76 Comments

Yes indeedy, people are too *suspicious* of our fine SCOTUS justices. Just because they lied like cheap rugs to the Senate during their confirmation hearings, calling Roe settled law, is no reason to believe they would lie again when they say they will not go after marriage equality or birth control.

But that’s us liberals for you, always worrying that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Tsk tsk.

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I know, right? Pattern recognition is soooo 19th century...

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Object permanence is soooo 19th century.

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Actually, the GOP majority is far worse than that.

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"I may have to reconsider my decision to even bother to explain things to you next time something like this happens."

Dare to dream Roy...

I could be wrong ( I often am)

and who really knows about other people's sex lives, but I suspect the intimate moments in the McMeagan household consist of Mister McMeagan shoving the $20 bills (that he stole out of his wife's purse) into Crystal's G string down at the Diamond's Gentleman's Club and the associated furtive handjob in the Champagne Room later on while Mrs. McMeagan stays home alone leaning up against ridiculously expensive small kitchen appliances as she cycles through the various speeds.

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i'll just take this scenario with a grain of pink himalayan salt, thank you!

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Don’t forget to put it in the Thermomix!

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"leaning up against various ridiculously expensive small kitchen appliances"

2 marks! Tho there is some possible misdirection in the last portion of the phrase. Do you mean they have a small kitchen, or just small appliances?

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https://shop.thermomix.com/shop/

I hear the "Bechamel" setting is particularly satisfying.

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What other sauce would rich whites enjoy more?

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Certainly not that suspiciously ethnic Alfredo sauce. Sounds Mexican, if you ask me.

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You remember her VitaMix posts, too! Lol.

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Oops. I must have missed Meagan's upgrade to the Thermomix. It has 1500 watts of power compared to the Vitamix 1400 watts. My bad.

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When you absolutely positively need to crank it up.

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Whip it good...

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My by-now-ritual:

Don't count on it, some very bad people have very good sex, sometimes even mutually-satisfying with their lawful partner—it's not like this were a Just World.

(An ex-Légionnaire of Dakar c.1938 once told me that it was Gospel among the enlisted men on march that their officers paid good money to be tortured and humiliated by women; I told him that this seemed like a surprisingly naïve faith in the notion that the Universe were at all fair and made sense. I gather that stories like that were all they had…well, those, lice, wine, and boudin noir.) (In French Indochina, enlisted men could afford mistresses, little villas, and opium habits, and were considered likely to have been ruined as soldiers.)

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I love a good story...

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Hearted, but ewww.

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As a straight White man married to a straight White woman who is well past the child-bearing years, I just don't get what everyone is upset about. So what if they make abortion illegal? It matters nothing to me! Same thing with contraception or gay marriage or even marrying someone of a different race--I'm not doing any of these things, so what's all the hullabaloo? As an American conservative, if an issue does not directly affect me, personally, it's just not an issue.

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And if it does, I'll take care of it quietly and on the down low, with a simple exchange of cash, as the Founders intended.

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Hi, it’s me, the ghost of Antonin Scalia. Miss me? No? I don’t care!! When I invented the idea that modern life has to be governed by some white guys’ idea of what 18th century white guys thought was ok, little did I know that it would become the battering ram the fascistas would use to undo 200 years of social progress. As if that’s a bad thing! Now my fellow Italian Catholic Alito has applied it to reproductive rights and although most of you disagree, he’s gonna pull it off. Genius! And the cherry on top of this shit sundae is the way he took my other great legal fersnoggle - from Bush v Voters’ Intention to Elect Gore - that a completely fucked-in-the-head legal decision can be justified by saying it can’t be used again, even if everyone knows it can be. So, little people, Tony here signing off from the Great Beyond, which is a little warmer than I expected, but not too different from Phoenix in July without the swimming pools. Enjoy the country I bequeathed to you and tell Clarence I have a spare room for him and that nut job wife of his.

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I sure like if as a word, but I'm having trouble finding "fernsnoggle" in the OED.

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"...tell Clarence I have a spare room for him and that nut job wife of his."

A consummation devoutly to be wish'd.

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Can't wait for all the hand-wringing in the media (as if) when they discover that Thomas leaked the draft to Mrs. T, telling her, "That fucking Roberts is trying to twist arms into getting us to vote for his milquetoast compromise. We need to get this out there, pronto, before Gorsuch has another attack of conscience or Kavanaugh has another beer! You have the email of that guy at Politico, right?"

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The sleuths at NewsMax have already identified the leaker, and it was The Black Lady, despite the fact that she's not actually on the court now and isn't party to any of the deliberations.

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Well, you know she WANTED to do it, and her brainwaves probably caused whoever did it to do it.

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I can't even laugh. And as an Old, this unwanted pregnancy thing is beyond me. So will you look at me, another bleeding heart lib caring about other peoples' rights. It's Communitastic, I tell ya.

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Why, once this "caring about others" thing gets started, where does it end? With single-payer health care, free college and adequately funded public housing, that's where [shudder]

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True! I started out caring about abortions even though I don't need them, and all of a sudden I'm voting for school bonds! I'm not even having kids!

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Empathy is a helluva drug.

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Of *course* Thomas Jefferson would have been against abortion. I mean, where would this country be if a man could no longer sell his own children.

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"Cha-Ching!" is the sound of Jefferson coming.

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I looked at my wife this morning and said: "Roy's funny in his usual disturbing way." That's a compliment by the way.

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Thanks?

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"Funny in what way? Funny ha ha, or funny disturbing?"

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Yes

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Nailed it. And the pains the Maestro surely goes through to be able to craft these gems, oy!

