Tag Archives: Supreme Court

News, Observation, Politics

How Roe v. Wade changed the lives of American women

The recent announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement has ignited widespread speculation about the future of Roe v. Wade. Some analysts believe that a new appointment to the Supreme Court would mean a conservative justice, particularly one who is against abortion rights, will threaten the status of the law.

The U.S. Supreme Court granted women an essential degree of reproductive freedom on on Jan. 22, 1973, by supporting the right to terminate a pregnancy under specific conditions.

As a sociologist who studies women, work and families, I’ve closely examined how the landmark ruling affected women’s educational and occupational opportunities over the past 45 years.

Then and now

Let’s go back to 1970, three years before the Roe decision.

In that year, the average age at first marriage for women in the U.S. was just under 21. Twenty-five percent of women high school graduates aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college and about 8 percent of adult women had completed four years of college.

Childbearing was still closely tied to marriage. Those who conceived before marriage were likely to marry before the birth occurred. It wasn’t yet common for married women with young children under age 6 to be employed; about 37 percent were in the labor force. Then, as now, finding satisfactory child care was a challenge for employed mothers.

By 1980, the average age at marriage had increased to 22. Thirty percent of American women aged 18 to 24 who had graduated from high school were enrolled in college, and 13.6 percent had completed a four-year college degree. Forty-five percent of married mothers with young children were in the labor force.

While these changes may not be directly attributable to Roe v. Wade, they occurred shortly after its passage – and they’ve continued unabated since then.

Today, roughly two generations after Roe v. Wade, women are postponing marriage, marrying for the first time at about age 27 on average. Seventeen percent over age 25 have never been married. Some estimates suggest that 25 percent of today’s young adults may never marry.

Moreover, the majority of college students are now women, and participation in the paid labor force has become an expected part of many women’s lives.

Control over choices

If the Roe v. Wade decision were overturned – reducing or completely eradicating women’s control over their reproductive lives – would the average age at marriage, the educational attainment level and the labor force participation of women decrease again?

These questions are also difficult to answer. But we can see the effect that teen pregnancy, for example, has on a woman’s education. Thirty percent of all teenage girls who drop out of school cite pregnancy and parenthood as key reasons. Only 40 percent of teen mothers finish high school. Fewer than 2 percent finish college by age 30.

Educational achievement, in turn, affects the lifetime income of teen mothers. Two-thirds of families started by teens are poor, and nearly 1 in 4 will depend on welfare within three years of a child’s birth. Many children will not escape this cycle of poverty. Only about two-thirds of children born to teen mothers earn a high school diploma, compared to 81 percent of their peers with older parents.

The future depends in large part on efforts at the state and federal level to protect or restrict access to contraception and abortion. Ongoing opposition to the legalization of abortion has succeeded in incrementally restricting women’s access to it. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that studies reproductive policies, between 2011 and mid-2016, state legislatures enacted 334 restrictions on abortion rights, roughly 30 percent of all abortion restrictions enacted since Roe v. Wade.

In 2017, Kentucky enacted a new law banning abortion at or after 20 weeks post-fertilization. Arkansas banned the use of a safe method of abortion, referred to as dilation and evacuation, which is often used in second-trimester procedures.

New battles

Of course, medical abortion isn’t the only way in which women can exert control over reproduction.

Even before 1973, American women had access to a wide range of contraceptives, including the birth control pill, which came on the market in 1960. Five years later, in Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that married couples could not be denied access to contraceptives. In 1972, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the court extended this right to unmarried persons.

In 2017, a record number of states acted to advance reproductive health rights in response to actions by the federal government. In 2017, 645 proactive bills were introduced in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Eighty-six of those were enacted and an additional 121 passed at least one committee in a state legislature.

How would the lives of American women in the last decades of the 20th century and early 21st century have unfolded if the court had made a different decision in Roe v. Wade? Would women be forced into compulsory pregnancies and denied the opportunity to make life plans that prioritized educational and employment pursuits? Would motherhood and marriage be the primary or exclusive roles of women in typical childbearing ages?

With the availability of a greater range of contraception and abortion drugs other than medical procedures available today, along with a strong demand for women’s labor in the U.S. economy, it seems unlikely that women’s status will ever go back to where it was before 1973. But Americans shouldn’t forget the role that Roe v. Wade played in advancing the lives of women.

This story has been updated to correct the proportion of women enrolled in college in 1970 and 1980.

Constance Shehan, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Books, Lifestyle, News

Best Roe v. Wade Books to Understand the SCOTUS Debate

The 50th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade is approaching, we are also dealing with the likelihood that the Supreme Court is now reconsidering the ruling, as a result, an interest on the issues surrounding abortion and reproductive rights has peaked.  

Reproductive justice, or the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy (in other words the ability to choose whether to have or not have children) has and most likely will always be a hot button issue, one that triggers immediate and intense reactions from both pro-life and pro-choice advocates. 

Understandably so, abortion touches on huge subject matters that can intersect with religious beliefs, what qualifies as life and death in which people tend to have their own very strong opinions. 

Below we have curated a list of 5 books that can help readers interested in educating oneself and understanding more on what is currently happening by looking at the past.  These texts break down legal, political and social foundations regarding abortion. As well as speak to the very real issues surrounding abortion like violence, stigma, politics, race, access to medicine and law.  

We have provided additional information on each book including publisher’s descriptions and where to learn more about each title: 

Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade

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Roe v. Wade’s 1973 constitutional guarantee of a woman’s right to choose abortion emerged from a long and remarkable battle to extend Americans’ individual liberties to include a fundamental right to sexual privacy. Only in 1965 had the Supreme Court first begun to protect such intimate personal freedoms by finally invalidating an archaic Connecticut criminal law that had prohibited the use of birth control.

