The Time is Now

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When it comes to the uncertain times we are living in, we should all take a page out of Liz Cheney’s book on sacrifice. The time is now for all of us to take a stand on the world stage against the tyranny of the majority, and we need to fight harder than we have ever had to fight.

In an interview with CNN, Cheney said, “I’m fighting hard. No matter what happens on Aug. 16, I’m going to wake up on Aug. 17 and continue to fight hard to ensure Donald Trump is never anywhere close to the Oval Office ever again,” and she knows that it may cost her a seat in Congress. She knew that her Vice Chair position for the January 6th Committee would put her job in jeopardy, but she still did her duty under the oath she took to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

“No matter what” is how every American should be centering their ideology regarding life in the U.S. because democracy depends on it, and it is looking scary for the 2024 election that a madman can rule the country again. We are quickly losing our constitutional rights with the radical SCOTUS decisions and state governments’ oppression of women and minorities. It’s nothing new for this country to stomp on the rights of citizens, but it feels like we keep digressing into barbaric times.

It is important to stand up for what you believe, even if it goes against what the majority wants, but it is not okay to strip away a person’s choices and freedoms because of biased viewpoints when you serve public office. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, are too much in the spotlight when it comes to the state of our union. Precedents are being gutted. Rights are being decimated.

It’s not the time to sit back and shake your head if you disagree with the state of our democracy. As Americans, we have to vote, sign petitions, and use our voices to protect the rights of citizens of this country. (Note the word “citizens” rather than using demographic characteristics) We must stay informed and be involved in the political process. That is a right we have that other countries do not have. We have a democracy, and the government works for us, right?

My hope is to see things change in the aspects of participation, activism, and involvement in light of the evidence found during the January 6th Committee hearings. Upcoming hearings may have Ginni Thomas being subpoenaed, and they will present the evidence of her involvement with the insurrection. With the Thomas conundrum happening in the Supreme Court, I don’t think she will follow through with cooperating with the committee, but I hope I am wrong. We need to see that evidence, but I am sure she will hide behind Clarence’s coat tail and lawyer up.

The direst of all political circumstances needing to be put in the spotlight is the election of 2024. Donald Trump and his lies could find their way back to the White House if charges are not filed federally against him for all of the crimes he committed while sitting in the Oval Office for a 4-year stretch. There is not a sane imagination on this planet that could imagine another 4 years of living in this world that is run by and under the control of a man who is just as crazy as Vladimir Putin. We feel the war in Ukraine, and the personality and ideology of Trump are no different than Trump’s bestie, Putin.

Where do your opinions on these issues lie? Do you feel comfortable with the state of democracy in this country, or do you feel like we are failing ourselves like I do?

Next on the Chopping Block is:

Image Credit: Innocence Project

In one of my earlier posts, I told you all about Moore v. Harper coming up on the SCOTUS docket, and earlier I learned of another case to watch, which is Merrill v. Milligan.

This post will outline the cases and tell who granted stays and who dissented on both cases. One attacks our ability to fight in disputes over federal elections and state redistricting (Moore), and the other attacks the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Merrill).

I want to make a very important note on case law. It is about the cases and the final rulings that you are supposed to be weary of, but it is also about which amendments to the Constitution that rest within the language of the decisions and opinions of the court.

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In the Moore v. Harper case, they submitted their writ of certiorari in March. The topics that are being argued in this case are partisan gerrymandering, congressional redistricting, and the Elections Clause. There is also language of the Equal Protection Clause, Freedom of Speech, and Assembly Clauses coming in this case from the North Carolina Supreme Court case in which the petitioner appealed. (Remember above that I said it’s important to look at the Amendments encompassed inside of these documents.)

Certiorari from SCOTUS was granted in this case on June 30, 2022 with Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito. This will be a scary case of voter subversion through state gerrymandering, so it is important that we watch this case closely and watch the wording that comes through on opinions of the justices.

All of the documents relating to this case can be found here: Moore v. Harper – The American Redistricting Project(opens in a new tab)

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Now, onto Merrill v. Milligan, we see another case that has many precursors of suppression of liberty. John Merrill is the Secretary of State in Alabama, and there are actually two other parties, Evan Milligan and Marcus Caster. This case is coming from a district court in Alabama, which I found odd. It seems this case has bumped up the ladder rather quickly, and it is taking hits at Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the opinion of the lower court dilutes the black vote on a 1994 verbiage from Justice Thomas that redistricting, which he argued “…that interpreting the law to require some level of racial discrimination in how congressional lines are drawn did not comport with the statute and subverted the principle of a color-blind Constitution” (Alabama Center for Law & Liberty, 2022).

Thomas is no stranger to going after this section of the legislation, and this is why I say this branch of government has way too much power. The legislative branch was designed by the Framers to be the strongest, but this Supreme Court is pretty damn powerful.

The Justices supporting the stay and granting certiorari are Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett. Justices Roberts, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer dissented with Roberts and Breyer filing the dissents.

