POLITICO NIGHTLY: Alito’s Roe draft, beyond abortion

 

BY MYAH WARD Police officers set up barricades on the sidewalk as pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion activists demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images ABOUT LAST NIGHT — Justice Samuel Alito’s initial draft majority opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade spends a fair amount of time talking about what rights it wouldn’t overturn: “the right to marry a person of a different race … the right to marry while in prison … the right to obtain contraceptives … the right to reside with relatives … the right to make decisions about the education of one’s children … the right not to be sterilized without consent … the right in certain circumstances not to undergo involuntary surgery.” Like Roe, these rights — as well as the right to marry a person of the same sex — rest on what the Supreme Court has called “the right to privacy,” one that’s not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. Unlike Roe , none of these other Supreme Court decisions involve “potential life,” Alito writes in the draft obtained by POLITICO, and so overturning Roe, Alito argues, “does not undermine them in any way.” How do constitutional scholars and legal experts regard Alito’s argument? Could the Court pull this one thread in the right to privacy without unraveling the entire sweater? Or would a move to strike down Roe threaten other precedents? Nightly asked some of the nation’s top legal experts to weigh in. These answers have been edited. “The right of privacy is not explicitly provided for in the U.S. Constitution. If the Supreme Court were to hold that there is no constitutionally based right of privacy then any right based on the right of privacy, such as abortion, contraception, marriage and sex, would arguably be in jeopardy. However, one could argue that the decision to have an abortion is fundamentally different than a decision relating to contraception, marriage, and sex in terms of degree and type. If the holding in the pending case is limited — that the right of privacy does not extend to the decision to have an abortion — then it is possible other rights based on privacy will continue to enjoy protection, at least in the short term. “Because a majority of the current composition of the court is likely to conclude that these decisions should be left to our elected representatives in Congress and state legislatures it is likely only a matter of time before the court declines to provide protections based on the right of privacy. I might add that saying Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided does not mean that there should be no recognized right to privacy. Rather it means that fundamental rights should be expressly recognized in the Constitution.” — Alberto R. Gonzales , former U.S. Attorney General and Counsel to the president in the George W. Bush administration. He is the dean and a professor at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tenn. “The theory behind Roe — known as substantive due process — stretches back far beyond 1965’s Griswold v. Connecticu t and its controversial language around a right to privacy that extends to decisions to use contraceptives. In 1923, the Court in Meyer v. Nebraska reversed a criminal conviction imposed on a teacher of German to a 10-year old student in a parochial school maintained by the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Congregation. Nebraska’s law had banned the teaching of languages other than English to children. “In his draft majority opinion, Alito tolerates such unenumerated rights — the right to use birth control, the right to educate your children as you see fit — only so long as they are ‘deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions,’ a standard that appears nowhere in the Constitution’s text and requires travel back to 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause was ratified. “Alito justifies reversing Roe but preserving other unenumerated rights by positing three ideas: (1) that abortion uniquely involves ‘potential life’; (2) that states must still have a ‘rational basis’ for a law (a toothless test that Nebraska’s anti-foreign language law would seem to satisfy); and (3) that ‘some of the cases implicating the right to implement important personal decisions without government interference . . . involved personal decisions that were obviously very, very far afield’ of a personal decision to manage one’s own pregnancy. “Presumably, the five justices in the majority will know the ‘far afield’ rights when they see them. So fear not.” — Kimberly Wehle , professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law “The Court can draw whatever distinctions it likes and dodge the cases it doesn’t. But the draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stresses that states were criminalizing abortion. True enough. But in the late 19th century, Congress passed the Comstock Amendment, which criminalized contraception. States criminalized same-sex intimacy. The draft suggests that abortion is different because of the state’s impact on fetal life. This language — and the draft’s historically questionable narrative about the doctors who originally pushed to ban abortion — will encourage antiabortion leaders to ask the conservative justices to declare that a fetus is a rights-holding person under the Fourteenth Amendment — and that abortion is unconstitutional in blue as well as red states. “If this is where a final opinion ends up, the Court has painted itself into a corner — and maybe by design. Whether abortion is different or not, the Court will not likely send this back to the states for good. It will simply invite conservatives back for the next round.” — Mary Ziegler , professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Keep reading for more answers from some of the nation’s top legal minds. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at mward@politico.com, or on Twitter at @MyahWard. SCOTUS — Roberts blasts disclosure of draft abortion opinion: Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the Supreme Court draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade and announced an investigation into the document’s disclosure, which he described as “a singular and egregious breach” of the court’s trust. “To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” Roberts said in a statement. “The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.” — Protesters face off outside Supreme Court: Dozens of both pro- and anti-abortion rights protesters filled the plaza in front of the Supreme Court in light of the newly disclosed opinion. This morning’s demonstrations were relatively calm, though hours remained before a larger planned protest by abortion rights activists in the late afternoon. — Republicans rage about breach of draft: Few Republican lawmakers were celebrating after the disclosure of the draft opinion that would overturn Roe. Instead, they were angrily demanding answers to how the document became public in the first place. GOP leaders trained their fire on the breach of Supreme Court protocol that led to POLITICO’s publication of the draft opinion, with only a handful of Republicans cheering the substance of the document itself even though they’ve long opposed Roe. Senate Majority Whip Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) speaks at a news conference about the leaked Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images MORE FROM OUR EXPERTS — “A decision overruling Roe v. Wade would threaten an entire line of jurisprudence rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of liberty. In 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey , the court emphasized this jurisprudence’s connection to abortion rights, insisting that the very essence of ‘liberty is the right to define’ one’s self through the selection of a partner and the decision to become a parent. Such decisions, the court cautioned, are so fundamental to the person that they should not be made ‘under compulsion of the state.’ In the draft opinion circulated on Monday night, Justice Alito took aim at these notions of self-determination and autonomy, noting that they are not expressly enumerated in the Constitution. “ He’s right — these protections, like so many other legal principles (qualified immunity, executive privilege), are implied from the Constitution’s guarantees. If Roe is overruled on the ground that it is unmoored from constitutional text and not deeply rooted in the nation’s traditions, it will imperil these other rights of intimate life — the right to marry the person of your choice, the right to procreate on your own terms — that have been inferred from the Constitution’s basic principles and protections.” — Melissa Murray , a law professor at New York University. She clerked for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, when the justice was an appellate court judge “Although Alito attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the long-standing implied constitutional right of privacy, ultimately he does not insist that a constitutional right of privacy does not exist. Rather, he argues that what distinguishes abortion from these other constitutional rights of privacy is that, unlike these other rights, abortion destroys ‘the life of an unborn human being.’ In other words, none of the other examples of a constitutional right of privacy ‘involved the critical question posed by abortion.’ “In the end, then, Alito does not insist that there is no constitutional right of privacy, but instead maintains that that right does not override ‘the life of an ‘unborn human being.’ Ironically, this conclusion is directly inconsistent with the law in every state in the nation at the time our Constitution was adopted. At that time, abortion was legal everywhere in the United States until quickening, or roughly until 18 weeks of pregnancy. It would have stunned the Framers of our Constitution to imagine a world in which abortion could be prohibited. Talk about ‘originalism.’” — Geoffrey Stone , professor of law at the University of Chicago “Under Alito’s approach, it is hard to see a way to convincingly distinguish Griswold (contraception) or Lawrence (sodomy). Alito’s approach also reveals the problems of relying on particular dictates of the common law or past statutes when historically disfavored or disadvantaged groups are under consideration. Why would we think that a legal system that included coverture, or the subsumption of women’s legal rights to their husbands during marriage, would produce the right results on other issues involving gender? “Chief Justice Roberts has emphasized, however, that this was not a final draft. I would imagine that many of his efforts over the next month might be to discover an approach to overruling Roe and Casey that would leave other privacy and liberty rights more clearly intact.” — Bernadette Meyler , professor at Stanford Law School Check out Tuesday’s Nightly for more legal experts on the ramifications of Alito’s initial draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.   INTRODUCING DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED:  Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.     WHAT'D I MISS? — Biden administration temporarily extending window for expired work permits amid backlog: Hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers will be able to continue to use their existing work permits for nearly 18 months after they expire, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today. The reprieve is scheduled to go into effect Wednesday as a Temporary Final Rule and comes as the agency seeks to address a backlog of roughly 1.5 million work-permit applications. The rule had been in the works for months as officials looked for ways to combat the risk of workforce shortages. — Hochul picks Delgado to be New York lieutenant governor, taking him out of House race: Rep. Antonio Delgado will be New York’s next lieutenant governor, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced today. The move gives Hochul a proven vote-getter and a minority candidate from upstate New York , where she has been vulnerable, polls have shown. But it also pulls Delgado out of a potentially competitive House race in New York — a seat that could run across the Hudson Valley and into central New York, depending on how the lines are drawn. — Capitol Police officer accidentally discharges firearm inside House office building: A Capitol Police officer was suspended after accidentally discharging their firearm in a break room in the Cannon House Office Building, the department said this morning. “The Capitol Police’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is investigating the discharge of a USCP weapon inside a breakroom in the Cannon Office Building,” the department said, declining to comment further while an investigation continued. “The officer has been suspended while OPR investigates the incident.” AROUND THE WORLD EUROPE WATCHES U.S. ABORTION FIGHT WITH WORRY — The explosive news that the U.S. Supreme Court is to roll back abortion rights greeted Europe’s eastern edge at dawn, and reverberated across the Continent throughout the day: Once again America was plunging itself into a partisan, inward-looking culture war on an issue most of the Western world regards as a private health matter, David Herszenhorn writes. Only this time, it was happening with a real war raging in Ukraine — at a moment when the world, especially Europe, could hardly afford Washington to be distracted. “My first thought was: Back to the Dark Ages,” said a senior government official from an Eastern European country, a woman who, like most officials and diplomats contacted for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid roiling transatlantic relations. “Great day for far-right in U.S. and in Eastern Europe; gloomy day for women’s rights and progress,” the senior official said. “This is the key message.” But the same official said she had contacts celebrating on social media, including one who posted: “In this decision alone, having Trump as a president paid off.”   HAPPENING NOW - MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: Go inside the 25th annual Milken Institute Global Conference with our special edition Global Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive coverage and insights from one of the world’s most influential gatherings. Stay up to speed with the latest from #MIGlobal, which brings together 3,000 of the world’s most powerful leaders and features 700+ speakers representing more than 80 countries. Don’t miss out, subscribe today.     NIGHTLY NUMBER At least 120 The number of instances of damage or complete destruction of cultural sites, including museums, historic buildings, libraries and religious institutions in Ukraine that UNESCO has registered since the Russian invasion began Feb. 24. PARTING IMAGE C-SPAN NEGATIVE POSITIVE NOTE FROM WHCD — ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl has tested positive for Covid-19, people familiar with the matter confirm, days after sitting next to Kim Kardashian at the White House Correspondents’ dinner and interacting with Biden. Karl received an award in the “Excellence in Presidential Coverage Under Deadline Pressure” category for broadcast while at the dinner. He appeared on the dais, received his prize, shook hands with several others there, including Biden, and subsequently spoke at the microphone. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US