Despite the landmark importance of this crucial struggle, not until now has this legal revolution received the comprehensive treatment it deserves. Roe v. Wade’s origins lie not in the U.S. Supreme Court’s dramatic internal deliberations of 1971-72 or even in the grassroots women’s movement of the late 1960s but, instead, in the 1920s and 1930s efforts to win repeal of the Connecticut birth control law. Those initial attempts failed, but twenty years later Connecticut Planned Parenthood director Estelle Trebert Griswold launched a new crusade against the statute. After one appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court lost by the narrowest of margins in 1961, Griswold and a medical colleague were convicted for providing birth control services in open defiance of the law. When their appeal finally reached the Supreme Court, the justices held that such a fundamental constitutional right to privacy did indeed exist.

That resounding Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut opened a previously unimagined constitutional door: the opportunity to argue that a woman’s access to a safe, legal abortion was a fundamental individual right. In 1969, the first abortion rights case was filed in federal court in New York, soon followed by others, including Roe v. Wade in Texas and Doe v. Bolton inGeorgia. After those two challenges were upheld by local federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court – which so far had confronted the abortion issue on only one occasion – agreed to review both decisions. The comprehensive, once-secret files of former Justices William J. Brennan, William

Before Roe V. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling

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The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion-but the debate was far from over, continuing to be a political battleground to this day. Bringing to light key voices that illuminate the case and its historical context, Before Roe v. Wade looks back and recaptures how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution-and about how the nation could best honor its commitment to dignity, liberty, equality, and life.

In this ground-breaking book, Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered the Supreme Court for 30 years for The New York Times, and Reva Siegel, a renowned professor at Yale Law School, collect documents illustrating cultural, political, and legal forces that helped shape the Supreme Court’s decision and the meanings it would come to have over time.

A new afterword to the book explores what the history of conflict over abortion in the decade before Roe might reveal about the logic of conflict in the ensuing decades. The entanglement of the political parties in the abortion debate in the period before the Court ruled raises the possibility that Roe itself may not have engendered political polarization around abortion as is commonly supposed, but instead may have been engulfed by it.

Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe V. Wade

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On April 16, 1972, ten thousand people gathered in Central Park to protest New York’s liberal abortion law. Emotions ran high, reflecting the nation’s extreme polarization over abortion. Yet the divisions did not fall neatly along partisan or religious lines-the assembled protesters were far
from a bunch of fire-breathing culture warriors. In Defenders of the Unborn, Daniel K. Williams reveals the hidden history of the pro-life movement in America, showing that a cause that many see as reactionary and anti-feminist began as a liberal crusade for human rights. For decades, the media portrayed the pro-life movement as a Catholic cause, but by the time of the Central Park rally, that stereotype was already hopelessly outdated. The kinds of people in attendance at pro-life rallies ranged from white Protestant physicians, to young mothers, to African American
Democratic legislators-even the occasional member of Planned Parenthood. One of New York City’s most vocal pro-life advocates was a liberal Lutheran minister who was best known for his civil rights activism and his protests against the Vietnam War. The language with which pro-lifers championed their
cause was not that of conservative Catholic theology, infused with attacks on contraception and women’s sexual freedom. Rather, they saw themselves as civil rights crusaders, defending the inalienable right to life of a defenseless minority: the unborn fetus. It was because of this grounding in
human rights, Williams argues, that the right-to-life movement gained such momentum in the early 1960s. Indeed, pro-lifers were winning the battle before Roe v. Wade changed the course of history. Through a deep investigation of previously untapped archives, Williams presents the untold story of New Deal-era liberals who forged alliances with a diverse array of activists, Republican and Democrat alike, to fight for what they saw as a human rights cause. Provocative and insightful, Defenders
of the Unborn is a must-read for anyone who craves a deeper understanding of a highly-charged issue.

What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics

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One of the Wall Street Journal‘s Top Ten Books of the YearA leading expert on public bioethics advocates for a new conception of human identity in American law and policy.The natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and therefore dependent, throughout our lives, on others. Yet American law and policy disregard these stubborn facts, with statutes and judicial decisions that presume people to be autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose. As legal scholar O. Carter Snead points out, this individualistic ideology captures important truths about human freedom, but it also means that we have no obligations to each other unless we actively, voluntarily embrace them. Under such circumstances, the neediest must rely on charitable care. When it is not forthcoming, law and policy cannot adequately respond. What It Means to Be Human makes the case for a new paradigm, one that better represents the gifts and challenges of being human. Inspired by the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, Snead proposes a vision of human identity and flourishing that supports those who are profoundly vulnerable and dependent–children, the disabled, and the elderly. To show how such a vision would affect law and policy, he addresses three complex issues in bioethics: abortion, assisted reproductive technology, and end-of-life decisions. Avoiding typical dichotomies of conservative-versus-liberal and secular-versus-religious, Snead recasts debates over these issues and situates them within his framework of embodiment and dependence. He concludes that, if the law is built on premises that reflect the fully lived reality of life, it will provide support for the vulnerable, including the unborn, mothers, families, and those nearing the end of their lives. In this way, he argues, policy can ensure that people have the care they need in order to thrive. In this provocative and consequential book, Snead rethinks how the law represents human experiences so that it might govern more wisely, justly, and humanely.

Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800-1900a

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“A fascinating book which sets to rest a number of preconceptions on the subject. Easy to read and yet hard-hitting.”–Marlette Rebhorn, Austin Community College

“Should be an eye-opener to those who think that religious objections were at the root of anti-abortion legislation and equally to those who think that abortion has been a matter of life and death.”–Carl N. Degler, Stanford University


“A superb example of the way history can inform a current contentious controversy.”–Journal of American History


“Mohr makes it abundantly clear that Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s were not a modern weakening of moral standards but a return to what Americans believed and practiced a hundred years ago.”–The Christian Century


“An altogether lucid review of American abortion policy in the 19th century.”–Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times


“The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost…rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.”–Chicago Tribune

James C. Mohr is the College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History and the Philip H. Knight Professor of Social Science at the University of Oregon. He is author of Doctors and the Law: Medical Jurisprudence in Nineteenth-Century America and Radical Republicans in the North: State Politics during Reconstruction, both published by Johns Hopkins.

