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We are now under minority political rule by rural and conservative white men, and likely to remain that way for a while.

The political system has left us with the reality of today's Senate and today's court, which are together able to block the standard political paths towards progress. The only non-violent route I can see towards returning to normal politics, where the people have power, is a national strike. I hope you will add your voice in favor of such a strike. The court's Dobbs ruling offers a real opportunity because it affects all women and the many men who believe we each have a right to control what happens inside of our bodies. That's not like racial justice issues, where it is easy for white people like me to tut-tut yet do nothing. And it's not like economic issues, where both sides pretend to be able to solve our economic problems, while voters just blame or credit the party in power for economic results over which they have little control.

So if there were ever a time for the people to show their power, this is probably it. We are still in a pandemic which forced many of us to become aware of how "essential workers" are given the short end of the stick, or perhaps just the tiniest glimpse. We are forty years into Reagan's destruction of the labor movement, forty years into the capture of the government by the wealthiest, using race to divide us. It all culminated in trump, and Dobbs is nothing more than the result of trump having sold his soul to the pseudo-Christian radical right in order to get their support.

We are all so disgusted, and too many of us are angry at Democrats for not being able to magically alter our reality. Now the reality of the religious right's intentions towards individual liberty are undeniable to all. This is the time.

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If judges can lie so that their nomination to the Supreme Court will be approved by the Senate, our government will have lost all of its credibility. The Constitution will just be a meaningless collection of words; the verdicts of that Supreme Court an injustice carried out upon the citizens of the nation. Is it not a crime to lie under oath? Do Americans need to respect the decisions of dishonest people in high places who do not respect Truth?

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Pres. Biden: "The only way we can secure a woman's right to choose...is for Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade as federal law. No executive action from the president can do that."

"This fall, Roe is on the ballot." 🗳 #VoteBlue!

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This gives me so much hope. We need to get out and vote to take back and protect our rights. I was encouraged by the amount of young, engaging women interviewed. The future of our country depends on them. They know how important it is to take a stand, even the ones who can't vote yet. We need term limits for ALL politicians and justices. ✊️

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Born and raised in a small town south of Flint (once called “City of the Strait” and later Motown) I have been a follower of yours since the early days. We’ve been watching America unravel from our home here near Venice, Italy since the mid-eighties. Here are my comments re the Trump Republican Supreme Court Outrage and how American journalism is failing the country on this and other issues.

“BUT WHAT”, asks the reporter again wearing his most serious journalist face in the middle of this rolling disaster, “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRICE OF GAS?”

Seriously? Let’s see where  we’re at: 

The Trump Court has just pulled the pin on and tossed Grenade #1 directly into the lives over half of all Americans, thus instantly shattering the Constitutional wall that our founders had wisely put place between church and state by shoving Catholic and radical evangelical church doctrine and control into the lives of every American. In an instant they eliminated the right to control their own bodies from over half of the nation’s citizenry (those who can get pregnant), shoving them not simply to the back of the bus as newly demoted second class citizens but   also UNDER the bus. The Trump Republican Court members mostly appointed by politicians that lost the popular vote are also readying themselves to pull the pin on Grenade #2 aimed at blowing up the lives of every same sex married couple in the US. Then, following the logic of the Alito Republican Court opinion, they clearly intend on finishing off virtually everyone else with the final Grenade, Grenade #3, the one criminalizing contraception, birth control and family planning, being tossing that grenade into the lives of virtually every other American, any American physically able to get pregnant or able to cause pregnancy. Now on the table: Forced baby making, forcing every pregnant American female to carry every fetus to term under threat of criminal prosecution for not doing so. That’s right. This Republican Supreme Court decision has given every Republican governor and every Republican state legislature the legal right to force every American female physically capable of giving birth to do so. It does not matter to them who impregnates the woman. It could be her husband, boyfriend, a stranger, priest, minister, imam, rabbi, rapist, her neighbor, cousin, uncle, father or some guy in the park one day. ANYONE. Doesn’t matter who they are or who she is. The Republican Court has spoken. 

So where is American journalism in all this?

“BUT WHAT”, asks the reporter again so very earnestly in the middle of this rolling existential disaster, “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRICE OF GAS?”

