Category Archives: Women’s Reproductive Rights

Supreme Court: Amy Coney Barrett Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearings, Day 1

12 Mon Oct 2020

Posted by in Anti-Fascism, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Totalitarianism, Democratic Party (USA), First Amendment (U.S. Constitution), Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Police State, Political Science, Presidential Election 2020, Republican Party (USA), Women's Reproductive Rights

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Republican President Donald Trump nominated Republican Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court on September 26, 2020. Waiting in the wings, Barrett was Trump’s runner up in his race to tilt the Supreme Court on key controversial cases when he nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court on July 9, 2018.

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—The Senate Judicial Committee began its Supreme Court Justice Confirmation Hearings today.  The Republican Party seeks to install Republican Judge and Christian Right favorite Amy Coney Barrett on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an unprecedented move, right-wing President Trump stands to seat his third Supreme Court justice.  This will likely tip the scales on the nine-seat Supreme Court, 6 vs. 3, such that the Republican Party and Trump will be able to reverse six previously untouchable Supreme Court decisions (i.e., “super precendents”) by taking new controversial cases, which can overturn legal precedents, including Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act, and same-sex marriage rights.  And the Republican Party, along with their corporate funders and moneyed interests, have lined up those cases for the Supreme Court, just as they’ve filled it with right-wing ideologues.

The Republican Party has repeatedly tried to overturn those “super precedent” cases. That agenda has been part of the Republican Party platform, since at least 2016, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both campaigned on promises of appointing judges, which would overturn Citizens United and Roe, respectively.

Meanwhile, Barrett has been on Trump’s shortlist for years. And Barrett, for her part, has checked all the necessary boxes in her meteoric rise to the Supreme Court after only four years on the bench. Barrett has been an activist in the right-wing Federalist society, which has effectively functioned as a feeder to the Republican Party’s Supreme Court nomination list. It’s obvious to any literate observers paying attention to this nomination process that Barrett is a Republican Party partisan and activist, who has carefully maneuvered her way to this position. Yet, Barrett will say she never expected to find herself in that position. Is she a wolf in sheep’s clothing, who will fulfill Trump’s 2016 promise? Will Amy Coney Barrett and the Republican Party gaslight the entire world? Or will Barrett prove to be non-partisan? They say the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Let’s listen closely and take notes, shall we?

Messina

***

Channel:  PBS Newshour [1]
Program:  “The Barrett Confirmation Hearings” [Day 1], link
Date:  Monday, 12 OCT 2020

***

BROADCAST NOTES:

(c. 5:30) Drama begins shortly…

Senator Lindsey Graham served as the Senate Judicial Committee Chair.

Ranking member Democrat Senator Feinstein offered a mealy-mouthed opening, with little-to-no forcefulness of opposition to the Trump judicial end run. She seemed more interested in preserving her political legacy, than in mounting a meaningful opposition to the Republican judicial confirmation.

Senator Grassley spoke in favor of the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Senator Durbin spoke against the confirmation of Republican Judge Barett

(c. 1:09:36) Senator Lee spoke again in favor of confirming Republican Judge Barrett.

(c. 40:52) Senator Leahy speaks against the confirmation of Judge Barrett.

—snip—

(c. 1:20:54) [TW] Democrat Senator Whitehouse (Rhode Island) spoke against confirming Republican Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court.

(c. 1:31:30) Republican Senator Ted Cruz spoke in favor of confirming Republican Judge Barrett.  He spoke nonchalantly about Barrett’s “impeccable” credentials.  Never mind the broader political consequences to the credibility of the Supreme Court as an institution.   Cruz argued that this Republican move is not unprecedented and cited the three branches checks and balances as reassurance to the public, even as the Republican Party’s agenda is to politically capture the Supreme Court.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley (Missouri) spoke in favor of confirming Republican Judge Barret to the Supreme Court.  His rhetoric smacks of narcissistic abuse, in light ot the facts. But it likely played well to the Republican base.

—snip—

(c. 2:25:22)  Senator Blumenthal(sp?) [TW]

(c. 2:36:46) Republican Senator Tillis spoke in favor of confirming Republican judge Barrett.

(c. 2:43:09) Recess. Very interesting discussion. [TW]

(c. 3:07:25)  A “political correspondent” reported live from the Senate building.  Others joined later.

