Gorsuch the Statist Activist Lies to Begin Day Two

"I am heartened by the support I have received from people who recognize that here is no such thing as a Republican or a Democratic judge. We just have judges in this country," intoned Judge Neil Gorsuch on Day Two of his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wow. Gorsuch must be the real deal—an intellectual jurist who modestly wishes to ascertain the law and facts in hearing federal litigation.

Don't believe it. The hearings are a blunt exercise in partisan power as blatant as exists in American society. And federal litigation is a means of Gorsuch imposing his religious, authoritarian politics.

Gorsuch is a statist activist looking to degrade the liberty claims of Americans, and he has reproductive rights and the 14th and 15th Amendments in his sights, for starters. Gorsuch will receive the vote of all Republican senators, and face the opposition from nearly all Democratic senators.

Discrimination claims, claims for liberty against incursions by the police and all manner of government, the entrenched private power of the corporation against the individual, Gorsuch would repeal decades of legal protection for Americans as a hostile Trump administration looks to inflict trauma onto American citizens.

The Fourth Amendment looks to die a quiet death if Gorsuch wins confirmation.
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Consdier Justice Lewis Powell, writing for a unanimous Court in 1972, denouncing the Nixon administration’s electronic surveillance, warrantless-wiretapping program not just on Fourth Amendment grounds, but as a betrayal of the sovereign rights of citizens in a democracy to criticize their own government:

"History abundantly documents the tendency of Government - however benevolent and benign its motives - to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect ‘domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. ... The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society."
(UNITED STATES v. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, 407 U.S. 297 (1972))

Gorsuch represents the ideological brand of statists who look at civil liberties claims with suspicion and hostility, and Justice Lewis F. Powell, (no civil libertarian), would today never have been nominated by a Republican president, so radical has become the anti-people party.

Glenn Grothman: Those Prevented from Voting "really got a problem," their problem

Glenn Grothman has made idiotic statements his trademark.
In 2012, campaigning for Rick Santorum he said
"money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job,
maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday,
ma be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a
so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”
Grothman made his remarks about women and money
"following Gov. Scott Walker's decision to repeal his state’s equal pay law,
a move that makes it more difficult for victims of wage discrimination
to file lawsuits for lost earnings and back wages,"
reported Aliyah Shahid in the New York Daily News

Simpletons populate any political jurisdiction, but in Wisconsin are over-represented in the state legislature, in which State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend, Wisconsin) has reached the level of the most prominent dolt in Wisconsin's upper house.

From Emma Rollor in Slate Magazine:

If there were an annual award for Zaniest State Legislator of the Year, Glenn Grothman probably wouldn't win, but he'd come close. ... Grothman has spoken out against Martin Luther King Jr. Day and denounced Kwanzaa as a liberal scam. ...

Now, Wisconsin Senate Assistant Majority Leader Grothman is speaking out on behalf of black Wisconsinites again, this time on the issue of voter ID:

Wisconsin Republicans are pushing a bill to end early voting on the weekend. The measure would make it harder for people in the state’s most populous areas to cast a ballot—and it would hit blacks especially hard.

But state Sen. Glenn Grothman, a Republican who is sponsoring a Senate version of the bill, told msnbc it’s already easy enough to vote.

"Between [early voting], mail absentee, and voting the day of election, you know, I mean anybody who can’t vote with all those options, they’ve really got a problem," he said. "I really don’t think they care that much about voting in the first place, right?"

Understandable that Grothman's arguments on voting were not proffered in open court or in briefs by Wisconsin Dept of Justice attorneys in the federal, potentially landmark trial on states' voter ID laws just concluded.

Grothman has made off-the-wall political remarks over his long career in the Wisconsin legislature his trademark.

Glenn Grothman campaigning for Rick Santorum in April, 2012 also said "money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”

Grothman made his remarks about women and money "following Gov. Scott Walker's decision to repeal his state’s equal pay law, a move that makes it more difficult for victims of wage discrimination to file lawsuits for lost earnings and back wages," reported Aliyah Shahid in the New York Daily News during the 2012 race for Republican nomination for president.

From MSNBC:

 (S)crapping weekend voting will hit African-Americans particularly hard, Rev. Willie Brisco, who leads an alliance of Milwaukee churches, told msnbc. "A lot of people in our community are working two or three jobs, odd hours, having difficulty with childcare," said Brisco. "So the weekend and the early voting reaches a lot of those people. Brisco said his organization ran a "Souls to the Polls" drive last year, encouraging congregants to vote en masse after church on Sunday. "We really need our community to stay engaged in the political process, and to be a determining factor," Brisco said. "And there is a concerted effort to make sure that doesn’t happen."

GOP Bets Heavily on the Appeal of Misogyny

Photo that caught a nation napping as women are targeted

Update II: Irin Carmon reports: Something incredible just happened. Faced with a growing national outcry against a bill forcing an ultrasound before an abortion — which activists and legislators had been comparing to rape — Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell backed off from his earlier support. “Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state,” he said in a statement today. “No person should be directed to undergo an invasive procedure by the state, without their consent, as a precondition to another medical procedure.”