For purchase information on Amazon, check out below:

Abortion in America
Liberty and Sexuality
Before Roe V. Wade
Defenders of the Unborn
What It Means to Be Human

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News, Observation, Politics

What’s at stake as Supreme Court appears intent on overturning Roe v. Wade – 3 essential reads

A leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito suggests the Supreme Court is on the brink of overturning two rulings, including Roe v. Wade, that guarantee the right to abortion in the U.S.

The Supreme Court confirmed that the document, obtained and first reported on by Politico, is real, but said “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

The opinion is due to be issued later in the year. The leaked document indicates that a conservative majority in the court is on track to end a woman’s constitutional right to abortion, opening the door for states to enact bans.

Although a seismic development in the long-running legal battle and social debate over abortion rights, the development is not entirely unexpected. In recent years, pro-abortion rights advocates have been ringing alarm bells over threats to Roe. Legal scholars, health experts and sociologists have helped explain in The Conversation U.S. what is at stake and what it would mean for American women should the historic ruling be overturned.

1. How Roe changed women’s lives

A lot has changed in the nearly 50 years that separate the constitutional enshrining of the right to abortion in the U.S. to the brink of ending that right.

Constance Shehan, a sociologist at the University of Florida, provides a snapshot of life for women prior to the landmark case. In 1970, the “average age at first marriage for women in the U.S. was just under 21. Twenty-five percent of women high school graduates aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in college and about 8 percent of adult women had completed four years of college,” she notes. But today, she says, “roughly two generations after Roe v. Wade, women are postponing marriage, marrying for the first time at about age 27 on average. Seventeen percent over age 25 have never been married. Some estimates suggest that 25 percent of today’s young adults may never marry.”

How much of this change in the experiences of American women is due to Roe? And if it is overturned, will the trends be reversed? Such questions are difficult answer. But there is evidence that carrying through with an unwanted pregnancy may have a detrimental effect on a woman’s education – and that, in turn, has an impact on career opportunities and income, writes Shehan. “Two-thirds of families started by teens are poor, and nearly 1 in 4 will depend on welfare within three years of a child’s birth. Many children will not escape this cycle of poverty. Only about two-thirds of children born to teen mothers earn a high school diploma, compared to 81 percent of their peers with older parents.”

Medical abortion isn’t the only option for young women seeking abortion. As Shehan notes: “With the availability of a greater range of contraception and abortion drugs other than medical procedures available today, along with a strong demand for women’s labor in the U.S. economy, it seems unlikely that women’s status will ever go back to where it was before 1973. But Americans shouldn’t forget the role that Roe v. Wade played in advancing the lives of women.”

2. Who might be affected?

“One important group’s voice is often absent in this heated debate: the women who choose abortion,” writes Luu D. Ireland at UMass Chan Medical School. She notes that 1 in 4 American women have the procedure at some point in their life, yet because of the perceived stigma involved, their perspective is largely missing. As an obstetrician/gynecologist, Ireland does, however, hear on a daily basis stories from women who opt for an abortion.

She notes that while abortion is a routine part of reproductive health care for many, and women of all backgrounds choose to end their pregnancies, unintended pregnancies are more common in certain groups: poorer women, women of color and those with lower levels of formal education.

“Women living in poverty have a rate of unintended pregnancy five times higher than those with middle or high incomes. Black women are twice as likely to have an unintended pregnancy as white women,” she writes.

The reason women opt to terminate a pregnancy varies. The most common reason is that the timing is wrong – it would interfere with education, careers or caring for family members. The second most cited reason is financial – the women seeking an abortion just can’t afford the associated costs of raising a child at that time. One impact of abortion restrictions, research has shown, is that women unable to get one “are more likely live in poverty or depend on cash assistance, and less likely to work full-time,” Ireland writes.

More than just financial risks

Financial problems are one result of restricting safe, available access to abortions. Another is a jump in the cases of pregnancy-related deaths. Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist at University of Colorado Boulder, looked into what would happen should the U.S. ends all abortions nationwide.

To be clear, this is not what would happen should the Supreme Court overturn Roe – rather, it would allow states to implement bans based on the ending of a constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion. Nonetheless, Stevenson’s research gives context as to risks involved for women who may find themselves in states that do not allow abortion, and who lack the means to get to a state that does.

She notes that staying pregnant actually carries a greater risk of death than having an abortion.

“Abortion is incredibly safe for pregnant people in the U.S., with 0.44 deaths per 100,000 procedures from 2013 to 2017. In contrast, 20.1 deaths per 100,000 live births occurred in 2019,” she writes. Stevenson estimates that “the annual number of pregnancy-related deaths would increase by 21% overall, or 140 additional deaths, by the second year after a ban.” The jump in deaths would be even higher among non-Hispanic Black women.

Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Breaking News, News, Observation, Politics

AOC Says Democrats Must ‘Leave It All on the Field’ to Defend Abortion Rights

Other progressive lawmakers echoed that message, with Rep. Cori Bush declaring: “Abolish the filibuster. Codify Roe. Expand the Supreme Court. Protect abortion rights by any means necessary.”

After a leaked draft ruling provided the most concrete evidence yet that the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority is set to end the constitutional right to abortion, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez late Monday said Democrats in Congress must pull out all the stops to enshrine Roe v. Wade into federal law as “people’s futures and equality are on the line.”

“We need all of the above. This is an emergency.”

“People elected Democrats precisely so we could lead in perilous moments like these—to codify Roe, hold corruption accountable, and have a president who uses his legal authority to break through congressional gridlock on items from student debt to climate,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote in a pair of tweets. “It’s high time we do it.”

“If we don’t, what message does that send? We can’t sit around, finger point, and hand-wring,” the New York Democrat added. “It’s time to be decisive, lead with confidence, fight for a prosperous future for all, and protect the vulnerable.”

In September 2021—weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court let Texas’ draconian abortion ban take effect—the House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), legislation that would enshrine into federal law the right to abortion care free from medically unnecessary restrictions such as mandatory waiting periods, which are commonplace in states across the U.S.

