Category: Politics

“The Case for Accepting Defeat on Roe” (NYT, Sunday, by a law professor):

Maybe it is time to face the fact that abortion access will be fought for in legislatures, not courts.

In “Unpregnant,” the HBO bildungsroman released this month, the plot revolves around a 17-year-old heroine who travels from Missouri to Albuquerque — a road trip of 1,000 miles — because that’s the nearest place she can get an abortion without parental consent. Watching it made me recall a conversation with a feminist friend, who shocked the hell out of me last year by saying that progressives were too focused on protecting Roe v. Wade.

Why? The argument is that we currently have the worst of both worlds. We’ve basically lost the abortion fight: If Roe is overturned, access to abortion will depend on where you live — but access to abortion already depends on where you live. At the same time, we have people voting for Donald Trump because he’ll appoint justices who will overturn Roe. Maybe it is time to face the fact that abortion access will be fought for in legislatures, not courts.

Saint RBG’s flirtation with heresy:

So what should we do now? Often forgotten is that R.B.G. herself had decided that Roe was a mistake. In 1992, she gave a lecture musing that the country might be better off if the Supreme Court had written a narrower decision and opened up a “dialogue” with state legislatures, which were trending “toward liberalization of abortion statutes” (to quote the Roe court). Roe “halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue,” Justice Ginsburg argued. In the process, “a well-organized and vocal right-to-life movement rallied and succeeded, for a considerable time, in turning the legislative tide in the opposite direction.”

The billionaires trying to cleanse American politics from the filth of Republicanism could, for a tiny fraction of what they’re spending to defeat the hated Trumpenfuhrer, purchase and operate a fleet of buses painted with “Bloomberg’s Abortion Caravan” on the side. Have the buses continuously tour the U.S. and anyone who wants an abortion can hop on to be driven to, for example, Maskachusetts. We have abortion on demand up to 24 weeks; abortion of a “fetus” after 24 weeks available in the sole discretion of a single physician concluding that “a continuation of her pregnancy will impose on [the pregnant woman] a substantial risk of grave impairment of her physical or mental health.” (And, for maximum logical consistency, we also require insurance companies to ladle out $millions to preserve the life of a “baby” born at 21 or 22 weeks!)

Also from the law professor… If Allah wills it, future Americans who aren’t aborted will be paying taxes at higher rates (but we promise that the higher rates will apply only to those deemed “rich”)…

I’m still reluctant to embrace the “overrule and move on” strategy, but moving on may be our only choice. And if abortion stops playing such a role in presidential elections, then Democrats may fare better with the 19 percent of Trump voters who have bipartisan voting habits and warm feelings toward minorities; we know 83 percent of them think the economy is rigged in favor of the rich and 68 percent favor raising taxes on the rich.

Once their presidential vote is not driven by Supreme Court appointments, how many might decide to vote on economic issues? And what greater tribute could there be to R.B.G. than both a legislative restoration of abortion rights, and a new Democratic Party that can win — not just by a hair but by a landslide?

Readers: What do you think? Democrats say that the want to provide abortions to more people (not “more women” because men can get pregnant and nurse babies as well) and Democrats have $billions at their disposal. If practical access to abortion is their sincere goal, why aren’t they already using these $billions, combined with Chinese diesel and electric bus technology, to provide practical access to abortion everywhere in the U.S.?

Related:

• Nancy Pelosi writes me a letter (the big selling point of Democrats, according to Pelosi, is that they will provide more abortions)
• The absurd conspiracy that Wall Street elites are manipulating American politics (Bloomberg promises $60 million to defeat Republicans in the House, i.e., enough to purchase a massive fleet luxurious abortion buses from Yutong, the worldwide market leader?)
• “Bloomberg Adds $16 Million To A Fund That Helps Florida Felons Get Chance To Vote” (NPR)
• “We Traveled On Board the Irish ‘Abortion Bus’ That’s Giving Illegal Pills to Women” (Vice, 2015)

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In “History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective”, Gregory Aldrete translates the name for the legislature of Ancient Sparta, the Gerousia, as “the old guys.” Membership was limited to citizens who had attained their 60th birthday (also to those who identified as “men”). A Spartan transported in a time machine to 2020 might say “this looks familiar”!

The description of “democracy” in Ancient Athens, on the other hand, is tough to reconcile with the modern experience. Legislators were selected at random from those with full citizenship (sortition). The typical citizen could expect to be selected once or twice during his lifetime (again, only those Athenians identifying as “male” were eligible).

[Separately, the example of Sparta seems to support the idea that sexual orientation can be taught. From the course notes:

During the last 5 years of school, [teenage boys] were encouraged to form a homosexual relationship that served as a kind of mentoring program.

It seems that sexual relationships were encouraged between the older and younger men in the syssitia [men’s club] on the grounds that if your fellow soldier was also your lover, you would be less likely to run away in battle.