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So, this was just a quick look at the cases coming up that have been put on the SCOTUS docket. These 5-4 decisions are going to be coming more and more. I am going to be curious to see how Justice Jackson will begin voting, which I assume it will be better than Breyer’s voting. There are many cases entwined in these two cases too. All of them about voting rights and gerrymandering. Stay tuned…

References:

Alabama Center for Law & Liberty, (2022). “Merrill v. Milligan”. Retrieved from http://alabamalawandliberty.org/merrill-v-milligan/.

Second Amendment Thoughts Revisited — This, That, and The Other

Fandango at 5.0 analyzes the 2nd Amendment in this post, and I think everyone should read his analysis. It enforces what I was talking about in my Voices of the People post that I published last night regarding all of the shootings and massacres going on in the world.

Please visit his post and start a conversation about these issues.

I originally posted Second Amendment Thoughts last year around this time, but I thought, in light of the most recent incidents of mass shootings in the United States over the past two weeks, I thought it might be worth revisiting it. I’ve made some changes and updates to the original. I have perspectives regarding the […]

Second Amendment Thoughts Revisited — This, That, and The Other

Women’s Rights Are Fading

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Tonight, my sister and I were watching a show when our phones lit up with breaking news about a leaked document that is showing that Roe v. Wade is in huge trouble. My heart literally dropped into my stomach. A case that was established in 1973 when the world was even more against women than it is now, ruled that women had control over their reproductive rights. These same rights are about to be stepped on by old, conservative lawmakers.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/leaked-us-supreme-court-decision-suggests-majority-set-overturn-roe-v-wade-2022-05-03/

First, I want to talk about my personal opinions on abortion, birth control, and a woman’s right to become pregnant. I am pro-woman. I believe that a woman has a right to her own reproductive freedom and complete control over anything that affects her body or person.

I would never be able to make that decision to have an abortion out of personal choice, but that does not mean that I have the right to take that away from someone else. I support them and their choice. It’s easy for me to support these choices that other women choose to partake in because government intrusion on someone’s body is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

Birth control to prevent pregnancy are important, and in contrast the use of untraditional methods to get pregnant are also important. I support these choices too.

Now that you have my clear stance on reproductive freedom, let’s talk about how Roe v. Wade became precedent in the first place. I want to start with this quote in the syllabus of the case because there is HUGE importance in it.

“A person may choose to have an abortion until a fetus becomes viable, based on the right to privacy contained in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Viability means the ability to live outside the womb, which usually happens between 24 and 28 weeks after conception.”

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)

I bolded the words above that say, “Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” in this holding because this decision being overturned will set women’s right back 50+ years and challenges our Due Process rights under the Constitution.

A government entity, or better yet in current times…entities, are telling a woman when she is allowed to end a pregnancy. Roe was a single, pregnant women, and she wanted to end her pregnancy via abortion with a safe doctor. It was hard to find a safe doctor to perform these procedures due to them being considered illegal.

Before Roe was passed, women were going to back alley abortion “doctors”, if you want to call them that, to get their pregnancies ended, and they ended up most times with sepsis from dirty instruments and some even died. I will add more to this section as I get more statistics, but taking abortions away as an option is dangerous.

That’s a scary thought that we could go back to these kind of abortions because the world wants to infringe on someone’s right through courts and laws. If that is not scary enough, you will be scratching your chin and really thinking on the next worry of this decision being overturned…

If you are not familiar with the 14th Amendment, it states:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.“

The Constitution of the United States, 14th Amendment

There are two forms of due process. One is procedural and the other is substantive. According to Cornell Law, “Substantive due process has been interpreted to include things such as the right to work in an ordinary kind of job, marry, and to raise one’s children as a parent” (Legal Information Institute, 2022).

Procedural is the regular process that we think of when going to court and getting in front of a judge, etc. after charges have been filed against us.

Both of these are substantial to freedoms granted by our Constitution in both the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, just to name a few. Now, let’s look back at the wording of the case syllabus in Roe v. Wade. In the primary holding, it speaks of the due process clause that is in the 14th Amendment. Are you ready for the scary part?

ANY and EVERY case that set precedent that has been decided under the Due Process Clause will now be challenged.

This is not a scare tactic. It is in the verbiage of overturning a precedent that was set in 1973! Things are going to get ugly folks! For women, you might as well say Margaret Atwood’s book called The Handmaid’s Tale will come true. It’s radical just like that series portrays when the Roe decision is overturned. (If you have never watched the series, you may want to…or at least read the book.)

A real time example is that women in Texas are going to Oklahoma to get abortions, so Oklahoma passed an abortion ban. I think Alabama was the first I heard about to do put strict restrictions, and from what the document sounds like in the article from Reuters, the Supreme Court is going to put it in the hands of state lawmakers on making the choice whether it will be illegal in their states. It’s sickening to me.

I know there is more that I wanted to say, but my heart just became really heavy thinking about the damage that has been done to this country. It’s hard to be proud to live in a place that has the highest incarceration rate, wrongful conviction rate, and that oppresses the rights of others in the name of law and order. For those that want to say, “Leave then if you don’t like it here…”, the only words I have for you is “I stay to fight you for those that have no voice.”

I will end with this… Silence is violence. If you are not an ally, you are an adversary.

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Works Cited:

Legal Information Institute. 2022. “Due Process”. Cornell Law, WEX. Retrieved from: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process.