“Removing medically unjustified restrictions on abortion services would constitute one important step on the path toward realizing reproductive justice,” the legislation states. “This Act is intended to protect all people with the capacity for pregnancy—cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals, those who identify with a different gender, and others—who are unjustly harmed by restrictions on abortion services.”

“If there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.”

But the bill has stalled in the U.S. Senate thanks to opposition from the entire Republican caucus and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), an opponent of abortion who has previously voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Earlier this year, Manchin joined Senate Republicans in filibustering the WHPA.

Other progressive lawmakers joined Ocasio-Cortez in calling on Democratic leaders to do everything in their power—including launching another push to abolish the 60-vote legislative filibuster—to defend abortion rights from the Supreme Court and Republicans, who are reportedly scheming to pursue a nationwide abortion ban if they take control of Congress in November and the high court overturns Roe.

“This will endanger the very people who need access to legal abortion,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said of the leaked draft ruling authored by right-wing Justice Samuel Alito. 

The draft opinion states that Roe, a 1973 decision, was “egregiously wrong from the start” and should be overturned along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 ruling that largely reaffirmed Roe.

“The Senate must pass the House legislation to codify Roe, abolish the filibuster, and expand SCOTUS,” Tlaib added late Monday.

Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) tanked their party’s attempt to temporarily weaken the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation earlier this year and—to the dismay of progressives—Democrats have done nothing since to diminish the 60-vote rule’s power.

“Abolish the filibuster. Codify Roe. Expand the Supreme Court. Protect abortion rights by any means necessary,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) tweeted Tuesday. “We need all of the above. This is an emergency.”

In a joint statement after Politico published Alito’s draft opinion, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) condemned the document as an “abomination,” arguing it would mark “one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”

But the Democratic leaders didn’t provide any indication that they intend to target the filibuster as part of a renewed effort to pass the WHPA.

Speaking to CBS News Monday night, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)—the lead sponsor of the WHPA in the Senate—said congressional Democrats are “going to support states that resist” the Supreme Court but lamented that options at the federal level are “limited” due to the party’s narrow majority in the upper chamber.

Such an excuse for inaction is unlikely to satisfy progressive members of Congress or advocates who are planning to take to the streets in the nation’s capital and across the country Tuesday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, urged his colleagues to “pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW.”

“And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not,” Sanders added, “we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes.”

Originally published on Common Dreams and republished under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

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News, Observation, Politics

How the Supreme Court Could Make Your Life More Dangerous: new video by Robert Reich

Video

Below we’ve embedded the new video, along with the text of the video.

Your life could get a lot more dangerous. Republican appointees on the Supreme Court seem poised to strip away basic safety standards for our workplaces, our food, our air and water. 

Congress gives federal agencies the authority to enact regulations that protect us in our daily lives. Congress defines the goals, but leaves it up to the health and safety experts in those agencies to craft and enforce regulations. I know regulations don’t sound very exciting, but they’re how our government keeps us safe.

Remember when lots of romaine lettuce was recalled because it was causing E.coli outbreaks? That was the Food and Drug Administration protecting us from getting sick. Working in a warehouse? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets standards to ensure you don’t breathe in dangerous chemicals like asbestos. Enjoying the fresh air on a clear, sunny day? Thank the Environmental Protection Agency for limiting the amount of pollution that can go into our air.

These agencies save lives. Since OSHA was established a half-century ago, its workplace safety regulations have saved more than 618,000 workers’ lives.

Republicans have been trying to gut these agencies for decades. Now, with the Supreme Court’s right-wing majority solidly in place, they have their best chance yet.

In January 2022, the Supreme Court blocked OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing mandate from going into effect, which was estimated to prevent a quarter-million hospitalizations.

The Court claimed that Covid isn’t an “occupational hazard” because people can become infected outside of work, and that allowing OSHA to regulate in this manner “would significantly expand” its authority without clear Congressional authorization.

This is absurd on its face. Section 2 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 clearly spells out OSHA’s authority to enact and enforce regulations that protect workers from illness, injury, and death in the workplace. Congress doesn’t need to list every specific workplace hazard before OSHA can protect workers.

What this ruling tells us is that the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court are intent on gutting the power of agencies to issue regulations.

This term, the Court will also hear a case regarding the EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act. If the Court undermines the EPA’s authority, it will put our environment – and our health – at risk. Remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire because it was brimming with oil, acid, and factory chemicals? That’s what we may be returning to.

And what’s next? Will they gut the Federal Trade Commission and put us all at risk of being defrauded? Target the Securities and Exchange Commission and deregulate the financial sector, sparking another financial crisis?

Beware. If Republican appointees on the Supreme Court succeed in gutting regulatory agencies, we all lose. This agenda is anti-worker, anti-consumer, and anti-environment. The only thing it’s good for is corporate profits.

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News, Observation, Politics

Ketanji Brown Jackson set for historic Supreme Court confirmation vote: 3 essential reads

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are scheduled to vote April 4, 2022, on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination for the Supreme Court. It kicks off a potentially historic week in which a full Senate vote could set course for the nation’s highest court seating it’s first Black female judge.

The elevation of Jackson to the Supreme Court would not change the ideological setup of the bench – which would continue to be split 6-3 in favor of conservative justices.

Nonetheless, it would be an important landmark in the history of the Court – of the 115 justices on the Supreme Court since it was established in 1789, 108 have been white men.

Race featured in Jackson’s confirmation process; so too attempts to define her “judicial philosophy.” The Conversation has turned to legal scholars to explain the meaning of Jackson’s potential ascension to the court.

On the shoulders of pioneers

Jackson, if she wins confirmation at the next stage, a vote by the full Senate, will have broken through the ultimate glass ceiling in terms of legal careers. She would have done so on the shoulders of pioneering Black female judges.

University of Florida’s Sharon D. Wright Austin notes, even now, “relatively few Black women are judges at the state or federal level” – which makes the achievement of those who have made it to this level all the more remarkable.

Of the judges highlighted by Austin, there is Judge Jane Bolin, who became the country’s first Black female judge in 1939, serving as a domestic relations court judge in New York for almost four decades. Later, in 1961, Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court. In all she argued 10 cases before the Court, winning nine of them. Meanwhile, Judge Julia Cooper Mack is noted as the first Black woman to sit on a federal appellate court, being appointed in 1975 and serving 14 years on the bench.