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Citigroup’s Role in “Flash Crash” in Europe Yesterday Is Reminiscent of Its “Dr. Evil” Trade in 2004

 

Citigroup’s Role in “Flash Crash” in Europe Yesterday Is Reminiscent of Its “Dr. Evil” Trade in 2004

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 3, 2022 ~

Jane Fraser, Citigroup CEO

Yesterday the international newswire, Reuters, broke the story that the U.S. megabank, Citigroup, was responsible for a flash crash that plunged Sweden’s benchmark index, the OMX, by 8 percent at its low. The index later recovered to close with a loss of just under 2 percent. The plunge caused a rapid ripple effect that briefly spread to other European stock markets.

Trading volume in Europe was lower than normal yesterday because the London Stock Exchange was closed for a banking holiday. (As detailed below, Citigroup previously exploited a low volume day in August 2004 in the European bond market.)

Citigroup has confirmed its role in yesterday’s flash crash, releasing the following statement on Monday:

“This morning one of our traders made an error when inputting a transaction. Within minutes, we identified the error and corrected it.”

El Pais, a leading newspaper in Spain, reported that “European stock markets as a whole lost over €300 billion as a result of the so-called Nordic flash crash.” That’s the equivalent of approximately $315.5 billion – not an insignificant chunk of change.

Adding further intrigue to the situation is a statement from the U.S. stock market operator, Nasdaq, which also operates the stock exchange in Sweden, that it did not see any reason to cancel trades that occurred during the event.

To put that another way, Citigroup, with a notorious history of abusive market behavior, causes losses of more than $300 billion, which could have triggered previously-entered stop-loss orders which locked in the losses to investors, and Nasdaq plans to let those erroneously-triggered orders stand.

Adding further to the intrigue, Bloomberg News reported that the trader responsible for the “error,” is employed at a London trading desk at Citigroup. The London trading desk of Citigroup was bailed out by the Federal Reserve during and after the 2008 financial crisis according to an audit conducted by Government Accountability Office, the auditors for Congress.

This so-called “error” yesterday by Citigroup would be a lot more believable were it not for Citigroup’s past history – which includes an uncannily similar episode in 2004 which Citigroup’s traders code-named the “Dr. Evil” trade. The trade exploited a weakness in electronic bond trading during a low volume day in August. Citigroup traders placed sell orders for billions of dollars of bonds within a matter of seconds, driving down prices, then bought the bonds back at the lower prices, earning significant profits in the process. Citigroup was fined $26 million in 2005 by Europe’s Financial Services Authority for the Dr. Evil trades.

Dr. Evil was not the first time that Citigroup used a code name for an unseemly maneuver. Citigroup staffers created another code name, “Buca Nero” – Italian for “Black Hole” – for an accounting maneuver it used to make debt appear to be an investment at the debt-strapped Italian dairy giant, Parmalat. The company collapsed in 2003 in what was then Europe’s largest bankruptcy.

In 2005 Citigroup settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $101 million for helping the infamous energy company, Enron, inflate its cash flows and under report its debts. Also in 2005, Citigroup settled with private litigants for $2 billion over its role in the bankruptcy of Enron.

In the leadup to Wall Street’s financial collapse in 2008, Citigroup had been creating Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) and using them to move its toxic subprime debt off its balance sheet. The problem was that those SIVs contractually promised to provide liquidity to buyers of the SIVs’ commercial paper (which was quietly residing in big-name mutual funds in the U.S.) if there were no other buyers who wanted to roll over that commercial paper. That meant that Citigroup, in providing those liquidity puts, had to put this toxic subprime debt back on its own balance sheet during the financial crisis of 2008 and take massive losses. Citigroup’s stock went to 99 cents in 2009 as it was receiving the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history.

Beginning in December 2007 and lasting through at least June of 2010, Citigroup received the following in bailouts: $2.5 trillion in secret cumulative loans from the Federal Reserve; $45 billion in capital injections from the U.S. Treasury; the Federal government guaranteed over $300 billion of Citigroup’s assets; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) guaranteed $5.75 billion of its senior unsecured debt and $26 billion of its commercial paper and interbank deposits.

While all of the above was going on, Sandy Weill, the Chairman and CEO of Citigroup, had amassed a fortune from the bank through a technique that compensation expert Graef “Bud” Crystal called the Count Dracula stock option plan. You couldn’t kill it; not even with a silver bullet. Nor could you prosecute it, because Citigroup’s crony Board of Directors regularly signed off on it.

The plan worked as follows: every time Weill exercised one set of stock options, he received a reload of approximately the same number of options. By the time Weill stepped down as CEO in 2003, he had received over $1 billion in compensation, the majority of it coming from his reloading stock options. (Weill remained as Chairman of Citigroup until 2006.) One day after stepping down as CEO, Citigroup’s Board of Directors allowed Weill to sell back to the corporation 5.6 million shares of his stock for $264 million. Citigroup’s Board negotiated the fixed price at $47.14 for all of Weill’s shares.

