House Solves One Crisis, Israel Causes Another

Iran Retaliates against Israeli Attack:

Israel has a history of poking at groups and countries until they fight back. For years, Israelis tried to make Palestinians miserable enough that they would desert Gaza and the West Bank until a militant group fought back. The question is whether Israel bit off too much by attacking the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria on April 1, killing seven military officers including a top commander. On April 13, Iran launched over 200 drones toward Israel after seizing a Portuguese-flagged cargo ship with links to Israel in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s “defensive systems” were deployed, Israeli airspaces have been shut down, and schools are closing. Gatherings over 1,000 people are limited in some areas, and dozens of Israeli combat planes are airborne for monitoring.  Worried that a counterattack could target U.S. troops in the Middle East, the U.S. began last week to dispatch more ships and warplanes to the region. The U.S. has shot down some of the drones, and Israel intercepted most of the others.

U.S. House Peacefully Passes Surveillance Act:

After much drama, publicity, and months-long stalling , the House reauthorized the FISA package by 273-147 with 147 Republicans and 126 Democrats voting in favor of the reauthorization, and 59 Republicans and 88 Democrats voting against it. The renewal was for two years instead of the former five years, but it did include Section 702 permitting warrantless surveillance of foreigners. Earlier this week, 19 House Republicans had tried to follow DDT’s order, “KILL FISA.”

Section 702 provides about 60 percent of intelligence in the president’s daily briefing. The deadline for reauthorization is April 19, but a majority of the senators support the bills. Some GOP senators are furious about Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) trying to destroy the FISA extension to remove intelligence agencies from the ability to spy on U.S. adversaries and terrorists. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) maintained that loss of FISA would cripple U.S. intelligence gathering. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said that without FISA, “we’d go dark on a lot of threats.”

A proposed amendment to the FISA bill requiring warrants for domestic communications caught in foreign surveillance operations lost by 212-212 with 86 Republicans and 126 Democrats voting against it. Hardline conservatives enraged by their GOP colleagues who opposed the amendment, including Speaker Johnson who voted in favor of the final FISA package, threatened to campaign against them. After the FISA bill passed, hardliners blocked its transmission to the Senate, postponing its sending to the upper chamber until the House’s return on Monday. Johnson said he supported FISA because he received more confidential information about Section 702 after he became Speaker.

The House faces many challenging high-pressure issues—repairing the Key Bridge in Baltimore, expanding the child tax credit, determining a possible TikTok bill, reauthorizing the FAA, finishing a rail-safety bill, and, of course, readying the impeachment case against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. But the rules committee has a Monday schedule for bills that they consider more important to send to the full House floor:

• H.R. 6192 — Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act
• H.R. 7673 — Liberty in Laundry Act
• H.R. 7645 — Clothes Dryers Reliability Act
• H.R. 7637 — Refrigerator Freedom Act
• H.R. 7626 — Affordable Air Conditioning Act
• H.R. 7700 — Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards Act

These bills are intended to oppose energy efficiency and increase climate change, similar to the GOP hysteria over gas stoves, low-flush toilets, and light bulbs. Republicans know that the Senate won’t bother with the bills, but the GOP uses them in their presidential campaigning for DDT and their own fundraising. Steve Benen writes that Republicans ignore important issues because “that work (a) is difficult; (b) requires real legislative work; and (c) necessitates meaningful, bipartisan solutions.”

The FISA deal was done in time for Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson to fly to his meeting with DDT at Mar-a-Lago where the two of them continued to promote the “big lie” about a stolen election in 2020, another important campaign issue for DDT. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), strongly supported by DDT, has a motion to vacate Johnson’s position as speaker, but during the Mar-a-Lago visit with Johnson, DDT supported the Speaker, saying “he’s doing a really good job.” DDT and Johnson plan a bill to prevent non-citizens from voting, already encased in federal law, by requiring proof of citizenship. In 2016, DDT claimed that 3-5 million non-citizens voted against him; a study found about 30 ballots from illegal votes. DDT lost that election to Hillary Clinton by 3 million popular votes.