These women are to be celebrated and remembered. As Wright Austin writes: “Representation matters: It is easier for young girls of color to aspire to reach their highest goals when they see others who have done so before them, in the same way that women like Jane Bolin, Constance Baker Motley and Julia Cooper Mack encouraged Ketanji Brown Jackson to reach hers.

Echoes of the past

The fact that a Black female Supreme Court justice is long overdue is testament to the slow progress the U.S. has made toward racial – and gender – equality.

Margaret Russell, a constitutional law professor from Santa Clara University, saw signs of this lack of advancement during parts of Jackson’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings.

Questions directed at the would-be Supreme Court justice were, according to Russell, tantamount to race-baiting. They also sounded eerily similar to criticisms that then-Supreme Court nominee Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American nominee to the court, faced in his own confirmation hearings in 1967.

Both Jackson now, and Marshall then, stood accused by senators of being soft on crime and were asked about how they intended to bring race into their legal decisions. “Are you prejudiced against white people in the South?” Marshall was asked by a known white supremacist senator. Similarly, Jackson was asked during her confirmation hearings if she had a “hidden agenda” to incorporate critical race theory, which holds that racism is structural in nature rather than expressed solely through personal bias, into the legal system.

“I find it striking,” Russell writes, “that race has surfaced in such a major way in these hearings, more than five decades after Marshall’s nomination. In some respects, there has been progress on racial equity in the U.S., but aspects of these hearings demonstrate that too much remains the same.”

What Jackson would bring to the Supreme Court

Jackson’s potentially historic achievement of becoming the first Black female Supreme Court justice may distract from the fact she is also eminently qualified to sit on the highest court in her own rights.

Alexis Karteron of Rutgers University-Newark notes that the Harvard law-trained Jackson went on to clerk for Stephen Breyer, the retiring justice she is set to replace. She has served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission as well as acting as both a trial court and appellate judge.

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Jackson is also the first former criminal defense attorney to be nominated to the Supreme Court since Marshall. This puts Jackson in a unique position on the bench. Karteron writes that having served as a public defender “will help [Jackson] understand the very real human toll of our criminal justice system. … The criminal justice system takes an enormous toll on both the people in the system and their loved ones. I believe having a Supreme Court justice who is familiar with that is incredibly valuable.”

Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Observation, Politics

Why Abortion Bans Aren’t Pro-Life: New Video by Robert Reich

Video

As a new Supreme Court appointment looms…

In another great new video Robert Reich talks about the unspoken downsides of Abortion bans and why they are not “Pro-LIfe”. The video is one of many that can be seen on the Inequality Media YouTube channel – which adds at least a new video weekly.

Abortion bans are not pro-life. They’re pro-poverty and pro-inequality.

I’ll tell you what we can do about it in a moment. But first, let me explain how these bans worsen inequalities.

You’ve probably heard of the two abortion cases making their way through the courts. But it’s not just Texas and Mississippi’s new bans. For years, Republican state lawmakers – almost entirely white men – have been chipping away at reproductive freedom: enacting laws that lead to clinic closures, force people to travel hundreds of miles for abortions, and create near-insurmountable barriers for low-income people, especially people of color.

Make no mistake: bans like those in Texas and Mississippi won’t stop abortions. Wealthy people will always have access, but millions of low-income people will be forced to give birth – with dire consequences for both parent and child.

Pregnant people in Texas now have to travel an average of 247 miles to get an abortion. Who but the wealthy can afford this? Only one third of the lowest paid workers receive paid sick days, while 95% of the highest paid do. Taking just one unpaid day off from a low-wage job can mean sacrificing groceries, electricity, or gas.

These restrictions worsen inequality, and have lifelong effects.

One study found that being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term makes it nearly 4 times more likely that parent and child will live below the poverty line. They’re also less likely to have full-time work, and more likely to have public assistance four years later. Decades of research confirm that abortion access improves education, employment, and earnings — and the differences are especially large for Black people.

It’s not just economics. Restricting abortion puts people’s health at risk. Researchers found that abortion legalization in the 1970s reduced deaths among Black mothers by 30 to 40 percent.

The Supreme Court’s right-wing majority is poised to gut or even overturn Roe v. Wade. If they do, 21 states already have laws that will go into effect to severely restrict or outright ban all abortions immediately – threatening the livelihoods and health of millions of low-income Americans.

Congress must codify Roe v. Wade into federal law — now — by passing the Women’s Health Protection Act. It’s already been passed in the House but is being blocked in the Senate by – you guessed it – a Republican filibuster.

Let’s be clear: there is nothing “pro-life” about forced pregnancy and forced birth. The freedom to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family should not be dictated by your income or where you live. Congress must act to protect reproductive now, freedom before it’s too late.

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Business, Climate Solutions, Earth and Ecology, News, Observation, Politics

Six-Month Sentence for Lawyer Who Took on Chevron Denounced as ‘International Outrage’

Above: Photo Collage / Lynxotic

Conviction of Steven Donziger, said one critic, “perfectly encapsulates how corporate power has twisted the U.S. justice system to protect corporate interests and punish their enemies.”

Environmental justice advocates and other progressives on Friday condemned a federal judge’s decision Friday to sentence human rights lawyer Steven Donziger to six months in prison—following more than two years of house arrest related to a lawsuit he filed decades ago against oil giant Chevron.

The sentence, delivered by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in New York City, represents “an international outrage,” tweeted journalist Emma Vigeland following its announcement.

Donziger’s sentence came a day after the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said it was “appalled” by the U.S. legal system’s treatment of the former environmental lawyer and demanded the U.S. government “remedy the situation of Mr. Steven Donziger without delay and bring it in conformity with the relevant international norms” by immediately releasing him.

Donziger represented a group of farmers and Indigenous people in the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador in the 1990s in a lawsuit against Texaco—since acquired by Chevron—in which the company was accused of contaminating soil and water with its “deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing waste into the Amazon.”