(c. 3:28:11)  PBS host transitioned back to testimony in progress on the Senate floor.  Senator Hirono began speaking a moment earlier.  Woodruff and guest finished making one last point, as they watched Senator Hirono testifying.

(c. 3:32:35) PBS Host Judy Woodruff interrupted Senator Hirono’s testimony livestream to sign out of the televised broadcast.  Woodruff informed viewers they must go online, if they want to continue observing the hearings.  Never mind the digital divide.

(c. 3:39:10) Republican Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa spoke in favor, arguing against a “super legislature” in the Supreme Court.  Ernst argued against “the left” and its “judicial activism” in the Supreme Court, evidently gaslighting the nation, as the Republican Party proceeds to do just what their blaming “the left” for doing.  Ernst doesn’t even seem to understand the American political spectrum because there is no “left-wing” in the USA anymore, since the Second Red Scare and McCarhyism, when the Republican Party bullied society into criminalizing the entire left half of the political spectrum. Since then, the USA has only allowed center-right politics. Third party politics and political alternatives are marginalized, blocked, censored, and undermined.  Ernst fearmongers against “the left”, but there is no “left” in the USA anymore. Ernst is complaining about Democrats, who are centrists.  Socialists and communists were vilified, criminalized, and run aground after WWII.  Ernst even sniped at the “left’s” accusation against Judge Barrett of being a “handmaid”, in an ominous reference to The Handmaid Tale right-wing dystopia.

(c. 3:47:40) Democratic Senator Corey Booker spoke against the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett. 

(c. 4:00:03)  Republican Senator Crapo spoke in favor of the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. Crapo made a series of straw man arguments, evidently hoping no one would notice.

Crapo bullshit argument number one:  Republicans are railroading this in a legally unprecedented fashion.  Crapo’s take-down of this argument involved listing a number of historical precedents when Supreme Court justices were seated within weeks of the passing of the previous Justice.  Hogwash, he moaned.  Of course, he knows as well as we do, the contention is not about the time between the death and the new confirmation.  The contention is over the ethics of confirming a new justice so close to an election day, when millions of Americans have already voted, and there is a pandemic going on, as such controversial cases are at stake in an already conservative Supreme Court, in terms of the controversial cases. 

Crapo bullshit argument number two. Crapo played some games of semantics around the terminology of the political science term, court packing.  Crapo proceeded to gaslight the nation by claiming the Republican Party agenda is not to fill the Republican Party is not trying to fill the seat with ideologically conservative or right-wing justices.  Crapo seemed to do this by deflecting to the personal character of Judge Barrett, rather than the political character of the Republican Party and its well publicized agenda.

When Crapo did talk about the Republican Party and its political character, he bemoaned that the Democrats had vetoed their earlier “$600 billion covid relief package.”

(c. 4:07:50)  “Judge, let me talk about you,” said Crapo, before Crapo proceeding to once again laud Barrett’s personal character.

Another bullshit argument Crapo made was in his conclusion of celebrating Barrett’s bio.  Crapo waxed poetically about how Barrett is a disciple of the right-wing Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  Crapo was either unaware, or feigned ignorance, of the fact that being a disciple of another judge makes a candidate less qualified for the Supteme Court, not more, because such a judge would be less independent, by definition.  “She also stated that the judicial philosophy of Antonin Scalia was hers, too. […]  That’s what we need,” he proclaimed triumphantly, a fresh new judge in the mold of Scalia, indeed personally mentored by Scalia. 

(c. 4:11:00)  Democrat Senator Kamala Harris spoke against the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S Supreme Court.  Suspiciously, if comically, as the Democrat Vice Presidential nominee is about to speak, the Republican chair of the Senate Judicial Committee  Mith McConnell struggled with technical difficulties, as Senator Harris sounded like she was in the middle of a Saturday Night Live satire.