Update: See Opus Dei and the War on Birth Control: Neofascism Within the Catholic Church

Those failing to challenge Virginia's state-mandated (not just state-sponsored) rape of women are betraying humanity. The War on Women has been declared; whose side are you on?
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The above-right shot is not a photo of a 16th century inquisition. This is 2012, and these men are going to engage in a discussion on WOMEN'S health, contraception, and family planning.

I'm not going to ask "What's wrong with this picture?"

We know what's wrong.

I'm asking how can this be happening in 2012?

By Progressive Eruptions

What I want to know is: Where are the women?” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked the committee chairman, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) before walking out. “I look at this panel and I don’t see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventative health care services, including family planning. Where are the women?”

More here.

From Politico:

"The image of men dominating the discussion about women’s health, say those on the left, may galvanize women voters in the way that the Senate Judiciary Committee's handling of sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas did in 1991.That incident is widely credited with the election of a large number of Democratic women the next year.

'I think it is an Anita Hill comparison,' said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who staged a walkout of Democratic women in protest of the chairman’s decision not to seat a minority female witness at the start of the hearing. 'I hope it will be just as galvanizing.' ”

More anti-woman legislation:

This time from the Commonwealth of Virginia, which just passed a bill that REQUIRES a doctor to give a transvaginal ultrasound (that is legislating vaginal penetration by the state) before a woman receives a legal medical procedure, even when the doctor deems it is not necessary. Democrats in the legislature tried to pass an amendment to the bill:

"An amendment by Del. David Englin, D-Alexandria, would have allowed medical professionals to determine whether images can be obtained without being penetrated by equipment used in the ultrasound."

The amendment failed.

Republican Governor McDonnell says he will sign the bill.

Got that?

Lord, you'd think there's less fools in this world

Virginia is poised to legislate forced penetration of a pregnant woman's vagina in order to obtain an image of the embryo or fetus and then the woman will be forced to view the image before she is able to receive a LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE.

No exceptions under any circumstances whatsoever.

This monstrosity of a law forced on the women of Virginia by the party that wants government out of its lives.

The GOP has lost its mind; and certainly women's votes.

Here are some of the comments on the website announcing the legislation:

"Wake up Virginia! Wake up America! Virginia is about to pass legislation that requires women to undergo an invasive search of her body in an effort to gain permission from Republican legislators for her to obtain a perfectly legal medical procedure from her doctor.

Now, if anyone wants to liken this law to that of the Nazi regime, go right ahead."

*****

"Forcing women to be penetrated vaginally? Isn't that the equivalent of rape??"

*****

"Well, reads that way to me ... but with rape you could get pregnant and then denied the right to abort the child of a socio or psychopath ... UNLESS you agree to be penetrated once again. You can see the logic to their argument, nes pas? Again, does it not appear that logic is nowhere in this legisltive thought process? Just sayin' ..."

*****

"If rape is nonconsensual penetration, then what the government is mandating is rape of a pregnant women. Have we gone so far down that path that our most vulnerable citizens can be treated in such a criminal manner. I hope the courts are getting to overturn this monstrous legislation."
*****

"An affront to all women everywhere!"

UPDATE:

From ThinkProgress:

"As Dahlia Lithwick explains, the effect of this bill would be to force most women to undergo a stunningly invasive procedure for no medical reason whatsoever. “Because the great majority of abortions occur during the first 12 weeks, that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure, in which a probe is inserted into the vagina, and then moved around until an ultrasound image is produced.”



Virginia mandates rape - nothing less

 In case Lithwick’s description doesn’t completely drive home what this means, here is a depiction of the procedure that women would be forced to endure under the Virginia bill:"
"Simply put, it is difficult to distinguish a law requiring women to be vaginally penetrated by a long metal object from state-sponsored rape. Worse, discussions among lawmakers leave little doubt that its supporters understood just what they were trying to write into law — they just didn’t care. As an unnamed lawmaker told a fellow Virginia delegate, a woman already consented to being “vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant."(confirmed with Englin that this quote was accurate.)

"VIRGINIA IS FOR MORONS"

Charlie Pierce writing in Esquire: "Yes, and anyone who has had their earlobes pierced already has made the decision that, one day, the law would require them to have a tenpenny nail driven into their eye."

Newest Bishop Robert Morlino Nuttiness

Bishop Robert Morlino must get his entitlement to impose bigotry from some sacred place indeed. And a new sign of the Cathlic Church ought to read "all are welcome, except women."

Doug Erickson has the story in the State Journal:

As a girl, Ruth Kolpack said she so loved her Catholic faith she played church with her friends during recess at a parochial school.

Often, she was a member of the congregation. Occasionally, she pretended to be an altar server, a role not available to girls at the time.

Now 64, Kolpack is still grappling with the role of women in the Catholic Church, although the circumstances are much more serious than a playground game.

On March 12, Madison Catholic Bishop Robert Morlino fired Kolpack from her position as the full-time pastoral associate at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Beloit. The termination came after Kolpack said she refused the bishop’s request to renounce a 2003 college thesis in which she argued for more gender-inclusive language at Masses and harshly criticized the Catholic hierarchy’s doctrine of only ordaining males.

See also:

• Ruth Kolpack's thesis
• Video: Doug Erickson talks about the story with

McSexist: McCain's War on Women

The propositon that John McCain will cut into the women's vote in the fall is ludicrous. For insights, see McSexist: McCain's War on Women.