16 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. On Alito From my facebook feed. I don't know where to link to the article directly.

   “BAT SHIT CRAZY"

   The author is Janet Bartholomew PhD, Prof of English, Humanities, and Developmental Studies at Jackson College in Jackson, MI. Mom, wife, bookaholic, advocate, women's nonprofits.

   "Justice Alito's invocation of Sir Matthew Hale in his leaked majority opinion is so, so much more fucked up than people realize. I'm a professor with a PhD, and my area of expertise happens to be women and gender in the early modern era (1500-1700). Here is what you need to know.

   Matthew Hale, just like a lot of Christian extremists today, believed that women were made from Adam's rib. God did not make her as an autonomous being with rights. She was a physical extension of his body, made to be his 'helpmeet,' namely to exist to help him to whatever he wants.

   Hale therefore wrote in his posthumously published book Historia Placitorum Coronæ (1713) that marital rape was totally legal. In fact, because a man owned a woman's body as it was an extension of his own to do with whatever he willed, he was incapable of marital rape.

   The logic was that you can't rape something that isn't considered an independent human being. Your wife's body is yours and you can't rape yourself. This is the logic Alito is upholding when he invokes Matthew Hale. But it gets worse.

   … Witchcraft…

   Women without a man to tightly control their behaviors were viewed as extremely susceptible to immorality and becoming a Satanic force in the community. Hale believed it was in society's best interest for men of the state to step in and control these women.

   A woman's primary purpose in adulthood was to be married, be obedient to a man, & to have children. Alito invoking Hale in his opinion made it clear that he also thinks this too. It's his duty as a man to put the bodily fate of women in the hands of states run by white men.

   Keep in mind that Hale was only talking about white Christian women. Women who didn't fall into this category were debated as even being women. They were viewed as less than human with even less rights. The rule of thumb didn't apply; they weren't worthy of such restraint.

   Are you starting to see why Alito's invocation of Hale is so deeply, deeply fucked up on so many insane levels that there isn't a way to possibly overreact to how shitty his legal standing is here? Rage, horror, disgust, etc. are not deep enough reactions to his legal opinion.

   Log in to Reply

   1. "Rage, horror, disgust, etc. are not deep enough reactions to his legal opinion."

      Log in to Reply

      1. "Rage, horror, disgust, etc. are not deep enough reactions to his legal opinion."

         It's not like we didn't see this coming, Park Hill.

         They've only been working at this since 1980.

         Log in to Reply

   2. Buring witches?  Maybe Christine O'Donnell, the GOP's disastrous candidate for US Senate from Delaware in 2010, should start to worry…

      Log in to Reply

   3. Not going back to that shit. Not property, not chattel, not suspect or third-class  human being. 

      It's hard to see  how Alito (and his cohorts Thomas,  Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) market this opinion to an American public at least superficially supportive of female equality. 

      I suppose they couch it in terms of fake concern for the unborn. But I don't think that more than 30-40% of Americans agree with that extreme position. 

      For us as activists and progressives, I think we have to keep making it real to people. Asking: 

      Do you want every miscarriage to be examined to see if a "crime" was committed?

      Do we want to try to force all gay people back into a closet? That worked out so well (not). 

      Do we want to reverse decades of progress for females in academia, law, commerce, politics, and the arts by adhering to a 1950s standard on birth control and morality?

      Log in to Reply

      1. "It's hard to see how Alito (and his cohorts Thomas,  Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh) market this opinion to an American public at least superficially supportive of female equality."

         I don't think they are even going to bother trying to sell or market it to people. They will simply ram it down people's throats because they can.

         Their guru, Antonin Scalia, famously said of Bush v. Gore to protesters, "Oh, get over it!"

         Justice Pubic-Hair-on-the-Pepsi-Can said words to that effect when he said that people need to learn to live with decisions with which they do not agree.

         As one of the talking heads on the news programs said yesterday, "He might want to start by explaining that to his wife."

         Log in to Reply

         1. 

            Log in to Reply

   4. Ya heard it here first, folks. The Hale cite may not make the final cut, but at this point it doesn't matter much. We'll always know Alito wanted it included.

      Log in to Reply

2. Victory Day in Russia has passed without a victory for the Fascist Putin regime.  All aid to Ukraine short of war.

   Rich Strike, an 80-1 underdog, won the Kentucky Derby.  So don't count Heidi Ganahl out just yet.

    

   Log in to Reply

3. Jebus save us…..LOL 

   Log in to Reply

   1. Jesus saves.

      Moses invests!

      Log in to Reply

4. I like today’s quote.

   Speaking of which:

   What do they call a shortcut in the mountains?  The trail. 

   Log in to Reply

5. Rachel Biticofer has a way with words:

   The Right to Privacy
    – Gives women medical control over their own bodies  
    – Safeguards equal rights for gay Americans
   – Allows for PornHub (that's right boys- Republicans are coming for your porn)

   Log in to Reply

   1. Rachel Biticofer points out that police in Utah would sit across the border and arrest anyone who came in with a keg – something that was illegal in Utah. Here is a scary-effective ad:

      https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1521966837591908353

      Log in to Reply

      1. If abortion is murder in Utah, driving to Grand Junction could be attempted murder.  If nothing else, they could charge you, deny bail, and keep you in jail for 9 months until trial, making the whole thing moot.

          

         Log in to Reply

6. “They’re coming for your porn”….

   That’s one way to get a Trump voter’s attention…it’ll hit them right nelow their Bible Belts.

   Log in to Reply