(c. 4:21:30) [TW] Republican Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana spoke in favor of the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S Supreme Court.  The Senator from Louisiana definitely turned up the volume and the drama on the Senate floor when he invoked the Democrat Party challenge to the previous Republican Party nomination to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh.  We recall Kavanaugh became embroiled in scandal stemming from allegations of his youthful indiscretions, when one “Christine Blasey Ford told the Washington Post Mr Kavanaugh had pinned her to a bed and tried to undress her when they were both teenagers.”  That scandal arose in the context of his nomination by President Trump, who himself had to deal with a number of scandals himself.  In one video, he was recorded talking about grabbing women by the pussy.  Evidently, he was unaware such behavior constitutes sexual assault.  Oy vey.

— snip —

(c. 4:3?2:30) [TW] Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee spoke in favor of the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S Supreme Court.

(c. 4:42:30)  Republican Senator Lindsey Graham did some housekeeping, as chair of the Senate Judicial Committee.

(c. 4:45:06)  A shillish Republican Senator interjected  to ask what the obvious term “CDC compliant” means, which Graham ran with to fret about being accused of not testing for covid or wearing a mask and whatnot.  The two engaged in a bit of political theater, which surely played well to the flag-wabing, gun-toting anti-maskers.

(c. 4:45:06)  Grahamspeak

(c. 4:46:21) Republican Senator Todd Young spoke in favor of the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S Supreme Court.

(c. 4:51:02) Republican Senator Mike Braun from Indiana spoke in favor of the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S Supreme Court.  Braun billed her as “a legal tiger that drives a minivan”, from the Midwest not the East Coast, he chided.

Technical difficulties.

4:57:45

(c. 4:59:35) Judge Amy Coney Barrett spoke in favor of her own confirmation to the U.S Supreme Court.

(c. 5:11:50) O’Hara, Barrett’s “recruiter” spoke in favor of the confirmation of Republican Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S Supreme Court. Describing

(c. 5:19:28) Judicial Committee Chair Lindsey Graham gave his closing remarks, concluding Day One of the Amy Coney Barrett Confirmation Hearings.

***

[1]  “In 1992, radio broadcaster David Barsamian called the NewsHour “stenographers to power,” accusing them and other American news media of having a pro-establishment bias.”

“In October 2006 the media criticism group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) accused the NewsHour of lacking balance, diversity, and viewpoints of the general public, and for presenting corporate viewpoints. FAIR found that the NewsHour‘s guest list from October 2005 to March 2006 had Republicans outnumbering Democrats 2–1, and minorities accounting for 15 percent of U.S.-based sources. FAIR also protested in 1995 when Liberty Media purchased a majority of the program, citing Liberty’s majority owner, John Malone, for his “Machiavellian business tactics” and right-wing sentiments.”

***

[16 OCT 2020]

[Last modified on 24 OCT 2020 at 09:39 PDT]

The State of Eugenics (2016) directed by Dawn Sinclair Shapiro

20 Mon Mar 2017

Posted by in Anti-Totalitarianism, Documentary Film, History, U.S. History: 20th Century, Women's Reproductive Rights

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LUMPENPROLETARIAT—A new documentary entitled The State of Eugenics (2016) will be screened at UC Berkeley‘s Boalt Hall, School of Law, tomorrow night (Tuesday, March 21st, 2017, 5-7:30pm). [1]  The film’s director, a self-described filmalist (i.e., filmmaker/journalist), Dawn Sinclair Shapiro will be in attendance at UC Berkeley for a Q&A as well as part of an event sponsored by the UCB Department of Gender and Women’s Studies.  The film is

about the eugenic sterilization program [in] North Carolina [which] ran between the 1930s and 1970s.  The film documents how that long-forgotten program was brought back to light by researchers and journalists, resulting in a pitched political battle over compensating victims.

Questions of genetic enhancement and reproductive rights are controversial because they touch upon issues of women’s rights, discrimination, race, and class.  The eugenics movement became negatively associated with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust when many of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials attempted to justify their human rights abuses by claiming there was little difference between the Nazi eugenics programs and the U.S. eugenics programs.  Lumpenproletariat acquaintance (c. 2010-2012) Sabrina Jacobs has interviewed the film’s director Dawn Sinclair Shapiro.  Listen (and/or download) here. [2]

UPDATE—[21 MAR 2017]  Free speech radio’s UpFront has also broadcast an interview with filmalist Dawn Sinclair Shapiro on The State of Eugenics.  Listen (and/or download) here. [3]

Messina

***

The State of Eugenics (2016) directed by Dawn Sinclair Shapiro

***

UC BERKELEY—[accessed 21 MAR 2017]

Film Screening: The State of Eugenics

Film – Feature | March 21 | 5-7:30 p.m. | Boalt Hall, School of Law, Room 100

Sponsor:  Department of Gender and Women’s Studies

Please join us at 5:00 pm on March 21, 2017 at UC Berkeley for a free screening of The State of Eugenics, the just-released film about the eugenic sterilization program North Carolina ran between the 1930’s and 1970’s. The film documents how that long-forgotten program was brought back to light by researchers and journalists, resulting in a pitched political battle over compensating victims.