Citigroup did a 1-for-10 reverse stock split on May 9, 2011. (For each 100 shares of stock, the shareholder was left with just 10 shares.) At Citigroup’s closing stock price of $48.71 yesterday (actually $4.87 had it not done a 1-for-10 reverse stock split), long-term shareholders are still down 90 percent from where the stock traded in 2007.

While shareholders are still licking their wounds from Weill’s robber-baron leadership of Citigroup, Weill is living a billionaire’s high life.

~~~~~

The most famous “Flash Crash” did not occur in Europe but in U.S. markets on May 6, 2010. This is how we reported that event on May 12, 2010:

Procter & Gamble is in a lot of hands. Because of its historic strong performance and stability, it’s owned by a lot of conservative mutual funds.  It would be beneficial to someone wanting to conduct a bear raid on the market on May 6 to knock out all those trailing stop loss orders on Procter & Gamble and pick up a tidy quick profit.  (A stop loss order is when one wishes to place a limit on how far down one wants a stock price to go before it is automatically sold.  That order stays in place for weeks or months or even years until the stock reaches that price and then is executed on the next tick.  Unfortunately, on May 6, the next tick could have been many points below the last tick.) Stop loss orders also serve to slow down plunging stock prices because they cause trades to be printed at each of these various price levels, offering a chance for new buyers to come in at these prices.  Once these are knocked off, there’s a big air pocket in a plunging market.

According to reports of time and sales, around 2:45 p.m. when the massive market disruption got underway, Procter & Gamble traded at $59.66.  It had opened the day at $61.91.  About a minute later, it was trading at $57.36, then $53.51, then it hit a liquidity air pocket and plunged to print a trade at $39.37.  This created panic in the market.  If one of the most conservative stocks can hit a 36 percent downdraft, some traders thought a major news event was happening outside.  Liquidity hit a wall.   In an eight minute span, the Dow lost $700 billion and saw a cumulative decline of 998.5 points or 9.2 percent before turning on a dime and moving in the opposite direction. It closed the day down 3.2 percent.

Aggravating the liquidity crunch on May 6 was the fact that the New York Stock Exchange, where Procter & Gamble is listed, paused trading momentarily to let humans on the floor of the exchange attempt to find buying support.  That pause sent trades off to the world of electronic exchanges which now make up the bulk of all trading in the U.S.  The New York Stock Exchange has only a 25 percent market share in its own listed stocks.  The cowboys of capitalism command the rest.

To underscore how dramatic and unprecedented the trading in Procter & Gamble was on May 6, I reflected back to the day I sat behind a Wall Street terminal and watched the market lose 22.6 percent in one day.  That day was October 19, 1987.  That was more than twice the percentage drop at the worst market point on May 6.  And yet, Procter & Gamble lost only 28 percent at its worst point in 1987 versus 36 percent on May 6 when the overall market was down less than 10 percent.

When a bear raid knocks out these stop loss speed bumps on Dow components like Procter & Gamble and 3M (it lost 21 percent at its worst point), the New York Stock Exchange pauses trading momentarily and trades are left to the feckless electronic exchanges, proprietary trading desks of the bailout boys (big Wall Street firms) and high frequency traders.  This is like hitting an air pocket at 30,000 feet, then opening the cockpit door to find out no one is inside and the plane is on autopilot as the plane goes into a nose dive.

But sell orders in individual Dow component stocks were not the only problem on May 6.  There was extensive selling in the Standard and Poor’s 500 futures contract known as the E-Mini.  Futures can be purchased on much greater margin giving bear raiders a bigger bang for their buck.  According to testimony from Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises yesterday, one trader “entered the market at around 2:32 and finished trading by around 2:51.  The trader had a short futures position that represented on average nine percent of the volume traded during that period.  The trader sold on the way down and continued to do so even as the price level recovered.  This trader and others have executed hedging strategies of similar size previously.”  That last sentence may be ignoring the reality that this was no ordinary day: the gauge of fear in the market, the VIX, had spiked over the past two days; there was intense fear of Greece defaulting on its debt and stresses in the credit markets were being reflected in rising yields on junk bonds.

Cumulatively, mom and pop investors lost many millions of dollars on their stop loss orders from this free fall on May 6. Only those trades occurring between 2:40 and 3 pm that were 60 percent or more away from the market are being cancelled.  That means the losses in Procter & Gamble and dozens of other stocks are real losses for those who got stopped out and real profits for those on the other side of the trade.

