Yesterday, one of the many highlights of PBS’ Judy Woodruff’s PBS News Hour was an interview by longtime expert political reporter Lisa Desjardins with Marcia Coyle, who closely follows our fractured Supreme Court.
Coyle was in SCOTUS’ courtroom yesterday as it revisited Roe v. Wade.
At stake is a Louisiana law which severely restricts the provision of reproductive health services.
In 2016, our SCOTUS struck down a similar law in the Lone Star state.
But that was before Gorsuch and once-boyish Kavanagh went on the Court.
Donald Trump put Justices Gorsuch and Kavanagh on the Supreme Court to (among other things) please opponents of women’s reproductive rights.
Outside the vast SCOTUS courthourse, as protesters on both sides of the abortion rights debate milled about, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a statement.
He directly criticized Justices Gorsuch and Kavanagh, saying, “You [the Justices] have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”
That prompted an unusual rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts ((https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/roberts-schumer-supreme-court.html).
A spokesperson for Senator Schumer responded, saying “Senator Schumer’s comments were a reference to the political price Senate Republicans will pay for putting these justices on the court, and a warning that the justices will unleash a major grass-roots movement on the issue of reproductive rights. For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s deliberate misinterpretation of what Senator Schumer said, while remaining silent when Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes,” he said.
That was a reference to a famous analogy proposed by Chief Justice Roberts at his confirmation hearings, comparing judges with umpires.
So we asked associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman to reach out to her colleague, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones, who is with Trump 24/7.
“Susanna,” Jones said, “it’s all part of how Trump views women’s rights, and why there’s all this buzz about how Trump might dump Pence and make Nikki Haley his runnng mate — unless Nikki has the good sense to run away from him, given how he thinks of women only as sexual objects."
In other news, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the brilliant Senior Senator from the Bay State, announced that she’s suspended her campaign to defeat Trump.
Associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman was at her side and urged her to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden.
“After all, Senator, Bernie called you a liar on nationwide television, and he’s not even a Democrat.”
“If you endorse Uncle Joe, he’ll probably ask you to be either his Secretary of the Treasury or Attorney General, and you’d have a lot more power than you have now.”
“Don’t you remember, Senator, how Barack Obama tapped Hillary to be his Secretary of State, a position in which she excelled?"
Warren told ASR Coleman that she’ll endorse Biden as soon as he wins at least two more primaries against Bernie.