On Fox’s The Five, co-host Richard Fowler said that DDT’s and Johnson’s voter fraud claims had “no evidence,” citing the highly conservative Heritage Foundation’s database reporting “fewer than 50 cases of noncitizens voting in elections since 2002. According to a 1996 law, any non-citizen attempting to vote in a federal election commits a felony, is heavily fined, and potentially be deported.

Asked about DDT’s support for Johnson, Greene said DDT “loves me.” Greene also bought Truth Social stocks almost 30 months ago but won’t say that happened to those shares.

Pro-Choice Rulings Differ in States:

One of Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia’s conservative achievements before he suddenly died in 2016 was the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby ruling that permitted religious, anti-abortion employers the right to refuse coverage of contraception in their employee health insurance. Ironically, a three-judge panel from an appellate court used that decision to support abortion rights in Indiana. The opinion determined that the state’s abortion ban infringes on religious beliefs of plaintiffs of faith and Jewish Hoosiers for Choice that a fetus is part of a woman’s body and not an independent being with its own rights.

Opposing the Hobby Lobby decision, the state said the plaintiffs were not entitled to religious protection, but the court cited the Supreme Court ruling as a decisive precedent. Like health insurance, abortion is a “mandatory religious ritual,” according to the opinion. An appeal would go to the Indiana Supreme Court. Elizabeth Sepper, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, called the decision “enormously significant,” showing “what an even-handed application of religious liberty doctrine looks like.” The case could fight the religious right’s opinion that it can impose its beliefs on everyone.

In Arizona, four state Supreme Court Justices reinstated an 1864 law banning abortions. Former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, who criticized the decision, had expanded the court from five to seven justices in 2016 and appointed the four justices who banned abortion. One of his five appointees abstained, and both Republicans nominated by GOP Gov. Jan Brewer voted against the decision. Voters decide to retain or reject judges two years after their appointments and every following six years. Two of Ducey’s justices are up for reelection this year. The wife of one justice supporting the law, Shawna Bolick, is running for state Senate in November and called on the legislature to repeal the law. The ballot also has a citizens initiative to put abortion rights into the state constitution.

William Jones, author of the 1864 Arizona anti-abortion bill, was married at least four times, all his wives under 15. At that time, the age of consent was nine years old. He abandoned his first wife and their children in Missouri; he abducted his second wife, a 12-year-old Mexican girl; he abandoned his third wife, 15 at the time of their marriage, when he moved to Hawaii in 1865 and took another 15-year-old bride. Jones tried to become a delegate to the Confederate Congress when the Southern states seceded and took refuge in Mexico after pro-Confederate forces were driven from most of the Southwest. The Union Army, considering him a traitor, blocked his return until early 1864 when he took an oath to support the U.S., seven months before the establishment of the first territorial legislature and he was elected Speaker of the 18-member lower house.

In 1870, The first territorial census was 9,658 residents other than non-citizen Native Americans, much larger than the earlier population in 1864 before the transcontinental railroad and the westward migration after the end of the Civil War. Because women couldn’t vote, the actual number of voters could have been about 1,000. During a 43-day session, their representatives voting on a 400-page package may not have been aware of the abortion ban, instead focusing on building the state capitol and six roads as well as obtaining federal funds to deal with Navaho and other tribes. Other legislative business was granting two divorces, one to the post surgeon at a military post and the other to a legislative member who claimed to be lured into marriage “by fraudulent concealment of criminal facts. Those are the people and the situation for Arizona’s 1864 law now used in 2024.

Until 1864, abortions were permitted until after “quickening” when women felt fetal movement, between 16 and 21 weeks. In 1864, Arizona’s 27 white male legislators used opposition to women and immigrants to rule on women’s bodies. Male physicians resented midwives at that time, considering them competitors, and used reproductive rights and health care to gain decision-making power. At the same time, birthrates among American-born women were drastically falling while the influx of Catholic immigrants rapidly rose. The result was a xenophobic fear of “replacement” by these immigrants. By the end of the 19^th century, every state and territory criminalized abortion because of the American Medical Association. Over a century later, the AMA believes that early termination of a pregnancy is between a doctor and patient, not recognized by conservative lawmakers.