Except to say McGargle’s correct. The next group to find themselves without any rights will be the gays. Meanwhile, anxiously waiting to see how SCOTUS decides that outlawing miscegenation is a state right because, I guess, states know better than the feds whether mixing of the races should be banned or at least subject to state control. I presume Alito will bang that one out unless the Deep State gets to him first like they did Scalia. Of course, the DS was following the order of a Dem POTUS and Sleepy Joe’s the last one of those we’ll be getting in any of our lifetimes unless, I guess, we get a Manchin Democrat/DINO who fully supports the GOP.

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That whole race thing is so easy when you know what people look like, right? And that whole sex thing? Same! Lawmakin' is easy when ya focus on the obvious stuff!

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Thus the spittle-flecked outrage at mixed-race and transgender folks, for messin' up our categories. Stay in your lane, people!

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For what it's worth, Jefferson's on the record (in the Notes on Virginia) admiring Native women for being so resourceful on the abortion question: "They raise fewer children than we do. The causes of this are to be found, not in a difference of nature, but of circumstance. The women very frequently attending the men in their parties of war and of hunting, child-bearing becomes extremely inconvenient to them. It is said, therefore, that they have learnt the practice of procuring abortion by the use of some vegetable; and that it even extends to prevent conception for a considerable time after." https://bavatuesdays.com/thomas-jefferson-on-abortion/ Note the absence of shock or judgment of any kind.

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Wow, good find., And where's the respect for our ancient European heritage of the old crone in the hut outside the village who was always good for some potions and tinctures for whatever ails ya, including unwanted pregnancy?

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That old crone is the reason the American Medical Association devoted so much energy to getting every state to outlaw abortion between its founding in 1847 and 1880 or so. It wasn't to stop abortion. It was basically to kick women out of the business of providing healthcare to women (most of those laws made exceptions for abortions "advised by two physicians") and have men with medical degrees take over. In Alito's view of what's "deeply rooted" in history, women don't play a part. More here http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2022/05/opinions-we-never-finished-reading-ii.html

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I was gonna argue about some of the crones being young, but you caught me like thirty years too late. Anyway, looking forward to giving some extremely horrified advice to folks in the years to come. "Yeah.... that much of this specific herb will kill you at your weight."

Incidentally, Plan B doesn't work for everyone, and you probably shouldn't count on it if you weigh over a hundred fifty or so.

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Back in the day, the old crone was the one who knew which herbs might fix your problem from the ones that would probably kill you.

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Thank you, I am so stealing and sharing!

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Forty years ago when I got out of the Army, I hung out with a bunch of self-styled libertarians (please don't ask how or why). They were all basically reactionaries who didn't like being upfront about what they were. Anybody who calls themself that stupid, made-up title is either a fool or a jerk (or both) in my opinion. Bad cess to them all.

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I never met a self-confessed libertarian who was otherwise than your experience.

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Radley Balko is the only self-confessed libertarian I've read who actually is something other than a conservative, and he actually gives a damn about civil liberties. But by and large, it's people like Nick Gillespie and McMegan who are the public face of that crowd.

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Don't forget now largely retired Ronald Bailey, climate change denier (until it got too obvious) and general corporate whore.

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It's often associated with a profound lack of life experience (or at least adverse life experience). The kind of favored upbringing that could convince you bad things only happen to people who deserve it, and they should "pay the consequences of their choices". I dearly wish life would deal a beating to these folks that would make them reconsider their own life choices, but so many of them come from the well-insulated class, so that's not likely to happen, no matter how much I wish for it.

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Well, that, and STOP READING AYN RAND FOR FUCK SAKE!

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"As a Libertarian," is your signal to step away from the pod person...

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Ranks right up there with "I'm no racist, but..."

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No byline on this, but I think we all recognize the inimitable brain-pickled stylings of Peggy Noonan.

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Alito's hit list of other rights to be subject to rational basis review and accordingly subject to legislative elimination also included the right to control your kid's education. That one stumped me until I realized the goal is state-mandated religious instruction. It is not enough for the theocrats that we be forced to subsidize their religious observances and indoctrination. Our kids must be compelled to endure it as well. Also, too, laws against adultery will easily withstand rational-basis review. Criminalizing masturbation, at least for men, might as well. Will no one think of the sperm?

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Yeah, been coming a long time. And the grifto supremo is getting the gummint (that's you and me, pally) to pay the churches for taking the load off...

And no. No one will think of the sperm.

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I think it simple: libertarians are right-wing because the regime they favour would result in what we have but more so, with all the historic faults reëmphasised. (Notably, most libertarians have no trouble with Statist interferences in the Most Holy Market that are corporate-friendly, viz esp. corporate personhood, and bankruptcy.)

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Perfection, Roy. I have a rather large liquor collection (I'd count just my many bottles of Amari but I'm lazy), and a well-crafted cocktail is one of my pleasures in life. If a guest at one of my small soirees came out as Libertarian I would throw my cocktail shaker at their head. Just saying.

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Gee thanks, Roy, until this moment I hadn't ever heard of this Orin Kerr fellow, who can't add 48 to 32 and see that the sum is many, many times bigger than 19. I'll have to go back and check his past work, somewhere in his late 2020- early 2021 output there must be an essay entitled "74 million votes is really a little bit more than 81 million votes, once you round it and don't think about it too much after that."

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I'd heard his name before, and for some reason I'd always thought he was a liberal. I was today years old when I read his Wikipedia page, and was instantly disabused of that notion. "In 2003, Kerr took a leave of absence from the law school to clerk for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court during October Term 2003.[7] In 2009, he served U.S. Senator John Cornyn of the Senate Judiciary Committee as Special Counsel for Supreme Court Nominations during Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as Supreme Court Justice;[8] a year later, he again served as an advisor to Cornyn, this time on the Supreme Court confirmation of Elena Kagan.[9]"

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