An Ecuadorian court awarded the plaintiffs a $9.5 billion judgment in 2011—a decision upheld by multiple courts in Ecuador—only to have a U.S. judge reject the ruling, accusing Donziger of bribery and evidence tampering. Chevron also countersued Donziger in 2011. 

In 2019, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York—a former corporate lawyer with investments in Chevron—held Donziger in contempt of court after he refused to disclose privileged information about his clients to the fossil fuel industry. Kaplan placed Donziger under house arrest, where he has remained under strict court monitoring for 787 days.

In addition to Kaplan’s own connections to Chevron, the judge appointed private attorneys to prosecute the case, including one who had worked for a firm that represented the oil giant.

Preska, who found Donziger guilty of the contempt charges in July, is a leader of the right-wing Federalist Society, which counts Chevron among its financial backers.

“As I face sentencing on Day 787 of house arrest, never forget what this case is really about,” tweeted Donziger on Friday morning, as he awaited the sentencing. “Chevron caused a mass industrial poisoning in the Amazon that crushed the lives of Indigenous peoples. Six courts and 28 appellate judges found the company guilty.”

https://twitter.com/SDonziger/status/1443900016859430916?s=20

Donziger indicated Friday afternoon that he plans to appeal the sentence.

“Stay strong,” he tweeted along with a photo from a rally attended by his supporters Friday.

350.org co-founder and author Bill McKibben said on social media that Donziger “deserves our thanks and support” for “daring to point out that Big Oil had poisoned the rainforest.”Rick Claypool, research director for Public Citizen, tweeted that Donziger’s case “perfectly encapsulates how corporate power has twisted the U.S. justice system to protect corporate interests and punish their enemies”—noting that as Donziger is ordered to prison for six months, members of the Sackler family recently won immunity from opioid lawsuits targeting their private company, Purdue Pharma.

“This ruling was done to deter ANYONE from crossing corporate special interests,” said progressive former congressional candidate Jen Perelman.

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY and republished under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Politics

Trump’s Lawyers submit Legal Docs: Misspelling ‘United States’ – Twice

Downhill from the start, with proofreading as optional

The defense team for Trump issued a response for his upcoming impeachment trial to the House of Representatives last week.  The document was widely mocked because the article, besides having questionable content, had egregious grammatical and spelling errors (within the first page).

The major spelling error, on the first page, addressed members of the “Unites” (instead of United) State Senate. 

The same mistake! Again! “Unites” States: (fix your spell checker and proofread?)

Less than a week after submitting their initial legal brief, the 78-page brief, again referred to the country Trump used to be a President as “Unites States”.

Within the initial filings, the newly installed attorneys to lead the impeachment trail: Bruce Castor and David Schoen argued that former president Trump should not face impeachment relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection because he is out of office. 

From the Independent: They’re also reminiscent of the president and his allies’ chaotic legal effort to overturn the legitimate election results, where lawyers backing the president bungled basic composition somewhat regularly, once writing “DISTRCOICT” instead of “district,” and submitting another lawsuit with a promise it contained “plenty of perjury.”

The legal team continued using Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 presidential election was “suspect”.

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1356698300406239239?s=20

Another element that Trump’s defense is using is that the his freedom of speech was protected under the First Amendment. 

“The actions by the House make clear that in their opinion the 45th President does not enjoy the protections of liberty upon which this great Nation was founded, where free speech, and indeed, free political speech form the backbone of all American liberties,” the legal memo says. 

Twitter users were quick to respond back that someone’s rights to the First Amendment does have limits, one of which is a violent insurrection. 

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1356657925574586375?s=20
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Politics

Donald Trump and Melania booed while visiting the Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Video

Trump to fill vacancy despite RBG’s ‘fervent’ wish

President Trump and @FLOTUS Melania Trump pay their respects as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose at the U.S. Supreme Court. #SCOTUS Protesters chant: “Vote him out!” and “Honor her wish!

Read More: A tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the impending clash to fill her seat

Just a day after Trump declared that he was planning a coup d’etat unless he wins the election on November 3rd, 2020, he arrives at the Supreme Court where Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose.

He has also announced his intention to ignore her dying wish that she not be replaced until after the inauguration in January 2021 and will attempt to force his chosen replacement before the election.

He has declared that he needs a court majority favoring him so that he can use the court to overturn election results which he has already declared to be “rigged“.

“I think this [the election] will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,” Trump said, defending his decision to seek the appointment of a new Supreme Court justice in the short time before the Nov. 3 election.

“I think it’s better if you go before the election, because I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling — it’s a scam — the scam will be before the United States Supreme Court”

Donald Trump

Clearly he assumes that he will lose and has a plan in place to first declare the election a “scam” (since it must be a scam if he loses) and to try to interfere in every way possible, then contest the results and try and use a “packed” court to force him into the office against the will of the people.

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Politics

GOP’s stunning hypocrisy on Supreme Court seat – dangers of minority rule in Lincoln Project ad

GOP Senator, Thy name is Hypocrite

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and his troupe of GOP followers have publicly acknowledged that they all intent to confirm anyone President Trump nominates to the Supreme Court. The hypocrisy is frightening. Rewind to 2016, Republicans argued they would not fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat (which occurred the February of an election year). They refused to hold a confirmation process for Merrick Garland who was nominated by former President Barak Obama back in 2016.

Read More: A tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the impending clash to fill her seat

On September 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away and her dying wish, a concern on her mind up until the end, was for her seat not to be filled until a new president and congress were seating in January 2021. They won’t wait until private services are held which are planed next week at Arlington National Cemetery, but will wait until after Friday, where Justice Ginsburg will lie in repose in State in the Capitol.

Read More: Trump Touting “Herd Mentality” as his Plan to Combat the Coronavirus

The majority of the GOP have since all changed their tune and plan to fill the seat before the election, with Trump planning to announce his nominee on Saturday, September 26, 2020.

In the Lincoln Project ad, the video rounds up comments previously made by the likes of Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, and more. In it they speak staunchly against filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court during an election year, this is obviously the exact opposite of what they are now crying out in the present.