Draft for Overturning Roe – An Abuse on Religion, History

It’s June, and the U.S. Supreme Court has 33 cases yet to announce, including the possibility of overturning the almost 50-year-old Roe v. Wade permitting abortion for the first trimester and state regulation for the pregnant person’s health during the second and third trimesters. Samuel Alito’s rough draft for at least five conservative justices relies on mistaken religious, historical, scientific, and constitutional information.  

The cited religious freedom belongs only to Christian evangelicals who believe life begins at conception and fetuses are “babies.” The less religious conservative justices won’t believe constitutional “separation of church and state.” The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In theory, that line should give the same rights to Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Bahais, Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics as to evangelicals. Christian evangelicals,  taking control of law in the U.S., believe everyone must follow strict fundamental Christianity, like Islam shariah law.

Rabbi Robert B. Barr and Rachel Smith of Congregation Beth Adam in Loveland (OH) wrote an op-ed for the Cincinnati Enquirer arguing that Justice Samuel Alito wants to impose a highly strict interpretation of Christianity on everyone in the United States.

“Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization proposes an alarming erosion of the vital wall that separates church from state—between personally held religious beliefs and our shared government. If the U.S. Supreme Court adopts the draft opinion, the Court will be issuing an historic, precedent-breaking opinion based on the religious beliefs held by many of the current justices. Religion will be dictating public policy.”

Their position is that freedom of religion should not be determined by Supreme Court justices. The op-ed explains:

“The establishment clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits all levels of government from advancing or inhibiting religion. The Constitution prohibits the government from favoring one religious view over another or favoring religion over non-religion, and yet, that is exactly what this proposed opinion will do. This Court’s decision would adopt a narrow religious-based definition of when life begins and impose it on everyone in our nation. While some religions believe life begins at conception, others do not. Yet, the Court will impose one set of religious beliefs on everyone.”

According to Judaism, a fetus is “not a separate and independent life from the pregnant person.” The religion permits abortion if the pregnant person’s physical or psychological health is endangered. According to author Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, scholar in residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Talmud declares the fetus as “mere water” for the first 40 days. Overturning Roe imposes one notion about the beginning life on everyone.

Reform Judaism permits abortion in case of rape or incest, when genetic testing determines the fetus has a disease causing death or severe disability, and the birth would be an impossible situation for the parents. Other reasons for abortion are for a single woman, age under 17, and risk to the woman’s health. This difficult decision is made by the pregnant woman with consultation with a trusted person such as a physician or rabbi.

Muslim scholars believe that a fetus is not a life until it’s “ensouled,” according to lawyer and commentator on Islamic law Abed Awad. Islamism allows abortions up to 120 days.

State lawmakers have flagrantly made it clear that they consider abortion a Chrisian issue in their drive to make the U.S. a “Christian” nation of far-right, fundamentalist views:

Louisiana: State Democratic Sen. Katrina Jackson said that “this is a God issue.” Last year, she said, “My goal in this office was to do the will of God… My concern is always, number one, that I not offend God.”

Alabama: GOP Gov. Kay Ivey said, “This legislation states as a powerful testament … that every life is a sacred gift from God.” GOP state Sen. Clyde Chambliss said, “I believe that if we terminate the life of an unborn child, we are putting ourselves in God’s place.”

Missouri: GOP State Rep. Holly Rehder gave her reason for forcing victims of rape and incest to remain pregnant: “We can do that with the love of God.”

Former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) and VP Mike Pence echoed the “sacred gift from God” and “sanctity of every human life.”

Extremist anti-abortion laws forces extremist religious perspectives on state laws while all other religious perspectives are overridden. Contrary to the wishes of the Founding Fathers, these legislative laws will impose mandates on everyone, no matter what their religious beliefs are.