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RSN: FOCUS: Trump Wanted Black Lives Matter Protesters to Be Shot, Says Former Defense Secretary

 

 

03 May 22

Live on the homepage now!
Reader Supported News

 

FOCUS: Trump Wanted Black Lives Matter Protesters to Be Shot, Says Former Defense Secretary
Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone
Bort writes: "Mark Esper is the latest Trump administration official to attempt to cleanse his sins and fatten his pockets with a memoir about his time with the former president."

“Can’t you just shoot them?” the former president asked. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

Mark Esper is the latest Trump administration official to attempt to cleanse his sins and fatten his pockets with a memoir about his time with the former president. The former defense secretary’s new book A Sacred Oath is due out May 10. The book promises revelations about the Trump White House, one of which is that Trump suggested shooting Black Lives Matter protesters outside the White House following the May 2020 death of George Floyd, Axios reported on Monday.

“Can’t you just shoot them?” Trump asked, according to Esper. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

Esper’s book confirms what Michael Bender of The New York Times reported last year. Bender wrote in his book Frankly, We Did Win This Election that Trump said he wanted the military to go in and “beat the fuck” out of Black Lives Matter protesters and that he said, “Just shoot them,” on multiple occasions. Bender added that Trump only toned down the order to shoot them in the “leg” or “foot” after Attorney General William Barr and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley pushed back on his initial request.

Esper writes that the moment in June 2020 when Trump made the request “was surreal, sitting in front of the Resolute desk, inside the Oval Office, with this idea weighing heavily in the air, and the president red-faced and complaining loudly about the protests underway in Washington, D.C.”

It shouldn’t have been that surreal. Trump had reportedly fantasized about shooting migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019, something Esper should have been well aware of before he agreed to serve as his defense secretary.

It was Trump’s suggested handling of Black Lives Matter protesters, however, that ultimately led to Esper’s ouster. The same month Trump said he wanted them shot, Esper said publicly that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act, which would have allowed Trump to deploy active-duty military to tamp down the protests — something Trump had recently threatened to do if local government didn’t take stronger action. Trump threatened to fire him over the disagreement and ultimately did so in November.

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Farewell to Roe?

 

Farewell to Roe? Just one item today, folks -- a look at what appears to be the coming Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, revealed in a leaked draft of an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and obtained by Politico. We knew this was coming: There were signals when Mitch McConnell refused to let Barack Obama have a Supreme Court pick in his last year in office, when Republicans approved a judge who was credibly accused of sexual assault, and when McConnell jammed through a judge who belonged to a religious group that held that women should be subservient to men. Republicans have been maneuvering and plotting for this day ever since Roe was decided in 1973. And if it comes about, as the draft decision indicates, then the right to an abortion will virtually disappear in just about every red state in the country. But it's not just a woman's right to control her own body that's at stake here: The decision would also essentially declare that Americans do not have a right to privacy, and put other court decisions that were based on privacy at risk of also being overturned. That was the basis of Roe: That there is a right to privacy in the Constitution, and as the Roe decision said, that right is "broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." Here's where things get interesting: That right to privacy is an unenumerated, or implied right. In other words, it is not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, as is freedom of religion, speech, the press, etc. Courts around the world have recognized that their citizens have certain inherent political and civil freedoms -- natural or intrinsic rights inherent to individuals or to mankind that do not need to be articulated. In many cases, those natural rights do eventually become part of a constitution via amendment. For example, Australia has recognized an implied right of freedom of communication on political matters. Ireland has recognized the right to marry and the right to earn a living. None were originally mentioned in their respective constitutions. In the US, courts have recognized the