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Thank you, thank you, Michael for sharing the voices that I so needed to hear. Their words gave me hope. Thank you all for stepping up to be heard.

Again, Micheal, keep up the GOOD fight !!!

YES…get out and VOTE

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CATHOLIC EUROPE HAS ABORTION--AND EMPTY CATHEDRALS. THIS. IS NOT A QUESTION OF ROE VS WAD. This is unsophisticated and obese America trying to be recognized as righteous. BUT THEY ARE PHONIES SINCE GLUTTONY IS A SIN.

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Hi, Mike.

Thanks for your podcast today, recording people’s comments. I’m sure the SCOTUS decision will be overturned one way or another. The emotional response is overwhelming.

A number of the protesters recorded on the podcast referred to the SCOTUS decision as one given by “stupid White men.” Don’t forget that the sole woman, a pretty one at that, with a shapely figure, a mother, joined in the decision. That means something. She represents women of a certain type. She is relatively young and might still be able to have more children. Didn’t she feel this decision could affect her? What if she were raped?

Some people in the protest expressed concern over contraceptive rights also being overturned. Didn’t “Justice” Thomas comment in that direction? I ask: How did these “Justices” avoid having many children themselves if they didn’t practice some form of birth control? Thomas and his wife have no children. What did they do?

Some people were worried about interracial marriage. Well, the Thomases have an interracial marriage. I don’t think SCOTUS would dare go there.

I haven’t read the decision, but I hear that references were made to old laws of previous centuries. Were abortions even possible then? The same thing is true about the Second Amendment--guns. With muskets and cannons being the main source of weaponry available at the time, how could the Second Amendment be used today, especially in relation to concealed carry (if it was referenced in that decision at all)? Why is it used today at all? The same is true of the Bible in reference to abortions. Were abortions even possible in Biblical times?

I’m Christian (Protestant), but not all Christians are against abortions. Not because of my religion, I think that as a biological fact, life begins at conception, sperm meeting egg--but I don’t give myself the right to tell other women what they may do about that. I know that sometimes abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life, and also that miscarriages have been unjustly called abortions and women have gone to jail for it. That’s horrible. But also, women have to make their own choices. I can’t tell them what to do. I’ve also heard that many women feel guilty for having abortions because they instinctively feel they’re denying life to future children, but if they felt they had to do it, I don’t want them to feel bad.

During the protest it was rightly pointed out that child support isn’t being provided for--food, clothing, education, day care, housing are not being properly covered. How dare SCOTUS say women must always give birth, no matter what, even if they can’t take proper care of these children, and institutions for children whose mothers couldn’t care for them are overflowing? In any case, Roe or not, all those provisions for child care must be cast in stone and fully covered in law, from cradle to maturity.

One woman said she was “lucky” (I think that’s her word) to have had a hysterectomy at 22. I’m lucky to know why a hysterectomy is to be avoided unless it’s the only way to save a woman’s life. It’s not lucky to have one, whatever the reason. I was lucky to be able to avoid it when under pressure by numerous doctors to have a hysterectomy or else. Unfortunately women are not told the truth by doctors who are thinking of their own ease and convenience--a hysterectomy, fully covered by most insurance, is usually far easier and quicker to perform than surgery which corrects problems and saves the uterus--and it’s not fully covered by most insurance. A hysterectomy, among other things, adversely affects sex in certain ways, and this woman’s husband was at the protest; how does he really feel about his wife’s surgery? For medically documented info on hysterectomies, see www.hersfoundation.org.

Okay. This was not as long as SCOTUS’s decision. I hope this is useful.

Thanks, Mike.

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Vote Blue? Absolutely; but we must demand better from them. They failed to do what needed to be done to prevent this many times over the years. Democrats are a FAILURE of a party, and they know it, but too many of them don't care; they are way too comfortable in their corporate gig to give a damn. We need to get the "moderates" out and more lefties in. This is a decades long fight from here on out.

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Just re-watched Michael's 2015 film WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. I had forgotten so much of it and highly recommend people to revisit or see it for the first time. Little did we know that it would be our own government invading women's bodies in 2022!!