The ad ends with, the once, very outspoken opponent of Trump, who had called him a “kook” – saying:

“If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.'”

Lindsey Graham

Those were Lindsey Graham’s EXACT words and even stood firm on his stance, saying “I want you to use my words against me”.

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Politics

A tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the impending clash to fill her seat

The impressive legacy of RBG

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died of pancreatic cancer in her Washington, D.C. home on Friday, September 18th. She was eighty-seven years old and led a most extraordinary life. Growing up middle class in New York City, she strove for excellence from an early age, making it to Cornell University and later Harvard and Columbia Law School. She did all of this during a period where very few women pursued (and even fewer achieved) careers in law.

Read More: Books to read right now about the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

To make matters even more compelling, she married Martin G. Ginsburg shortly after graduating from Cornell and was already raising her first child while working on her Law Degree. Nevertheless, she tied for top of her class at Columbia and despite all the sexist odds, she eventually landed her first job as a law clerk for the U.S. District Court of Southern New York.

Ginsburg taught at Rutgers Law School for several years in the 1960s before taking a position at Columbia Law in 1972, where she became the first-ever tenured female professor. This would not be the last barrier for Justice Ginsburg to break through.

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She channeled much of her intellect towards combatting systemic sexism in America’s legal fabric, co-founding the Women’s Rights Law Reporter journal as well as the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1971, she wrote the brief for Reed v. Reed, which extended the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause to women, and come 1980, President Jimmy Carter nominated her for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals. Here, she gained a reputation for making fair and level decisions alongside both conservative and liberal colleagues.

Nevertheless, R.B.G. was the furthest thing from a pushover, and she continued to fiercely champion women’s rights and gender equality throughout her career. She carried this zealous intensity into her seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, which President Bill Clinton nominated her for in 1993 following Justice Byron White’s retirement.

The second woman to ever serve on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg drew frequent parallels to Justice Thurgood Marshall in the public’s eye—many saying that she achieved for women’s rights what Marshall did for racial equity. In her twenty-seven years on the Court, she fought tirelessly for gender equality, most notably authoring U.S. v. Virginia, 518, which ended the Virginia Military Institute’s male-exclusive admissions policy, and dissenting Ledbetter v. Goodyear, which combatted pay discrimination based on sex. She also advocated for fathers and mothers—as well as husbands and wives—being seen as equally valuable family members in the eyes of the Constitution.

During the Obama Administration, as Justice Ginsburg entered her eighties, many encouraged her to retire so the Democratic president could nominate someone new before the next term. Combatting the odds yet again, she refused to step down.

The Divisive Future Of America’s Supreme Court

Now, in the wake of Ginsburg’s’ passing, America must look forward as politicians try to decide whether or not President Trump should be able to fill her vacant seat before November’s election. Many Democrats are saying that the seat should remain empty until the next term, rationalizing that the Supreme Court Justice is a lifelong position and a President should not be able to nominate someone if they themselves are going to be voted out in just a few weeks.

On the other hand, most Republicans want Trump to fill the seat immediately, citing that he has the Constitutional Right to do so and seeing the vacancy as an opportunity to regain a Republican majority in the Court. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) has already vowed to hold a vote on whoever Trump nominates.

The situation is somewhat the inverse of what happened in 2016, when Republican Justice Antonin Scalia passed away just months before President Obama left office. That time, Republicans filibustered to make sure Obama could not fill Scalia’s seat before the next election. They ultimately achieved this, as the seat remained empty when Trump took office, allowing him to appoint Justice Neil Gorsuch in April 2017.

Now, however, the stakes are even higher, for Gorsuch succeeding Scalia was simply one Republican replacing another. If a Republican nominee takes over Ginsburg’s Democratic seat, then it will create a Republican majority Supreme Court. In the present age where Republicans already have majority control of the Senate and Donald Trump sits in the White House, the Democrat-majority Court is the party’s last line of stability in the system of checks-and-balances.

Given that Election Day is nearly a month away, Ginsburg’s death could be a deciding factor in some voter’s minds. A vacant seat on the Court could compel right-leaning constituents to vote for Trump just for the sake of getting a Republican Justice. Likewise, the process draws attention away from other aspects marring the 2020 Trump campaign— i.e. his lack on initiative when it comes to COVID-19, his denial of climate science amidst California’s inferno, and his dismissive attitude towards present racial tensions in America.

On the Democrats’ side, perhaps the loss of Ginsburg will encourage more people to get out and vote now that more is at stake. If Joe Biden gets to nominate the next Justice, then the Courts will surely keep their Democratic majority, preventing the three branches of government from becoming a conservative hegemony.

Despite her small physical stature, the five-foot tall Ruth Bader Ginsburg left enormous shoes to fill on the U.S. Supreme Court. Regardless of her successor’s political affiliation, it is hard to imagine anyone accomplishing more for this country than the notorious R.B.G. However, we can still hope that her actions, bravery, and tenacity will inspire an entire new generation of politicians and constituents willing to stand up for what is progressive and what is right.

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Books, Politics

Books to read right now about the life of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Remembering the legal lion and champion of women

A historical, legal, cultural figure and feminist icon has left us.  Friday, September 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away at the age of 87 due to complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas. 

Ginsberg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August, 10, 1993, becoming the second female justice of four to be confirmed to the court. Ruth spent a considerable part of her legal career devoted to advocating for the advancement of gender equality and women’s rights. 

With her many accomplishments in her life, her legacy and life’s work includes many book by and about her work and her life. Below we’ve curated and chosen our top six recommendations to learn more about and appreciate the life of the late Justice. We have provided additional information about our book picks from the publisher, as well as where to purchase if interested to help independent bookstores. To see even more books on RGB click here.

Conversations with RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law

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This remarkable book presents a unique portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, drawing on more than twenty years of conversations with Jeffrey Rosen, starting in the 1990s and continuing through the Trump era. Rosen, a veteran legal journalist, scholar, and president of the National Constitution Center, shares with us the justice’s observations on a variety of topics, and her intellect, compassion, sense of humor, and humanity shine through. The affection they have for each other as friends is apparent in their banter and in their shared love for the Constitution–and for opera.