Comments and Q&A after the screening by filmmaker Dawn Sinclair Shapiro and University of Michigan Professor Alexandra Minna Stern.

Pizza and refrehsments will be provided at no additional cost!

This is the second event of the 2017 Being Human in a Biotech Age Film Series at UC Berkely.

Film is captioned but we are not able to provide live captioners/interpreters.

About the Film:

The State of Eugenics shines a light on a sorry and often-forgotten chapter in American history— the forced sterilization of thousands of Americans thought to have “undesirable” genetic make-ups. The film follows researchers and journalists who delved into dusty archives to bring North Carolina’s extensive eugenics program into the sunlight. When the journalists succeed in connecting those files to living survivors and the vast network of perpetrators are revealed, a grassroots movement begins, tirelessly insisting the state confront its nefarious past. The documentary— four years in the making, brings into focus the human tragedy that unfolded behind closed doors for decades and gives voice to survivors who believed their poverty would leave their stories untold and their pain unrecognized.

Across four decades, the state of North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 people— men and women, adults and adolescents. The program ended in the 1970’s, dismantled after a landmark lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of survivor Nial Ruth Cox. This sordid history had been largely forgotten until December 2002 when the Winston–Salem Journal published a five-part series, “Against Their Will,” that examined in stunning detail North Carolina’s eugenics program.

Historian Johanna Schoen and reporters John Railey, Kevin Begos and Danielle Deaver put the horrors of forced sterilization back in the headlines, prompting Governor Mike Easley to apologize for his state’s eugenics policies. That apology, however, provided only cold comfort to survivors. The film interweaves the stories of crusading journalists and contrite politicians with the inner thoughts of eugenics survivors: Nial Ruth Cox, Willis Lynch, and Dorothy Mae Grant. The three had been sterilized as teenagers by a state Eugenics Board that had become increasingly aggressive about advocating for sterilization as the answer to problems of entrenched poverty.

As survivors’ stories unfold in the film, a new effort to atone for the wrongs done to them emerges— monetary compensation.

About the Speakers:

Dawn Sinclair Shapiro began her journalism career working for the award winning news magazine program, CBS News Sunday Morning.Dawn has worked as a Producer, Associate Producer, Writer, Online Editor/Writer for Tribune Broadcasting, CNBC, MSNBC, Dateline NBC and Chicago Public Radio. She directed, wrote and produced her first feature length documentary, “Inside the Handy Writers’ Colony”, which aired nationally on PBS on October 23, 2008. In addition to the summer 2010 release of The Edge of Joy, current projects include post-production on Dialogues with China, a character study of world-renowned curator of contemporary Chinese art, Wu Hung.

Alexandra Minna Stern is a Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, and hold appointments in the Departments of History, Women’s Studies, and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Currently she directs the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and co-direct the Reproductive Justice Faculty Program based at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Her research has focused on the history of eugenics, genetics, society, and justice in the United States and Latin America. She also has written about the history of public health, infectious diseases, and tropical medicine. Through these topics, she has explored the dynamics of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, social difference, and reproductive politics.

For more information about the film The State of Eugenics and to watch the trailer, visit https://vimeo.com/191200802.

[snip]

Learn more at UC BERKELEY.

***

A RUDE AWAKENING—[20 MAR 2017]  [notes pending]

[snip]  (c. 29:59)

Learn more at A RUDE AWAKENING.

***

UPFRONT—[21 MAR 2017]  [notes pending]

[snip]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at UPFRONT.