right to travel and the right to vote, and specifics of the latter -- based on race, gender, age, etc. -- were eventually added to the Constitution. That brings us to the right to privacy. Some courts believe that not only is privacy a natural right, they also say that it is an implied right -- a right derived from an interpretation of other rights that are enumerated in the Constitution. A "reasoning-by-interpolation." This was spelled out in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, when the Supreme Court ruled that married couples had the right to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction. In an opinion written by Justice William O. Douglas, the court decided that this right of privacy emanated from other "zones of privacy" expressed in and protected by several amendments to the Constitution: 1. The First Amendment guarantees the right of association, a form of privacy in that who you hang out with is none of the government's business. 2. The Third Amendment prohibits the quartering of soldiers in any house in time of peace without the consent of the owner. In other words, your house is private and the government can't force you to take roommates of their choosing! 3. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The government can't enter your private dwelling without a good reason. 4. The Fifth Amendment, with its protection against self-incrimination, enables citizens to create a zone of privacy that the government cannot force them to surrender. All of those are forms of privacy, the court ruled in Griswold. So there is a right to privacy enshrined in the Constitution, they said; it's just not spelled out. Finally, the Ninth Amendment says that just because the Constitution explicitly mentions certain rights, it doesn't mean that other rights don't exist: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Griswold subsequently has been used as precedent in a number of other Supreme Court cases, including: 1. Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), which extended Griswold's right to birth control to cover unmarried couples. 2. Roe v. Wade (1973), giving women the right to have an abortion. 3. Carey v. Population Services International (1977), which gave young people who were at least 16 years of age access to contraception. 4. Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which granted people a right to homosexual relations by striking down a Texas sodomy law that prohibited certain forms of intimate sexual contact between members of the same sex. 5. Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which legalized same-sex marriage in another landmark case. So what happens next? Well, we have to see what the Supreme Court's final written decision on Roe says, and whether all of the conservatives on the court sign on to it, which seems likely. If Roe is overturned, then Republican lawmakers across the country are going to be salivating to criminalize abortion and throw women in prison. As attorney Jeffrey Toobin said on CNN, how many years in prison will a pregnant woman who tries to get an abortion in a red state get? How about if she goes to a blue state to get one, goes back home, and her abortion is discovered? What about people in blue states who send women in red states abortifacients? How about the doctor who performs an emergency abortion to save a woman's life? How much time will they spend behind bars? You can be sure that one thing they will not do is put health care measures in place to help teen girls who end up with mental health issues because they were forced to carry their rapists' baby to term. Or to help the women who are badly injured from an illegal abortion. Or to help the families of the women who will die. But there is likely to be another fallout: You know that if the Supreme Court, in overturning Roe, declares that Americans do not have a right to privacy and protection from government intrusion, then watch for conservatives to take aim at same-sex marriage next. Is Griswold, with its right to use birth control, also in their sights? And what else? After all, Alito writes in his draft that "The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation's history and traditions." Neither is interracial marriage. Or the right of Black people and women to vote. Or the right of women to keep their own money and own property in their own name. If rights that aren't deeply rooted in the nation's history are off the table in your world, Sammy, then we might as well just don corsets and pound a carpet with a rug beater in the back yard. Meanwhile, why Democrats didn't pull out all the stops to codify a woman's right to choose in law sometime in the past couple of decades is beyond me. And now it could be too late.

Thanks for reading. I wonder how this decision will affect the midterms. E-mail comments and suggestions to teresa.hanafin@globe.com, or follow me on Twitter @BostonTeresa. See you Friday.   Please tell your friends about Fast Forward! They can sign up here. The Globe has lots of other e-mail newsletters that are almost as good as this one, from breaking news alerts to sports, politics, business, and entertainment -- check them out.

