For decades, the goal of the anti-abortion forces was to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court precedent that said that women had a constitutional right to get an abortion subject to certain limits. Anti-abortion zealots felt that those limits were too lax. They wanted a total ban on abortions and with the overturn of Roe, much more restrictive bans could be enacted by state legislatures. Indeed many legislatures in red states had already drafted those bills and were just waiting for the opportunity to pass them.

And it played out just as expected with red states across the nation passing sweeping legislation that made getting abortions all but impossible in those states. What was unexpected (at least by me) was the widespread backlash that this provoked all across the nation. As is often the case, it is only when a right is taken away that people realize how much they value it. It turns out that a majority of people, while they may not go all the way with unlimited abortion access at any time during the pregnancy, were highly uncomfortable with either total bans or with restrictions that made it far too onerous to obtain. As a result, we saw popular referenda overturning such restrictive laws even in deep red states.

So now the anti-abortion forces that for so long had been on the offensive, now find themselves on the defensive and are seeking to promote the idea that. they are not zealots who want to criminalize women who seek abortions and the doctors who provide them. They now seek to project a kindler, gentler image.
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In the defamation case against him, serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) was so disruptive during the testimony of E. Jean Carroll that it clearly exasperated the federal district judge Lewis Kaplan, so much so that he admonished him.

When Carroll first took the stand, Trump could be seen whispering to his lead attorney, Alina Habba. He sat with slightly hunched shoulders as Carroll testified.

As Carroll spoke, Trump complained audibly and appeared to double down on defamatory denials, her lawyer said during a morning break in the proceedings.

“Mr Trump has been sitting at the back table and has been loudly saying things throughout Ms Carroll’s testimony,” said attorney Shawn Crowley.

“It’s loud enough for us to hear it,” Crowley said, so “I imagine it’s loud enough for the jury to hear it.”
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The lawyer for serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) asked the judge for permission for SSAT to speak for two or three minutes during closing arguments and the judge asked “Do you promise to just comment on the facts and the law?”. But then SSAT immediately started speaking without answering and did his usual rigamarole about this being a persecution by the prosecution and the judge. SSAT spoke for five minutes before the judge cut him off.

I am not sure what the point of this was other than for SSAT to let off steam. After all, there was no jury to convince. All it does is further tick off the judge who is going to make the final determination of the size of the penalty.

Yesterday we saw another attempt by serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) to turn the legal system into a circus. All witness testimony in the fraud trial involving his business enterprises that was brought by the attorney general of the state of New York Letitia James, and which is being conducted in a Manhattan courthouse presided over by judge Arthur Engoron, is over and all that remains is the summing up by the two sides. Note that Engoron had already ruled that the documentary evidence had established fraud and this trial was to determine the size of the penalty. James had initially asked for $250 million and then raised it to $370 million.

SSAT said that he wanted to give his side’s closing argument, in addition to his attorneys. I do not think that this was because he thought his attorneys were incompetent, although they apparently forgot to check the box at the beginning that asked for a jury trial and thus this was a bench trial to be judged exclusively by the judge. That did not prevent SSAT from repeatedly whining how he was being deprived of his constitutional right to be tried by a jury even though that right has to be requested and he did not do so. I think that he may have not wanted to have a jury at all, anticipating that he would lose and thinking that it would be easier to argue that the judge was biased against him rather than a jury.
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