In Conversations with RBG, Justice Ginsburg discusses the future of Roe v. Wade, her favorite dissents, the cases she would most like to see overruled, the #MeToo movement, how to be a good listener, how to lead a productive and compassionate life, and of course the future of the Supreme Court itself. These frank exchanges illuminate the steely determination, self-mastery, and wit that have inspired Americans of all ages to embrace the woman known to all as “Notorious RBG.”

Whatever the topic, Justice Ginsburg always has something interesting–and often surprising–to say. And while few of us will ever have the opportunity to chat with her face-to-face, Jeffrey Rosen brings us by her side as never before. Conversations with RBG is a deeply felt portrait of an American hero. Click to See “Conversations with RBG” and help Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg never asked for fame–she has only tried to make the world a little better and a little freer.

But nearly a half-century into her career, something funny happened to the octogenarian: she won the internet. Across America, people who weren’t even born when Ginsburg first made her name as a feminist pioneer are tattooing themselves with her face, setting her famously searing dissents to music, and making viral videos in tribute.

Notorious RBG, inspired by the Tumblr that amused the Justice herself and brought to you by its founder and an award-winning feminist journalist, is more than just a love letter. It draws on intimate access to Ginsburg’s family members, close friends, colleagues, and clerks, as well an interview with the Justice herself. An original hybrid of reported narrative, annotated dissents, rare archival photos and documents, and illustrations, the book tells a never-before-told story of an unusual and transformative woman who transcends generational divides. As the country struggles with the unfinished business of gender equality and civil rights, Ginsburg stands as a testament to how far we can come with a little chutzpah. Click Here to See “Notorious RBG” and help Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.

I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark

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Get to know celebrated Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—in the first picture book about her life—as she proves that disagreeing does not make you disagreeable!

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime disagreeing: disagreeing with inequality, arguing against unfair treatment, and standing up for what’s right for people everywhere.

This biographical picture book about the Notorious RBG, tells the justice’s story through the lens of her many famous dissents, or disagreements.Click Here to See “I Dissent” and help Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life

Click Here to See ” Ruth Bader Ginsburg – A Life“
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In this large, comprehensive, revelatory biography, Jane De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ginsburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, her meticulous jurisprudence: her desire to make We the People more united and our union more perfect. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs–her Jewish background. Tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to “repair the world,” with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II. We see the influence of her mother, Celia Amster Bader, whose intellect inspired her daughter’s feminism, insisting that Ruth become independent, as she witnessed her mother coping with terminal cervical cancer (Celia died the day before Ruth, at seventeen, graduated from high school).

From Ruth’s days as a baton twirler at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School, to Cornell University, Harvard and Columbia Law Schools (first in her class), to being a law professor at Rutgers University (one of the few women in the field and fighting pay discrimination), hiding her second pregnancy so as not to risk losing her job; founding the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, writing the brief for the first case that persuaded the Supreme Court to strike down a sex-discriminatory state law, then at Columbia (the law school’s first tenured female professor); becoming the director of the women’s rights project of the ACLU, persuading the Supreme Court in a series of decisions to ban laws that denied women full citizenship status with men. Click Here to See ” Ruth Bader Ginsburg – A Life” and help Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.

Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World

Click Here to See “Sisters in Law”
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Also Available on Amazon.

The author of the celebrated Victory tells the fascinating story of the intertwined lives of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first and second women to serve as Supreme Court justices.

The relationship between Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—Republican and Democrat, Christian and Jew, western rancher’s daughter and Brooklyn girl—transcends party, religion, region, and culture. Strengthened by each other’s presence, these groundbreaking judges, the first and second to serve on the highest court in the land, have transformed the Constitution and America itself, making it a more equal place for all women.

Linda Hirshman’s dual biography includes revealing stories of how these trailblazers fought for their own recognition in a male-dominated profession—battles that would ultimately benefit every American woman. She also makes clear how these two justices have shaped the legal framework of modern feminism, including employment discrimination, abortion, affirmative action, sexual harassment, and many other issues crucial to women’s lives. Click Here to See “Sisters in Law” and help Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.

The Way Women Are: Transformative Opinions and Dissents by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Click Here to See “The Way Women Are”
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Also Available on Amazon.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime defying notions about “the way women are” and, in the process, has become a cultural icon as well as a profoundly influential jurist. This collection of some of her most significant opinions and dissents illuminates the intellect, humor, and toughness that have made “the Notorious R.B.G.” a hero to many.

Included are Justice Ginsburg’s majority opinions in United States v. Virginia (1996), and Sessions v. Morales-Santana (2017); her concurrence in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016); a selection from the Court’s 2018-2019 term; and some of the justice’s most famous dissents, such as those in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire (2007), Gonzales v. Carhart (2007), and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014). Also included are an introduction and explanatory notes that help make these writings accessible to a nonlegal audience. Click Here to See “The Way Women Are” and help Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.

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Coronavirus, Politics

Trump lied about Covid-19 dangers- Sara Gideon takes aim at POTUS and opponent Sen. Collins

Video

Has Trump learned anything? Or was it all Intentional.

Sara Gideon, the Maine House speaker is taking a jab at both Donald Trump and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins. In a video put out by her campaign akin to that of the Lincoln Project, who retweeted this video, the video clip shows how Trump admitted he knew the severity of the pandemic and intentionally misled and downplayed the American public.

Read More: Trump is the Fear-Monger in-Chief and the New Panic-Man who lied to Woodward in two-way deceit

As many are aware, Susan Collins was often touted to be one of the sole Republican senators expected to do more than toe the party line.

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Unfortunately, she never stood up or even wavered from her blind loyalty. Her anti-impeachment rubber-stamp was historically myopic and she is now a prime target for removal on November 3rd. She is, make no mistake, a Trump follower and in no-way a lone voice of dissent within her party.

Trump lies do matter, as hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their lives to the pandemic, and many of those deaths could have been prevented.

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