CAIR-Austin to Hold Eid Celebration, Prayer at Texas Capitol | CAIR Welcomes Ruling that Tulsa Massacre Suit May Proceed | CAIR-CT Condemns Anti-Mormon Arson

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate   The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Blessed is the person whom God has made a key for good and a lock for evil." Al-Tirmidhi   “Indeed, God does not do injustice to people in the least, but it is people who are unjust to their own souls.” The Holy Quran, 10:44

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CAIR-Austin to Hold Eid Celebration, Prayer at Texas Capitol | CAIR Welcomes Ruling that Tulsa Massacre Suit May Proceed | CAIR-CT Condemns Anti-Mormon Arson

CAIR: The ADL Declares War on Palestine Solidarity Groups   CAIR-Austin, Muslim Community to Hold First-Ever Eid Celebration, Jummah Prayer at Texas Capitol          On Friday, May 6, the Austin chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Austin) will hold the first-ever "Eid Celebration at the Capitol.”   The event will also include a historic first Jummah (Friday Muslim congregational prayer) at the State Capitol.      The program's goal is to invite people of all faiths and backgrounds to celebrate with their Muslim neighbors, learn about Ramadan and Eid, enjoy delicious free food, and have fun.            WHAT: Eid Celebration & Jummah at the Capitol    WHEN: Friday, May 6th at 11 – 2 PM, Jummah Prayer will begin at 1:30 PM.     WHERE: Texas Capitol Southwest Lawn, 1100 Congress Ave, Austin TX 7870    WEBSITE: https://www.CAIRTX.org/Eid       RSVP Online is Encouraged but not required. The information is used to help determine the amount of food.    CONTACT: CAIR-Austin Executive Director Faizan Syed, (469)290-2909, faizan@cairtx.org          The program will include different booths where guests can enjoy free international food and children’s’ activities, ask questions about Islam, see Islamic Art, and try on Muslim clothing from around the world. The program will include speeches from community leaders. A historic Jummah prayer led by Imam Anwer will begin at 1:30 PM and conclude at 2 PM, concluding the event. Guided tours of the Capitol will also be available.        "We are thrilled to begin this new tradition that will give people of all faiths an opportunity to celebrate Eid with their Muslim neighbors," said Faizan Syed Executive Director of CAIR-Austin. "We believe programs like this are essential for building bridges and ending misconceptions."      Video: CAIR Holds Eid ul-Fitr Toy Drive for Newly-Arrived Afghan Children in Baltimore   Video: CAIR-Oklahoma, Kalidy Kia Host Eid Toy Drive for Afghan Refugee Children   CAIR: Sikhs of Virginia Celebrate End of Ramadan (Video)   The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported there was a spike in Islamophobia and a surge in hate crimes against Muslims in the United States last year. The council recommends bringing minority communities together to try to defuse tensions. One such effort is linked to celebrations to mark the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan.   CAIR-Connecticut Condemns Anti-Mormon Arson   The Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CT) today condemned an allegedly bias-motivated arson of a vehicle belonging to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.   A suspected arsonist reportedly confessed to starting the fire because he did not agree with the victim's religious beliefs.   “Americans of all faiths should be free to share their faith without fear of intimidation or attack,” said CAIR-CT Chairman Farhan Memon. “We condemn this alleged bias-motivated attack and urge community leaders to speak out against the type of bigotry that inevitably leads to such incidents.”   He noted that CAIR-CT recently condemned the distribution of racist flyers to neighborhoods in West Hartford.    Video: CAIR-NJ Condemns Graffiti Defacing Highland Park Mural of Muslim Woman   Video: CAIR-San Diego Condemns Bullying of Afghan Student, Calls for Action by School District   CAIR Welcomes Judge’s Ruling that Tulsa Massacre Lawsuit May Proceed   The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed a ruling by Tulsa County District Court Judge Caroline Wall that a lawsuit seeking reparations for survivors and descendants of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre may go forward.   Judge Wall ruled against a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed in 2020 under the state’s public nuisance law. That suit, which includes three people who are each more than 100 years old, asserts that the violent actions of the white mob that killed hundreds of Black Tulsa, Okla., residents and destroyed a prosperous Black business district continue to negatively impact the city.   “We welcome the decision to allow this important case to move forward and hope it will lead to some sense of justice for the survivors and for the descendants of those killed and injured in the massacre,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.

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