At the Milkweed Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"I want to get out and protest right the fuck now - thinking of heading to the Capitol with a sign + my rage and hoping others join in."

Said one commenter — an hour ago — in the r/madisonwi discussion at Reddit.

An hour ago is about exactly when I walked through the Wisconsin Capitol Square, past the "Forward!" statue, loomed over by the spire of the Episcopalian church:

I thought I'd find at least a few people with signs, getting the protests rolling, but there was no one (other than a state employee watering the nearby flowers).

But you'll find some links at that Reddit link post. One goes to Facebook, where there's an announcement of a march to begin at the spot you see in my photo, beginning at 5 p.m. You're told to "[b]ring your loved ones, your rage, and your grief."

UPDATE: We drove up to the Capitol around 5 and there were lots of people with signs converging on the place. Traffic was blocked off.

"The dissent, which would retain the viability line, offers no justification for it either...."

Writes Chief Justice Roberts in his concurring opinion, rejecting the viability line without rejecting the right to abortion or finding a new line to replace the old line.

The viability line is a relic of a time when we recognized only two state interests warranting regulation of abortion: maternal health and protection of “potential life.” Roe, 410 U. S., at 162–163. That changed with Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124 (2007). There, we recognized a broader array of interests, such as drawing “a bright line that clearly distinguishes abortion and infanticide,” maintaining societal ethics, and preserving the integrity of the medical profession. Id., at 157–160. The viability line has nothing to do with advancing such permissible goals. Cf. id., at 171 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (Gonzales “blur[red] the line, firmly drawn in Casey, between previability and postviability abortions”).... 

"The dissent is very candid that it cannot show that a constitutional right to abortion has any foundation, let alone a '"deeply rooted'" one, '"in this Nation’s history and tradition."'"

"The dissent does not identify any pre-Roe authority that supports such a right—no state constitutional provision or statute, no federal or state judicial precedent, not even a scholarly treatise. Nor does the dissent dispute the fact that abortion was illegal at common law at least after quickening; that the 19th century saw a trend toward criminalization of pre-quickening abortions; that by 1868, a supermajority of States (at least 26 of 37) had enacted statutes criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy; that by the late 1950s at least 46 States prohibited abortion 'however and whenever performed' except if necessary to save 'the life of the mother,' and that when Roe was decided in 1973 similar statutes were still in effect in 30 States. The dissent’s failure to engage with this long tradition is devastating to its position. We have held that the 'established method of substantive-due-process analysis' requires that an unenumerated right be '"deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition"' before it can be recognized as a component of the 'liberty' protected in the Due Process Clause. But despite the dissent’s professed fidelity to stare decisis, it fails to seriously engage with that important precedent—which it cannot possibly satisfy."

Writes Justice Alito in the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (citations omitted).

"The Supreme Court on Friday overruled Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years in a decision that will transform American life, reshape the nation’s politics and lead to all but total bans on the procedure in about half of the states."

"The ruling will test the legitimacy of the court and vindicate a decades-long Republican project of installing conservative justices prepared to reject the precedent, which had been repeatedly reaffirmed by earlier courts. It will also be one of the signal legacies of President Donald J. Trump, who vowed to name justices who would overrule Roe. All three of his appointees were in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling. The decision, which echoed a leaked draft opinion published by Politico in early May, will result in a starkly divided country in which abortion is severely restricted or forbidden in many red states but remains freely available in most blue ones."

Writes Adam Liptak in the NYT.

Here's the opinion: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

ADDED: What's most interesting at this point, other than examining Alito's opinion to see what differences there may be from the leaked draft, is the Chief Justice's concurring opinion. What was this elusive middle position that he struggled to identify at oral argument and failed to sell to any of the other Justices?

SCOTUSblog has just gone live, covering the Supreme Court's case announcements.

Here.

Nine cases still remain to be decided, with more opinions coming a half hour from now.... 

I am not expecting all nine remaining opinions to be issued today. But I think there is an outside chance we get the press release at the end telling us that the next session will be the last, when the court would announce all remaining opinions "ready" from this term.

ADDED: The first case, Becerra, is too complicated to discuss here. It's about Medicare payments. But it's interesting that it's a 5-4 case, written by Kagan and joined by Thomas, Breyer, Sotomayor and Barrett. It's only the second case this term where Roberts and Kavanaugh haven't been in the majority. If Kagan is writing, that means she was assigned the task by Thomas (the senior Justice in the majority).

AND: Roe and Casey are overruled! 

Alito writes — here.

Roberts concurs.

"Thomas writes separately to reiterate his view that the due process clause also does not protect a right to an abortion."

"The Court says that only gun laws which have historical precedent are constitutionally permissible, and then the Court dismisses..."

"... all of the historical precedents for heavy restrictions on concealed-carry laws as outliers. The Court says that it is going to look to history, but dismisses early English common law as too old. The Court says that it is going to look to history, but dismisses any laws that were adopted after the mid-eighteen-hundreds as too young. The Court says that it is looking to history, but also says that shall-issue permitting is constitutional, even though shall-issue permitting is a twentieth-century invention. So the Court says that it is doing history and tradition analysis, but conveniently ignores any history it doesn’t like."

 
Said lawprof Adam Winkler, author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America,” quoted in "The Historical Cherry-Picking at the Heart of the Supreme Court’s Gun-Rights Expansion/A century-old New York law requiring individuals to prove “proper cause” to carry a handgun has been struck down. Are other gun-safety measures in peril?" (The New Yorker).

