May 6: A compromised Court?

In which, the much anticipated Roe ruling (one of them) gets leaked, Russia stalls out in the Donbas, and President Biden may have made his meta gaffe.

A compromised Court?

That the Supreme Court would be ruling on Roe v. Wade by June of this year was no secret. That they would likely be overturning Roe in whole or in part was highly likely. In fact, even progressive news outlets were anticipating as much.

What was not anticipated was a precedent breaking leak this week of an alleged majority opinion written by Justice Alito. Again, the ruling was anticipated, and it was anticipated to break against Roe. So, why has this leaked opinion generated a weekly news cycle so breathless that even the war in Ukraine has come off the front page?

First, it’s the nature of the leak itself. Though Chief Justice Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the document, he stressed that it was a draft opinion. So, while it indicates the anticipated majority against Roe, it’s not the final ruling and opinion itself. It could be, but right now it is not. And, in an institution that’s very tight on leaks to protect the jurors and their deliberations from public pressure, a leak of this magnitude constitutes a threat to the integrity of the Supreme Court’s processes and legitimacy. 

Second, the leaked document itself indicates a full throated rejection of Roe that has pro-lifers celebrating, but pro-choicers seeing the end of the world as they know it.

The first point should be deeply concerning to all of us who value America’s constitutional system. The second point should be a distant concern and shouldn’t surprise any of us. However, the news cycle has been dominated by the polarized reactions to the leak, and has turned the event into the kind of pearl-clutching crisis, click-based news platforms literally make their money off of. 

The downside of such warped media coverage is that the most crazy reactions are getting attention, which is raising the real possibility of violence in general and threats directed at sitting Justices specifically. In remarks eerily familiar to comments Donald Trump made during his presidency, VP Kamala Harris sounded a dangerously similar note to supporters of Roe.

Fun fact: California Governor Gavin Newsom appropriated Trump’s “fight like hell” phraseology for his own reaction to the leaked opinion.

The cherry on top, though, came from President Biden.

Biden’s “deplorables” moment?

In direct reference to the swirling media storm around the leaked Alito opinion, President Biden said that the "MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history."

This is rich coming from a President who leads a party that has generally denied the existence of ANTIFA, an actually organized and actually violent group; and has openly supported the Black Lives Matter organization, an organization that has also engaged in acts of violence. Unlike ANTIFA and BLM there’s no official MAGA organization. It’s merely a slogan, and one increasingly disconnected from the person of Donald Trump to boot. 

It was a blatantly false statement that, much like Biden’s demonization of the “unvaccinated” last year, that singled out a wide swath of Americans as public nuisances at best, dangerous at worst.

The comment bears an eerie resemblance to Hilary Clinton's ill-chosen “deplorables” comment from 2016, but certainly signals that Democrats are going to be willing to go to the mattresses on abortion rights in the run up to the midterms. Indeed, Chuck Schumer is already pushing ahead with a bill to codify abortion rights. The bill is likely to go down in flames, and Senators Manchin and Sinema are not about to budge on dropping the filibuster to pack the Court, so it’s mostly all a show, but a show intended to rally a progressive base that has largely lost interest in the Biden presidency.

Will the fighting words from President Biden be enough to re-energize Democrats ahead of the midterms? Not if the economy has anything to do with it.

Economic undertow 

President Biden was out in front early this morning celebrating a rather robust job report. However, with the Fed raising interest rates another level this week, the stock market dropping 1,000 points yesterday (after coming off a terrible April), housing markets showing signs of cooling, and a ballooning private debt problem that even limited student loan forgiveness is unlikely to fix, the President has a much bigger mess on his hands that one jobs report will fix. 

Why would there be an uptick in hiring with so much undertow in the economy?

One possible reason is that it could be a seasonal uptick as we’re coming into summer months and the post-COVID tourism season opens up. 

Russia’s stalling war effort