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I appreciate your resolve, and I appreciate the response you left for me last time. I'd appreciate if you responded again.

Today my parents were watching a nature documentary narrated by Obama. They remarked how they miss having him as president and how Trump ruined this country with his judges.

I miss the way things used to be. Back when I didn't watch the news. Back when Obama was president and I could be proud of my country. Back when I woke up and did fun things with my friends without worrying about current events. Back when our rights as human beings were guaranteed and I didn't spend all day obsessively looking at the news to make sure my safety as a gay person is safe. If they overrule Lawrence V Texas, I could be sent to prison like the Jews were in Hitler's time. So I feel like I have to watch for any indication that I have to flee the country. I feel threatened, so I spend all day doomscrolling hoping for any sign of hope for the future. Every article feels like doom and gloom.

I feel trapped in what feels like a right wing country where regular people are powerless to the billionaires, Christians, and brainwashed masses. I feel like I'm developing depression and helplessness. The idea that I can never go back to the way life used to be and that I'm stuck watching the slow motion collapse of our country makes life feel like a chore to get through. I can't even take pleasure in the simple things, knowing that everything I value and principle is uncertain. I have been on the verge of tears all day thinking about how Republicans could make it impossible for Democrats to win and I'll spend the rest of my life hiding in fear.

I don't know how to cope with this all. I'm seeing another therapist next week. I can't take this despair anymore. I know other people are able to enjoy their lives despite their worries, but every time I try to enjoy life, I think about the dark future that is coming and I feel depressed. It feels like I have a terminal illness. I hope my therapist can help, and I hope that someday this country learns to be kind again.

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The actual leak of the draft opinion is indeed not concerning as compared to the actual intentions of this SCOTUS in eroding a woman's rights- except for the fact that Chief Justice Roberts has called for an investigation of this, all the while refusing to investigate a sitting Justice's wife as she plotted to overthrow the government. We must stay fully engaged in this fight. We have a lot of work to do.

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founding

If Collins is so incensed about Kavanaugh and Gorsuch's lies, will she lead a move to impeach them? I doubt it. Perhaps it's the voters of Maine who should be incensed at Collins' hubristic naiveté.

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I have over the past several days spoken to many people to conduct my own limited reality check where people are. My conclusions are that for the most part people are angry, pissed off, frustrated and scared all rolled into one. The “ feelings” seem to be that our basic institutions are under attack especially the Supreme Court between Mitch McConnell, The Clarence Thomas and wife activity and of course the Roe vs Wade debacle. The crux of the discussions seem to be the feelings of helplessness like being in front of a fast moving freight train and not having anyway to stop the impending crash and disaster. Add to this is some of the Trump supported primary winners and it feels like it is getting worse not better. I guess the bottom line is we want to do more than just cast a vote we want to scream from the roof tops “ we are not going to put up with this any more “. We want actions not words and we want someone to stand up and push back and hold people accountable. We want to match the same energy and force the Republican are using to overthrow Democracy. We want to fight just like the Ukrainian people are against an autocratic force taking over this country. We want to take a stand. The question is can we do it?

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founding
May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

Hard truths for Mr. Hubbell to write but ones that must be said. This decision has caused me to revise my previous reluctance to embrace SCOTUS reform, in whatever form the political process will devise. This is a process that will, I believe, emerge in the next Congress as Democrats enlarge their present super-slim majorities. They will achieve that outcome if they are smart enough to run on a platform of (unspecified) Court reform.

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I vow never vote for anyone who puts an R by their name ever again. It is time to smother the Republican Party out of existence. .No one is going to take away my rights.

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For three years in law school i was taught to respect the Supreme Court. And for years after my 1972 graduation, I did. I began to lose respect for it when Clarence Thomas joined with the majority (despite his ethical conflict due to his wife's political activities) in a puzzling, aberative, illogical Bush v. Gore opinion, that assured the election of George Bush. Later, when the the Council for National Policy and the Federalist Society and the GOP colluded to pack the Courts with anti-abortion, pro-business, white-supremacist, anti-civil rights jurists (many with marginal and limited qualifications), I was appalled, and I could see the dots connecting, albeit at glacier speed. They were patiently playing a "long game." When Kavanaugh and Barrett lied during their hearings (like Clarence Thomas did) , and were not held accountable, I could see the glacier moving forward.

The short-hand description for American-style democracy was "majority rule, with minority rights." The Supreme Court once stood as the bulwark to protect rights of people; now, with this leaked decision, the GOP-appointed justices are announcing their intent to rob us of the many cherished rights that are necessary for a multi-race, multi-nationality, multi-gender, modern society to safely operate. It is the latest in GOP effort to keep power for white Christian men, regardless of the popular vote. Our motto, E pluribus unum, is now being torn apart.

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May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

I can only quote from a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News, April 30, 2022, titled "Don't Get Too comfortable." "Stanford University researcher Deborah Gruenfeld observed that when power feelings are aroused in otherwise ordinary people, they start viewing others as objects. As we grow more comfortable with this objectification, our sense of empathy decreases. With these others' concerns and feelings less relevant, they turn into a means to an end for the powerful .

As I read her research, I felt a gnawing sense that politicians today are taking this phenomenon to an alarming extreme. Women along with their reproductive rights have been objectified. Ditto Black people, the poor, the homeless, immigrants and most recently the LGBT community.

The objects they have become no longer deserve consideration by the powerful except as a means to further cement their hold on power through further objectification, in turn accelerating the desensitization process. Just as this cycle erodes empathy, it increases the desire for more power. With empathy gone, consideration of impact on others no longer matters.