The professor describes male membership in the LGBTQIA+ community as almost universal in Sparta. (See also “Status of homosexuality in ancient Sparta?” and “Teaching 5th graders who vs. whom in an LGBTQ+ world”).]

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The folks who are the most irredeemably Republican are small business owners. The folks who embrace the new Democratic Socialism and the general concept of bigger government are a mixture, but one of the wealthiest components of that mixture has been people who inherited money. People who didn’t have to work for the money don’t seem nearly as worried about the negative effects of government restrictions on the market, e.g., minimum wage (make it illegal for those with low skill levels to work), more lavish welfare handouts (make it irrational for those with low/medium skill levels to work), and higher taxes (make it less attractive for anyone to work additional hours).

A classic example of inherited wealth is Laurene Powell Jobs. The person who made the money is Steve Jobs, not noted for his charitable inclinations or support for politicians. The woman who inherited the money, however, is all-in on one of the Democrats’ big goals. Her Emerson Collective‘s #1 “Priority” is increasing low-skill immigration the U.S. Steve Jobs might have been concerned that higher taxes to fund welfare benefits for low-skill migrants and their children would make it tougher for Apple to compete with rivals in China, for example. Laurene Powell Jobs, however, won’t be similarly constrained.

[Promoting low-skill immigration makes sense from her personal perspective (as it does for most elite Americans). She’s spending the wealth that her late husband accumulated through a charity and therefore won’t have to pay any taxes, regardless of what the rates might be. Regardless of the level of low-skill migration, her own lifestyle won’t change too much. How likely are the new arrivals to be able to afford a home anywhere near one of hers? Is it conceivable that she’ll have to wait for health care if the resulting larger population clogs up the health care system? How many in the next caravan of Hondurans to cross the border earn enough to compete with her for private jet transport and hangar space?]

The U.S. has always had citizens who were rich via inheritance and politically active. What’s relatively new, however, is the phenomenon of people who are rich via divorce litigation. Due to the no-fault divorce revolution of the 1970s, there are now a huge number of people who can spend money that a spouse-turned-defendant earned. Like folks who inherited money, therefore, they have zero personal experience with what it takes to build and run a successful business.

What’s an example of this new force in politics? Karla Jurvetson obtained financial independence by suing her husband Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist also known for having sex with a variety of cash-hungry young women. And in the 2020 election… “Mystery Warren super PAC funder revealed; Karla Jurvetson, a California physician, gave $14.6 million to Persist PAC in February.” (Politico):

In the last weeks of Warren’s struggling presidential bid, a super PAC called Persist PAC hastily formed and then swooped into Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday states to run over $14 million in ads trying to resuscitate Warren’s campaign. Warren was in trouble after third and fourth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.\Jurvetson is one of the biggest donors in the Democratic Party and has spoken openly about what she feels is her obligation to support female candidates. “I feel like it’s our moral duty, if we’re not going to run ourselves, to support the women who are brave enough to put their name on the ballot,” she told the Mercury News in 2018. Jurvetson also hosted a fundraising luncheon for Warren in 2018 — before the Massachusetts senator disavowed in-person fundraising events altogether during her presidential run.

Through a spokesperson, Jurvetson declined to comment on her involvement in Persist PAC, which only collected a half-million dollars from other sources in February, according to a new campaign finance filing. Warren did not respond to a request for comment.

In other words, this single divorce plaintiff was the source of 96 percent of Warren’s PAC money.

Maybe the age of enthusiasm for the Bernie Sanders platform (even if ultimately delivered by Joe Biden and other Democrats) is partly due to the fact that an increasing portion of the money in politics is coming from people who didn’t earn it?

Very loosely related, from the BBC:

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From the scholarly journal Vogue, “May Every Woman Find Her Marty Ginsburg”:

As he became a tax attorney and Ruth pursued advocacy work at the ACLU and professorships, he famously took on the domestic task of cooking for the family.

So the judge who sought to create a bigger government was married to an attorney who specialized in minimizing client’s tax payments.

(Separately, RBG flouted convention by marrying a guy who earned way more than she did!)

Can “every woman” find a spouse who earns as much as a tax attorney? (the successful ones earn at least $600 per hour; Marty Ginsburg was a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where profits per partner were over $3 million in 2018) “Broke men are hurting American women’s marriage prospects” (New York Post):

“Most American women hope to marry, but current shortages of marriageable men — men with a stable job and a good income — make this increasingly difficult,” says lead author Daniel Lichter in a press release.

Lichter adds that unless your dream man is an Uber driver, the dearth of would-be grooms is prominent “in the current ‘gig economy’ of unstable, low-paying service jobs.”

To investigate the man drought, researchers created profiles of potential husbands, based on real husbands as logged in American Community Survey data. They then compared these hypothetical spouses with actual unmarried men.

