessed a web page containing Qixun's malicious code might be taken over by a
remote intruder. It's the type of hack that could be traded on the black market for millions of
dollars, allowing hackers or governments to spy on huge groups of people. It was given the name
"Chaos" by Qixun.

Apple patched it two months later, but an analysis revealed that it had been used by the Chinese
government to hack Uyghur Muslims' iPhones in the interim. After US surveillance found it and
confirmed it to Apple, the company released a low-key press release acknowledging it, but the full
scale of it wasn't understood until now.

https://www.ehackingnews.com/2021/05/an-award-winning-iphone-hack-used-by.html

OTOH, it seems like Uyghurs are doing Ok if so many of them can afford iPhones.
 
I wouldn't recommend iPhones
I would not recommend anything, as I do not know what I am talking about. If I had to communicate with these apps and was worried about this sort of thing I would get a linux phone and run them in some sort of virtualised environment, docker if I could.
 
I would not recommend anything, as I do not know what I am talking about. If I had to communicate with these apps and was worried about this sort of thing I would get a linux phone and run them in some sort of virtualised environment, docker if I could.
That would make the CCP happy. :)
 
Reason packing the court is a bad idea is because the GoP can easily do it as well when they win again.

Which wouldn't be that unusual in 2022.

I'm not a fan of the supreme court or the constitution but abortion isn't specifically covered by the constitution and it's up the the supreme court to define it.

Democrats still don't get a lot of things. It's not fair but that's what the rules say. And they don't have the numbers to change the rules.

The GoP seemed to have figured this out in 1980's. Democrats still haven't.

Don't tell me what's right or wrong tell me what's legal. That's the (unfortunate) reality.
 
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