***

[1]  For more information on the documentary film, The State of Eugenics, and eugenics in general, see:

  • The Internet Movie Database (IMDb):  The State of Eugenics (2016)
  • The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics edited by Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine.
  • Against the Grain; 8 AUG 2006.
    • broadcast summary:  “Anthony Platt’s book “Bloodlines,” which begins with the Huntington Library announcing its ownership of an original copy of the Nuremberg Laws, explores anti-Semitism, German and US eugenics, and the responsibilities of cultural institutions.”
  • Against the Grain; 5 MAR 2008.
    • broadcast summary:  “Anna Stubblefield talks about how the US eugenics movement produced distinctions between “pure” and “tainted” whites, which led to the sterilization of many white women classified as feebleminded.  And Heather MacDonald has made a film about anti-gay politics and violence in Oregon in the context of a divisive ballot measure.”
  • Against the Grain; 12 JUN 2013.
    • broadcast summary:  “Biologist Stuart Newman contends that efforts to improve humans via inheritable genetic modification constitute a “new drive toward DNA-based eugenics.””
  • Letters and Politics – The History of the US Eugenics Movement; 11 JUL 2013.
    • broadcast summary:  “The History of the US Eugenics Movement with medical historian Alexandra Minna Stern, author of the book Eugenic Nation.  And, Ariel Dorfman.“
  • Pushing Limits – Eugenics and preventing disability; 29 AUG 2014.
    • broadcast summary:  “We want to cure cancer, end war, and clean up the environment.  But, what do we lose if we end the disabilities caused by these things?  þ  Our guest is Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, a professor in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University who works in the field of Critical Disability Studies.  þ  Let’s end war and, in the process, stop creating veterans with PTSD and brain injuries.  Let’s clean up the environment and end the epidemic of chemical sensitivity.  Let’s cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes and other diseases so people will not suffer their pain and limitation.  þ  But, wait.  Consider that, historically, people with disabilities have been horribly abused and murdered to meet a eugenics goal of eliminating disability.  When we assume prevention is positive, are we close to preaching a form of cultural genocide?  Will we eliminate the many future intellectual and cultural contributions by people with various disabilities if we eliminate their disability?  Do people with disabilities contribute something important, something that comes out of their experience of living with disabilities?  þ  Dr. Garland-Thomson navigates the philosophical, cultural and social landscape as Eddie Ytuarte asks, “Isn’t preventing disabilities a good idea. . . sometimes?””
  • Pushing Limits – Anne Finger: Soviet Eugenics; 2 DEC 2016.
    • broadcast summary:  “Modern genetics offers parents the dream of choosing the characteristics of their children and aborting those who don’t fit their ideal.  As scientists move in this direction, disabled people are understandably critical.  They cite, for instance, the strong historical link between genetics and eugenics.  þ  In this program, Oakland writer Anne Finger explores these issues with Eddie Ytuarte through the lens of eugenics in the Soviet Union.  þ  Ms. Finger tells stories of a variety of unusual characters seeking real or supposed scientific truth amid the maelstrom of gigantic changes occurring in Russia before, during, and following the October 1917 Revolution.  Her essay, “The Left Hand of Stalin: Eugenics in the Soviet Union,” appears in the volume, “Disability Politics in a Global Economy: Essays in Honour of Marta Russell.”  þ  In Nazi Germany the theory of eugenics brought the world the ideal of the perfect Aryan race.  This led to the round up and death of 275 thousand people with disabilities and, eventually, the death chambers of the holocaust.  þ  Eugenic theory took a different tack in the Soviet Union where the goal was, not the perfection of a specific race, but the perfection of humanity as a whole.   There was early USSR resistance to the Darwinian theory of “survival of the fittest,” Finger says, citing early scientists who found that, in the harsh Siberian climate “sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle.”  þ  Join us for an in-depth look at eugenic-genetic questions.  þ  Produced and hosted by Eddie Ytuarte.”

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  A Rude Awakening, this one-hour broadcast hosted by Sabrina Jacobs, Monday, 20 MAR 2017, 15:30 PST.

[3]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  UpFront, this one-hour broadcast hosted by Sabrina Jacobs, Monday, 21 MAR 2017, 07:00 PST.

***

[Image of UC Berkeley film screening of The State of Eugenics used via fair use.]

[21 MAR 2017]

[Last modified at 13:34 PST on 22 MAR 2017]

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