My confidence that Merrick Garland will do the right thing is virtually zero

[Hekate]

195. Oh dear. "States' rights" was the deepest Deep South white racist claim that I remember...

… from my earliest childhood in the 1950s. I was born in California and my parents were from Colorado, so the only connection I had to knowledge of the racism of the South was the news on our black and white tv, and when I learned to read, the headlines in the Los Angeles Times and the photos in LIFE.

Dwight Eisenhower is the first president I recall, and I recall he integrated Southern public schools. I also recall the neverending aggrieved bellow from people like Lester “Ax-handle” Maddox, “Bull” Connor, and Gov. George Wallace was that Eisenhower and all Northern scum were violating the South’s sacred “states’ rights” to determine their own laws without interference from the federal government.

There are echoes that exist to this day in every Red state that wants to remove all rights of bodily autonomy from every girl and woman, regardless of color.

States’ rights, baby. As far as I can tell they coined the phrase before the Civil War.