In addition to basing his decision on one decision of a minority, Alito demonstrated his weak grasp of history. He wrote:

“An unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.”

In early America, women could “restore their menses” until after “quickening,” the time when the pregnant person feels the fetus kicking and/or stirring which happens between the fourth and sixth month of pregnancy. Shared knowledge during this time, sometimes in published health manuals, gave directions for inducing miscarriages. The Married Lady’s Companion recommended quinine, black hellebore, or juniper; Indigenous women used black cohosh roots; and Black slaves had snakeroot, cotton root, and okra along with drugs sold by traveling salesmen in New England during the mid-1700s.

In writing about “deep history,” Alito used the words of a 13^th-century judge who endorsed human slavery and a 17^th-century judge who sentenced witches to executions and endorsed marital rape. [Right: Matthew Hale, Alito’s 17th-century legal authority.] 

The first anti-abortion laws in the U.S. passed by some states in the 1820s and 1830s banned drugs to induce miscarriages in women, “then quick with child.” Their purpose was to punish men who tried to escape marrying seduced women by giving them abortifacients and referred only to quickening. Alito ignored this legal history, including judicial rulings that cases could not be brought for abortion before quickening. He ignored this information in an amicus brief from two major professional associations of historians in the United States, representing the views of over 10,000 scholars and teachers. Instead he used the work of only one legal writer, rejected by most scholars because it “distorts the evidence.” 

Alito references laws from the 1860s and 1870s when pregnancies were criminalized because of a small group of self-interested white, male physicians anxious about their status as both doctors and as elite men who formed the American Medical Association. Women saw their treatment as “violent” and excessive, preferring midwives, homeopaths, and other “irregular” practitioners. Male doctors who massaged women’s vulvas to calm their “hysteria” also kept abortions legal to perform them for medical reasons.

The medical men were hostile to women’s activism and middle-class women preferring to restrict their families’ sizes and accused them of wanting “fashion” and politics over motherhood. Dr. Horatio Storer, the medical leader of the anti-abortion movement, wrote that “the true wife” did not seek “undue power in public life . . . [or] privileges not her own.” He and his AMA colleagues opposed women in the medical profession and pushed the racist fear of immigrants taking over the U.S. –the 150-year-old “replacement” theory—because white women didn’t want huge families. Instead, the U.S. would be taken over by “aliens,” Chinese, and Catholics. Alito claimed the words came from just “one prominent opponent,” but Storer was the underlying force driving criminalization of abortions as state and local medical societies used his essays, data, memorials, and letters to persuade lawmakers of the necessity to criminalize abortion at all states.

Prosecuting abortion providers and sometimes women seeking abortions was combined with shaming and punishing them through humiliation investigations. Abortions went underground where it wasn’t regulated, or women performed harmful practices on themselves. Chicago’s Cook County Hospital had an entire ward for septic abortion cases until 1973 when Roe made the procedure legal.

[Information thanks to Leslie J. Reagan, a professor of history and law at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and author of When Abortion Was a Crime and Dangerous Pregnancies.]

The term “opinion” when referring to Alito’s rough draft is accurate: his assertions about fetal development, abortion procedures, and international laws are disputed or are open to interpretation. Even pregnant women know he’s wrong. In the Atlantic, Chavi Karkowsky, a medical doctor in New York City and author of High Risk: Stories of Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected, points out Alito’s separation from reality.

All Alito’s mistakes may not be his own: his rough draft shows an uncanny similarity to a brief by Texan Jonathan F. Mitchell for the state’s anti-abortion law allowing people to sue anyone supporting an abortion, even verbal discussions. Filed for Texas Right to Life, the brief was coauthored by Mitchell’s colleague Adam K. Mortara. The words and ideas are much alike—rejection of stare decisis, the language of the constitution disallowing the right to abortion, and the lack of reason for retaining the “contract” of Roe. Both believe that women won’t lose their autonomy without abortion because they can “control their reproductive lives.” As usual, they use the term “unborn human beings” instead of correct terminology.

The question is whether Alito will fix all these mistakes in his final draft.