Part One:
LITERALLY INVADING WOMEN’S BODIES.
We welcome Mark Joseph Stern, who writes for Slate and other media about legal issues, politics, and government policy. He explains how the Supreme Court’s *refusal* to consider an appeal could have serious adverse effects on a woman’s right to choose an abortion to terminate her pregnancy. The High Court left standing a Kentucky law which denies all abortions unless the woman submits to a lengthy, detailed description by her doctor of every organ and limb of the fetus. She is forced to listen to the heartbeat and to see ultrasound images of the fetus inside her womb.
And the literal invasion? Many women seek abortions within the first trimester of pregnancy, when the fetal parts are difficult to detect. In such cases, Kentucky forces the woman to undergo a “transvaginal ultrasound,” where the equipment is *inserted into her body,* to capture more visible images. Having already gone through the difficult, often gut-wrenching decision whether to terminate her pregnancy, the woman is forced to undergo these additional invasive traumas or else Kentucky will deny her right to an abortion. By “denying certiorari” review in this case, the Supreme Court has allowed this cruel law to stand.
THE “VOTER FRAUD” MYTH RETURNS. CAN VOTER SUPPRESSION BE FAR BEHIND?
Trump supporters and Republican officials are once again perpetrating the myth that there are great numbers of evil people who want to commit voter fraud in 2020. During the 2016 election, similar myths of voter fraud were bandied about by Republicans as their reason for enacting stringent voter suppression rules. Coincidentally, those rules seemed to prevent significant numbers of minorities from voting (as well as other constituencies viewed as sympathetic to Democrats).
In addition, some states purge voters from the rolls if they have chosen not to vote in two or three previous elections. (Such suppression can be avoided in states which permit voters to register on the same day that they cast their ballot. Republicans, of course, have fought against or tried to rescind same-day registration.
Eager to be “first-in-the-nation,” the Republican-led legislature in New Hampshire adopted a law to suppress the votes of out-of-state college students (who might lean liberal). Such students can’t vote in NH unless they obtain NH drivers licenses and register their vehicles in NH.
How can we change the conversation such that people are not snookered into believing the voter fraud myths and instead fight to oppose voter suppression of all kinds? Aside from contesting these myths on the public-information front, we can also reach out to our friends who may have been purged for inactivity. Just as the voting rights activists did in the South during the 1960″s, we can walk people through the registration process so they understand how to jump through all the hoops the Republicans have placed before them.
Part Two:
NUANCED QUESTIONS ABOUT IMPEACHMENT.
We speak with Bill Curry, who was twice the Democratic nominee for Governor of Connecticut and a White House advisor in Bill Clinton’s administration, about a different Democratic strategy for impeachment. Instead of sending two articles of impeachment to the Senate now, Curry recommends that Congress first carry out its mission of fully investigating Trump’s misdeeds and then evaluating possible additional articles that rise to the level of impeachment.
He points out that Mueller and his staff never interviewed the chief alleged conspirators. and then omitted their important evidence from Mueller’s final report. Similarly, regarding impeachment, the Democrats in the House allowed Trump get away with defying Congress’s subpoenas, thereby depriving Congress of essential evidence from some of the chief actors. Congress should instead insist on its constitutional right to compel the evidence it needs in order to adequately conduct its impeachment investigation.
If Congress continues on the fast-track path it’s on, the impeachment process will do nothing to protect the integrity of our country’s 2020 election – which is one of its major purposes.
Nor will this incomplete impeachment process protect the fundamental constitutional concept of checks and balances, including the premise of congressional supremacy regarding its (sole) power of impeachment. Our country’s long-term democratic principles could be harmed if Congress relinquishes part of its essential power, even though its partial impeachment would seem to be “holding the president accountable.”