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As a swede I'm getting more and more doubtful that USA really are a democracy. The last couple of years I've been following American politics, and I'm surprised to discover so many things in your system are not designed to protect the will of the majority. Instead it seems like its designed to protect the interests of a few priviliged groups of people. It's sad to see that the country that's supposed to protect the democratic part of the world having such a big problem upholding it on It's own territory. I really hope, for all the democratic nations in the world, that all you who who fights for real democracy in USA will prevail.

A more than worried swede

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Jun 27, 2022·edited Jun 27, 2022

This Supreme Court decision was a ghastly mistake on many levels. This is what Authoritarian decision making is like....Vote them out. Vote Democratic. Vote for people with a soul. Kick the souless ones out forever.

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I have written a legal brief newsletter on how the MS abortion law violates the Thirteenth Amendment.

See: haroldrberk.substack.com

I have asked the Solicitor General and attorneys for Respondents to fileva Petition for Rehearing under SCt Rule 44within 25 days of the June24, 2022 decision in Dobbs.

None iof the justices and none of the Solicitor General or the attorneys for the Respondent clinics raised the 13th Amendment issue in their briefs or arguments.

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I have another, shorter, comment this time.

Aretha Franklin, one of the greatest singing artists of America, gave birth to children at the age of 12 and 14. This is on Wikipedia. I don't know how she felt or why she went ahead with the births--whether abortion was an option or not. I have no regret that those people lived, but it must have been hard for her. Members of her family raised the children and she visited them often, but didn't like to talk about them publicly. All of this brings up the question which is not easily answered, about the worth of human life. But a woman should not be compelled to give birth if she didn't plan to get pregnant and if it would be hard for her. It's 9 months of her life, her body, and then all the years that follow. It affects the children, too.

Her father, a pastor who had an enormous influence on her life, impregnated a 12-year-old girl who was a member of his congregation. This girl also gave birth, to the person who was Aretha's half-sister. Why there was no hue and cry about this, I have no idea. The feelings of the half-sister, who has since passed away, have to be considered. But we can see from these instances why there is so much turmoil about when and how a woman should carry a pregnancy. Ordinarily, in these cases, most people would not recommend that girls of 12 or 14 should give birth.

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Hey Mike; a government that cannot protect their own women's right to choose takes it upon itself to go to a distant land spend time and money to orchestrate the removal of an elected Prime Minister of that country. What kind of priority is this ? There is so much to correct right here at home and our government is indulging in "regime change" overseas.

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I remember reading the book, "My Darling, My Hamburger" that I checked out from my middle school library in 1974?? It was about a high school girl getting an abortion. She survives, but her feeling of loliness, having no one to turn to but a friend always hit me hard. I teach high school now and the few times I mentioned the way it was, the boys have no conception of that. How much suffering, feeling trapped, . . .using a hangers in a back room. One thing no one talks about is babies born with drug addiction. What will happen to them? Their suffering. Many have developmental problems.

We need to start showing movies like The Color Purple on Netflix to reach these young people and Dirty Dancing, but young people don't even realize what is going on in that movie! . Asussie movie " The Fringe Dwellers ". When Juno came out I thought it a very quirky movie, the attitude and mundane acceptance of her pregnancy. It just did not seem like reality of what it is really like to be an expecting mother in high school. It seemed so flippant.

I fell it,

I went back to school for a second career, I took the entry tests pregnant with my second child. Took my 3rd to class with me after she was born. Then my last semester I got pregnant with our fourth, I was devastated! I felt I would never really make it as a teacher. I contemplated an abortion. I did not have it --my husband realized what was going on and talked me out of it. but It affected my life, I am still a sub, I never got a a sucessful career. It was hard raising 4 kids, They did not get everything their peers got. But they did pretty good. Three are college graduates!

Well, any way, I think we have a good case to impeach at least two Supreme Court justices. lying in congress confirmation hearings. Really? Why can't we do that! If we prosecute the ex orange guy, can we cancell all his appiontments he made because of his traitorous actions? Not upholding the constitution he gave an oath to do so. His compiracy actions include stacking the offices with people into his schemes. Yes?Dream on. Still waiting for the EPA to come back to Washington. And the US postal general?? really! ??

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