"People talk about the fact that we’re coming in and ruining women’s sports — but there are way bigger issues that women’s sports face...."

"The idea that a few trans women coming into a sport – and often times not even winning – and that’s what’s going to ruin women’s sports is pretty horrifying.... Because people are so focused on the advantages, they kind of ignore the fact that there actually are disadvantages that also come along with a transition.... Beyond all of this, as a society we need to build understanding and acceptance for queer people before we should even worry about sports."

Said "Transgender mountain biker Kate Weatherly slams ‘horrifying’ new rules on trans athletes" (NY Post). Weatherly was talking about the new rules in swimming and anticipating a similar development in mountain biking.

Within this argument sports are both very important and very not important. Similarly, gender difference is considered very important and, simultaneously, very not important. 

"In the early 1970s, Burton preached that members needed to immerse themselves in high art, such as opera and literature, in order to get rid of negative thinking.”

"He relied on ‘44 Angels’ — who included the spirits of historical figures such as William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin and Italian poet Dante Alighieri — to lead him in enlightenment." 

From "Inside the ‘love fest’ cult that’s allegedly infiltrated Google headquarters" (NY Post)("Google has been infiltrated by a 'destructive' California cult led by a 'pedophilic' leader, according to a lawsuit").

If you remember "Trap-house-gate"...

... you might want to read "A Controversial Dean's Departure From Yale Law/Dean Ellen Cosgrove, at the center of many recent YLS scandals, is retiring" by David Lat (at Original Jurisdiction).

"Pitt’s hair is slicked back, he’s wearing a gold medallion and an extremely flammable-looking shirt, lying down on a bed of artificial flowers."

"His eyes are open. He’s wearing mascara. He looks, not to put this indelicately, like some undertakers have tried to pretty up his corpse before his family arrives for a visit. Oh, and there’s a lizard crawling across him... Scroll through the interview and you’ll see Pitt dressed like a Jim Morrison waxwork having a stroke, chewing his finger while dressed in a bright yellow safari suit and hiding out in the spot where they dug up Billy Batts in Goodfellas, dressed like the Czech Republic’s 14th-best stage magician, and doing an A+ impression of Tino the Artistic Mouse from Hey Duggee.... Still, GQ has done a very thorough job of taking one of the world’s most photogenic men and making him staggeringly unphotogenic."

From "Fright club: Brad Pitt’s GQ photoshoot is an embarrassment of pictures" by Stuart Heritage (in The Guardian).

Brad Pitt on the August cover of GQ Magazine pic.twitter.com/DErgWJ0kHc

— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) June 22, 2022

ADDED: Cultural reference I had to look up:

Ha ha. The man tries to defend himself. In public. I'm amused because I have the same foible...

... but I wouldn't excuse it.

I'm reading "You be the judge: should my boyfriend close the kitchen cupboards after himself?" in The Guardian. I'll skip "the prosecution" section, where the girlfriend complains that it not only looks disorderly, she knocks her head on the open doors. (She's only 5' tall.) 

Here's the guy:

I see no issue with leaving kitchen cupboards open.

If this were Reddit, they wouldn't be saying he's wrong. They'd be saying this means so much and she should leave him now. But this is The Guardian, so let's read on: 

He's back.

Advice for returning to Twitter

— Anthony Weiner (@repweiner) June 22, 2022

I found that after reading "Anthony Weiner returns to Twitter after 9 years away — but followers say ‘just don’t’" (NY Post), which says "Though the competition was stiff, “Just don’t” was the clear winner, rising to the top of the poll as the choice of 62% of respondents." 

I voted for the least popular choice: "Update your bio, then run." He pleaded guilty to a crime and served his sentence. He's a registered sex offender. But he has a right to free speech and social media is for everyone. 

I'm assuming "then run" means get on with tweeting. Not run for office.

ADDED: I wondered, how's Huma Abedin these days. I see she filed for divorce in 2017, when he pled guilty, but she withdrew the case in 2018. Years later, there is still no divorce. The Guardian published an interview with her last month:

"Discord over gun rights erupted within the law firm that secured Thursday’s Second Amendment victory at the Supreme Court..."

"... with Kirkland & Ellis LLP announcing shortly after the decision that it would no longer take firearms cases and that it was parting ways with the two star partners who won the case. After a Kirkland news release praising Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, and Erin Murphy, the two announced they were opening their own firm. 'Unfortunately, we were given a stark choice: either withdraw from ongoing representations or withdraw from the firm,' Mr. Clement said. 'Anyone who knows us and our views regarding professional responsibility and client loyalty knows there was only one course open to us: We could not abandon ongoing representations just because a client’s position is unpopular in some circles.'... After recent mass shootings, other Kirkland clients began expressing reservations over the firm’s work for the gun movement, a person familiar with the matter said. Kirkland 'started getting a lot of pressure post-Uvalde, hearing from several big-dollar clients that they were uncomfortable,' this person said. 'Several partners agreed that they should drop that representation.'"

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Sunrise with waning crescent moon.

At 5:12 a.m.:

And here's the sun, at 5:21:

 

And a milkweed update:

The hypocrisy montage you've been waiting for. Or fearing.

ADDED: Why did the GOP take so long to put this together? Did the Gillum arrest finally light a fire under their sedentary ass? (The reference to Gillum comes at 9:48.) It's just amazing that they let Democrats go on so long about how horrible it is to deny the results of an election. They've been allowed to deny that they too are deniers. They've been denier deniers.