I'm one of those others, and I'm a little afraid of where this will lead for people like me. Maybe you're one of those others too. Even if you're not, I wouldn't get too comfortable.

Kevin W. Jones, Northeast Dallas"

I couldn't agree more...

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May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

This is a time when liberals must speak from our values. What I would say is this:

Some religions say that terminating a pregnancy is murder, as serious as killing a born person. My religion does not consider those as equal, and it does not consider abortion a sin. is. My religion tells me that it is a sin is to bring into the world a child I cannot care for well. My religious beliefs say that "pro-life" is not the single-minded protection of fetuses, but something far greater: stopping the pillaging and polluting and overpopulating of God's gift to us, the divine Earth on which we all depend.

Simply stated: You simply do not have the right to make other people live by your religion.

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May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

“The only path forward is the hard path—it is the one that the Constitution grants us: the ballot box. Even as the Court turns its back on the Constitution, we must embrace it ever more fiercely. The Constitution will endure, and its faithful servants will prevail.”

I add to this thought only the words, “no matter how hard the fight and no matter how long it takes.”

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May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

It’s been a mix of stomach churning and now crying. I can’t understand how our country allows 5 people to change 50-70 years of precedent, simply because they want to. Not the country, not the majority. It makes me sick that there are so many people hell bent on controlling others, especially women. Their legitimacy left a long time ago, but it is definitely gone now.

As hurt and depressed as I am, I do believe this will only harden the resolve of the 70% of the country that wants abortion legalized. The message that needs to be sent from Democrats and Independents, “what rights will they rip away next?”

I don’t understand why Roberts wants his legacy on the court to be all about destroying its legitimacy and ripping away 70 years of progress between voting rights, civil rights and abortion rights. That is all it will ever be remembered as. If they think they will be remembered as heroes, even if that’s what a tiny minority of this country wants, they really are beyond saving.

I just don’t understand it. The blowback will be immense because this is not what the country wants.

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May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

Yes, "May the Fourth be with you". . as we go forth!

Regarding Supreme Court Justice Alito's

Having three granddaughters, two 25 and one 19, I see this onslaught on women's personal freedom and on our Constitution as a clarion call for some activist bonding between grandmothers and granddaughters. A force to be reckoned with, for sure! I was encouraged by Gloria Steinem, who was interviewed on PBS's Amanpour & Company last night. She's a granny, too, and she's in this fight. Still beautiful and brave. So must we all be.

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May 4, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell

I have read your comments about the leaked opinion. I think the gay community, and others, are making a mistake in their reactions - and certainly lawyers know better. Let’s start with the foundation for Roe. It is the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment. So the question is whether overruling Roe necessarily puts other liberty-interest cases at risk. The draft opinion suggests “maybe.” But it is only a draft. Rather than arguing that Roe should stand - a losing argument - better to focus on the differences between abortion and other rights deriving from the liberty clause and hope those arguments sway the final opinion. By far the biggest difference is the rights of third parties. With abortion it is the rights of the fetus. With gay and inter-racial marriage and other liberty interest cases there are no substantial third party rights at issue. (Are you listening, Justice Thomas?) Perhaps gay adoption. But the distinction remains important, and leaders like you should focus on it.

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Even before Alito's leaked draft, we knew the Supreme Court was a rogue institution, sans doute. Chief Justice Roberts had already made an ass of himself, while Justice Thomas and his right-wing Republican cronies in corruption succeeded in establishing the highest court in the land as an illegitimate arm of the Trump campaign to destroy democracy, sparking a smoldering rage among millions of Americans. I stand with Cathy Learoyd: "It is time to smother the Republican Party out of existence. No one is going to take away my rights." Especially a gang of dishonorable Supreme Court Justices who apparently lied during their confirmation hearings; especially a Justice who refuses to recuse himself from cases involving his wife in the face of evidence that she is an avowed supporter of the January 6 insurrection; and especially disingenuous politicians like Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Senator Murkowski (R-AK). I'm one of the 84% of Americans polled by Pew who still believe Justices should not mix politics with court decisions. It's clear now that Republican political operators are responsible for this crisis, one similar to what We the People have faced before. What president Franklin D. Roosevelt said in a speech at the Democratic convention in 1936 applies to the continuing Republican class war against the Constitution and the rights of women raging in America in this watershed moment of 2022 as well. Roosevelt spoke in the context of the Great Depression, but the fighting spirit of his words is apropos today: "It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization," the president stated. "It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world."

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Your conclusion is again the germane and essential part of today's newsletter and the first step has already been taken. It is absolutely necessary that Democrats and any rational Republicans who might still exist unite in supporting candidates who agree to codify the right to privacy and the sanctity of the individual that underlies the right to abortion and so many other rights of personal choice.

Other commenters have noted that such a right is inherent in the Declaration of Independence and it should long ago have been made part of our Constitution and the law of this land. It is the uncomfortable truth that the Court in 1973 created this right out of legal whole cloth and, to that extent, Justice Alito's draft decision is correct while being morally and philosophically wrong in it's impact. Proper resolution must necessarily come from the Congress and the several states in the form of an Amendment that cannot come too soon and for which it is nearly too late.

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founding

What "rights" are more deeply enshrined in this nation's soul than those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? We speak too often of the Constitution, too little of the Declaration, the soul of The United States. The pursuit of happiness, or individual fulfillment is anathema to the parochial, regressive Catholic mindsets of the reactionary justices. This is fundamentally a replay of organized religion's historic reaction to the secular promise of the Founders embedded in The Declaration. Freedom of religion for the individual simply isn't enough for the grasping nature of the non-spiritual. Their God is mean and heavy-handed.

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