Do you think the Roe V Wade issue is being used to distract by the Supreme Court?

No. I disagree with that analysis.

I think that Alito and the right wing justices thought they could pull a fast one – noone would notice how they were going to take away womens’ rights—and that they would be hailed as heros.

I see a parallel with Putin, who thought he could pull a fast one in Ukraine and got stuck in a real war there.

Alito and the right wing have reached too far here. This is the beginning of the end for right wing religious takeover the US. Oh, they’ll try, but this was too big of a reach. Everyone knows that the right wing won’t stop at abortion.

I don’t think so either. This is what the right has been working toward for 40 years.

No. I think it’s the prize they’re really after and not a red herring.

“Like Reagan, Trump was a Democrat who turned conservative, latching onto the Christian evangelical electorate. As Carl Hulse reported in “Confirmation Bias,” Trump soothed conservatives uneasy with his lax morality by promising to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, chosen from a Federalist Society-approved list. The libertine who transgressed with women traded off their rights to nail down a base.”

—Maureen Dowd, Marilyn Monroe v. Samuel Alito (New York Times, 5/7/2022)

The motivation is secondary. Nobody cares. Well that’s not exactly true. Some (particularly conservatives) are upset because the covers have supposedly been snatched off the judges, as if their dispositions were some unknown quantity. The conservative judges are in a tough spot, bucking the norms of the rest of the civilized world as well as reversing so key a decision which is arguably the most crucial since Brown. Devising an excuse and wording it is an impossibly difficult trick which will cost the people delivering it their future reputations.

@HP you note that this is “the most crucial” decision since Brown.

Even more, I would say, since this decision obliterates an existing right.

True!

I don’t think releasing the US Supreme Court draft opinion was done so much by one of the justices as much as it was done by someone on the inside who values Roe vs Wade and wants it to remain as-is. Releasing the opinion brought much attention to the issue and got people’s attention to the possibility that it could be overturned if the public let it’s guard down or assumed it wasn’t something that was going to happen.

I don’t believe a justice regardless of their ideology would breach the integrity of the court. My bet is that those justices not of a conservative bent probably were unaware of its existence. They would be drawing up their own drafts of dissent, Come to think of it, I take that back. The drafts are an ideal way to debate the issue and it would make sense that the arguments for and against would be circulated among the nine and their clerks. My bet is that it’s one of the clerks who’s responsible, and I’ll bet the heat is on them BIG TIME.

@HP,

> I don’t believe a justice regardless of their ideology would breach the integrity of the court.

I don’t know who I think I am to consider someone else naive, but this statement from you surprises me. Are you being facetious?

@HP, even then why would it be impossible for it to be a republican Justice. Before Roe V Wade reversal they knew two things. They are already seen as a joke beforehand. Thomas was long ago charged with sexual misconduct, and Barrett with absolutely no experience and would never had been considered for a spot by any other Republican, and let’s not forget the one that cries
.
So lets do something we want to do to distract from all of that and leak something damning but not so damning that it can put Roe V Wade back on track. They buy goodwill and then leak something that Republican supporters want and then try to throw dirt on the other side. Act shocked and dismayed knowing you leaked it
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It causes them no real harm. Reputation was restored and hailed as heroes and victims at the same time. And they get to save a lot of Republicans who were in tight races because the far right faith is restored once more, and it puts Trump as Republican savior and saves Justice Thomas wife. Watch not one thing will be charged against her for her involvement. It will magically disappear.
How do you beat a big story? With a bigger one for the media to latch onto. Now they are all looking for the mystery inner spy.

@Jeruba Even the most obtuse self serving soul on that bench understands that he or she must serve the duration of their lives with their fellows. To be marked as untrustworthy with their private thoughts, destroys any possibility of their assembling and operating as a group. I believe if the culprit turns out to be one of them, the other eight will have to force him out. We might not hear about it for a while, but the turmoil behind those doors must be considerable. This might devolve to a Constitutional crisis.

@HP Absolute power corrupts absolutely. When people believe they are above laws, don’t expect them to think sensibly.

I don’t think this was a purposeful distraction, but I think it is becoming one, because the media tends to only be able to focus on one thing at a time. That’s an exaggeration, it does focus on a few things at a time, right now its the war in Ukraine and Roe, but a ton slips through the cracks.

There have been many many purposeful distractions put out over the last 7 years though, I completely accept this is done as a strategy to distract voters.

@JLeslie With all the current crisis, the big news is a celebrity trial and 49 year old abortion issue? Yes, definately a distraction.

@KNOWITALL I forgot about that trial. Yeah, that is ridiculous spending news time on that.