They found that a woman’s made-up hubby makes 58 percent more money than the current lineup of eligible bachelors.

“This study reveals large deficits in the supply of potential male spouses,” the study concludes.

“Many young men today have little to bring to the marriage bargain, especially as young women’s educational levels on average now exceed their male suitors’,” Lichter says.

Some ladies are even starting to date down in order to score a forever partner.

And sure, there’s the whole “love” factor in a marriage. But, in the end, “it also is fundamentally an economic transaction,” says Lichter.

Maybe a Harris-Biden administration will help a lot more women realize the dreams expressed in the Vogue article. If tax rates are doubled, there will be a lot more tax attorneys.

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“Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises” (New York Times, October 6, 2012):

While fraud in voting by mail is far less common than innocent errors, it is vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting fraud that has attracted far more attention, election administrators say.

The flaws of absentee voting raise questions about the most elementary promises of democracy.

Voting by mail is now common enough and problematic enough that election experts say there have been multiple elections in which no one can say with confidence which candidate was the deserved winner. The list includes the 2000 presidential election, in which problems with absentee ballots in Florida were a little-noticed footnote to other issues.

Still, voting in person is more reliable, particularly since election administrators made improvements to voting equipment after the 2000 presidential election.

“Trump Is Pushing a False Argument on Vote-by-Mail Fraud. Here Are the Facts.” (August 31, 2020):

President Trump has begun pushing a false argument that has circulated among conservatives for years — that voting by mail is a recipe for fraud.

That’s the beauty of #Science… the truth evolves until eventually there is a scientific consensus.

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The rapper Cardi B interviewed Joe Biden and a full transcript is available from Elle:

Cardi B: And also what I want is free Medicare. It’s important to have free [healthcare] because look what is happening right now. Of course, I think we need free college. And I want Black people to stop getting killed and no justice for it. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it. I just want laws that are fair to Black citizens and that are fair for cops, too. If you kill somebody who doesn’t have a weapon on them, you go to jail. You know what? If I kill somebody, I’ve got to go to jail. You gotta go to jail, too. That’s what I want.

Biden: There’s no reason why we can’t have all of that. Presidents have to take responsibility. I understand one of your favorite presidents is Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt said the American people can take anything if you tell them the truth. Sometimes the truth is hard. But right now, we’re in a position where we have an opportunity to make so much progress. The American public has had the blinders taken off.

Cardi B: I’m always so focused on Medicare and college education, and I never really thought about how important child care is. Nobody is more motivated than a mom. Nobody wants to go hustle out there and get the money for the kid like a mother. [But] how are you supposed to do that when you probably don’t have a babysitter for your kid? Fortunately for me, I have my mom to help take care of my child, but a lot of people, their mom cannot retire and take care of the kids. The mom has to work, too. I feel like this country is so hurt, to the point that this year, a lot of people couldn’t even celebrate July 4th, because not everybody feels like an American. A lot of people feel like [they’re] not even part of America.

Joe Biden: Absolutely. One of the things that I admire about you is that you keep talking about what I call equity—decency, fairness, and treating people with respect. John Lewis, one of the great civil rights leaders, used to say the vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool you have. Look, I’m a lot older than you, to state the obvious. When I was in high school, the civil rights movement was just being started, and along came Bull Connor and his dogs. He thought he was going to drive a wooden stake into the heart of the civil rights movement. But when all those folks saw what was happening in the South—[when] they saw Bull Connor with dogs [attacking] elderly Black women going to church and kids being knocked down with fire hoses—all of a sudden, as Dr. King said, we had the second emancipation. We had the Voting Rights Act and we had the Civil Rights Act. It changed things because people said, “Oh my God, that’s happening.” [Today], the cell phone has changed America. Because we’re at a point where some brave kid can stand there for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds and take a of a Black man [being] brutally murdered. And people around the world were saying, “My God. This really happens?” And now they’re demanding change.

What strikes me about the interview is that it seems to be Cardi B, the 27-year-old rapper, who has the concrete policy ideas. The 77-year-old Joe Biden, on the other hand, is mostly silent and/or vague on what he would actually do as president.

Readers: What do you think? Cardi B for President 2028?

Related:

• “Nobody wants to go hustle out there and get the money for the kid like a mother. [But] how are you supposed to do that when you probably don’t have a babysitter for your kid?” said Cardi B. Hunter Biden’s plaintiff shows one straightforward way to solve this problem. See “Hunter Biden’s child support is finalized with his stripper baby mama” (Daily Mail, regarding a mom who was smart enough to move to Arkansas, which offers unlimited child support profits, prior to giving birth to a baby conceived in Washington, D.C. (practical child support revenue limited to about $2 million))

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One of our most prominent Americans said that she always carries “hot sauce” in her purse, but she never said what brand:

Why not capitalize on this with Hillary Clinton Hot Sauce (TM)? It should be a huge seller on the coasts!

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