In case of fire break glass

My Sunday movie was The Whaler Boy. I heard about it because it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater and the story has a connection to Detroit. This is a coming of age movie of Leshka, a teenage boy living in a small village on the Russian side of the Bearing Strait. Their major industry is whaling and one of his jobs is to deliver whale meat around the village. Now that the village has internet one of the things the men do is watch a porn site, one where the women strike suggestive poses before a camera and for a tip will remove more clothes. Leshka becomes infatuated and obsessed with one of them. She happens to be in Detroit. He feels the village has become confining and he decides to cross the strait to try to meet her. Yeah, Detroit isn’t anywhere near the Bearing Strait. It was a nice story, though I was confused by what really happened in the last ten minutes. A couple more articles to go along with my long posts on abortion and the Supreme Court. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported on how much of a scam “crisis pregnancy centers” are. They do not discuss abortion. They pressure pregnant people to carry the baby to term. And they collect data. Lots of data.

“Their goal is to collect and store ultrasound photos, income, history of possible abuse in relationships, history of addictions, history of drug use, your STI history, your medical history,” [Women’s Law Project’s Tara] Murtha said. “And in many cases this is shared in a national database.”

And what do they do with that data? They could potentially turn it over to prosecutors as proof that you were pregnant on a particular date. And if you aren’t now and don’t have a healthy baby they have lots of data for criminal proceedings. They outnumber abortion clinics – places that really want to help women – 3 to 1, a ratio that will get bigger as clinics are forced to close. Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that after Roe was overturned red states saw a big jump in the number of people seeking vasectomies and tubal ligations. Many are people who don’t want children and are acting to make sure there aren’t any accidents. On to the (pathetic) Democratic response to what the Court did over the last couple weeks. Joan McCarter of Kos called on Pelosi and Schumer to Do Something. Cancel the August recess. Put bills on the floor to counteract the loss of abortion rights and also take Thomas at his word of the other things he wants to overturn. End the filibuster – there have already been filibuster carveouts in this Congressional term, so do it again. And fix the Court. While that is in process declare war on the Court. It isn’t just Daily Kos demanding action. Activists are also keeping up the pressure. They say Democrats aren’t treating the attack on democracy with sufficient seriousness. Simply voting again is not enough. Republicans see no consequences to their power grabs so why would they not continue? And if Democrats want us to vote for them again their leaders need to spell out exactly what they will do to protect rights. And do it. If they don’t embrace the need to fight voters won’t either. Back in a 2019 debate Elizabeth Warren said this while talking to another candidate, but she could say it to the current president:

You know, I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for. I don’t get it.

Kos of Kos wrote that the midterm election goes to the party out of power. And right now many voters are seeing the Democrats are the ones out of power, even though they hold (slim) majorities on both chambers of Congress and the White House. Voters can tell who is blocking the Senate from getting anything done. They can tell who stacked the Supremes who are overturning rights. We’re used to seeing single issue voters on the right – one large group demands expanding gun access, another demands abortion be banned. Now we’re seeing single issue voters on the left – people who will look only at whether a candidate supports abortion rights (which sounds good to me – if they support abortion rights they’ll likely support other things I want, the reverse is also true). Kos also showed a map of the 116 counties across 33 states that each have a greater population than the whole state of Wyoming. Michigan has four such counties. Kos made the point:

The Senate is so breathtakingly undemocratic that five of the six Republican-appointed justices were confirmed by Republican majorities having earned fewer votes and representing fewer people than the Democratic minority.

McCarter wrote that the Supreme Court, packed by the nasty guy, has gone rogue. The president and Congress must fix it. McCarter noted the Republicans do believe in expanding the court – when they do it. Republicans in Arizona expanded their state Supreme Court in 2016 and are proposing to expand the state’s court of appeals. The response from Democrats can’t just be what Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted:

Biden, in a statement on the Supreme Court guns decision sent to reporters by email: “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”

The Constitution was founded on checks and balances. Democrats must use them. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a few things to say on Twitter. If the president and Congress do nothing to restrain the Court, the Court has said they will come for the presidential election next. Members have sworn an oath to the Constitution. It is our duty to check this gross overreach. Einenkel added:

It is political malfeasance not to fight vociferously for the rights of millions of voters in your political party. It is morally and intellectually bankrupt not to see the Constitutional crisis we are facing.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos referred to the story of crisis pregnancy clinics in saying Republicans are now the party of overreach. Democrats can and must run on protecting privacy and liberty. McCarter compared our current situation to the signs “In case of fire break glass.” It’s time to break the glass because this is a five-alarm fire.

The consequences for the nation—for the globe—are dire. On everything, from abortion to criminal justice to the environment to voting rights. The only way this centuries-long experiment in democracy will survive is by taking minority rule away from the Court and from the Senate which created it. End the filibuster. Expand and reform the court. Or wave goodbye to every freedom that matters.