It’s an irresistible temptation to compare the Democratic House sham "Select Committee" hearings which accuse former President Trump of inciting Jan.6 Capitol rogue mob "insurrection," with their own party leaders’ tacit encouragement of assaults on our U.S. Supreme Court and the physical safety of its members.
It’s no stretch to link incitements of civil disobedience over the highest court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) to direct statements of national representatives who have sworn to uphold and protect our laws.
Look no farther than Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who exhorted a massive crowd of protestors gathered outside the Supreme Court building: "The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them. Women will be in control of their bodies. And if they think Black women are intimidated or afraid, they got another thought coming."
Inflammatory statements by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were directly targeted against SCOTUS justices whom a leaked February draft opinion indicated would likely vote to end Roe in the then-pending Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
Standing on the front steps of the Supreme Court during a March 4 abortion rally, Schumer shouted: "I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price."
As added warning, the U.S. Senate leader said, "You won't know what hit if you go forward with these awful decisions."
On June 8, just two months after Sen. Schumer’s unambiguous threat, a self-admitted mentally deranged would-be assassin, Nicholas Roske, traveled from Simi Valley, California for the express purpose of murdering Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Chevy Chase, Maryland home.
Roske’s interrupted attempt was reportedly motivated by anger that he expected Kavanaugh would overturn abortion, as well as an ironically contradictory concern that the justice would support looser gun laws.
A House Republican proposal that passed the Senate to increase security for justices and their families following the attempted murder of Justice Kavanaugh then sat on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk for a month.
Pelosi said there was no reason for rush, telling reporters, "No one is in danger over the weekend by not having a bill."
Leaving no doubt regarding her contempt for the SCOTUS decision, Speaker Pelosi issued a statement that, "Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved the GOP’s dark and extreme goal of ripping away women’s right to make their own reproductive health decisions."
The June 22 press release added, "With Roe now out of their way, radical Republicans are charging ahead with their crusade to criminalize health freedom."
Not mentioned, was any consideration for protecting health rights of babies — precious, fully viable lives of helpless girls and boys — from grisly, macabre termination during abortions which Roe allowed, without limit, throughout the entire nine-month berthing term.
A truly "radical" SCOTUS decision would have followed the lines of a failed proposal by Senate leader Schumer prohibiting states from protecting an unborn child’s right to life as long as one health care worker signs off that a pregnancy would pose a risk to the woman’s physical or mental health.
Here, an activist court might have invoked constitutional equal protection provisions in arguing that abortion is disallowed outright, rather than instead determining that since the subject is not addressed in the Constitution, any such determination is outside its federal interpretive prevue and therefore, a matter for state legislatures to decide.
Accordingly, the Court ruling does not prohibit such practices in duly legislatively determinate partial birth abortion sanctuary states.
There is, however, a federal law, namely 18 U.S.C. 1507 — which relates to Obstruction of Justice --- that provides for a fine or one-year imprisonment for picketing or parading "in or near" a court building or residence occupied by a "judge, juror, witness, or court officer" with the intent to influence them.
Nevertheless, Democrats, including the current President of the United States, have chosen to ignore and de facto condone that violation as pro-abortion activists have staged intimidating demonstrations outside the homes of the six conservative SCOTUS justices after their addresses had been maliciously published (doxxed) online.
When White House reporters aboard Air Force One questioned President Biden’s view on the home and family harassments, Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded: "The president believes in peaceful protest. He believes that’s part of our democracy and part of the history of the United States and this country."
Psaki then waffled, "So I wouldn’t say he has a view on that. He believes in peaceful protests, but they’re going to make decisions they make, and we’re not going to prejudge a final opinion."
Joe Biden’s speech to the nation about an hour after the high court decision became public wrongly claimed that the "extreme ideology" put at risk the "broader right to privacy for everyone… to make the best decisions for your health; the right to use birth control — a married couple — in the privacy of their bedroom, for God’s sake; the right to marry the person you love."
Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion specifically clarified, "And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion."
Predictably blaming Donald J. Trump for naming three of the conservative justices to the court which culminated in “a deliberate effort over decades to upset the balance of our law," Joe pledged that the decision “must not be the final word."
In other words, doesn’t Biden seem to claim here that the vote was deliberately rigged?
He then closed with a gratuitous CYA declaration calling on protests of the "extreme" conservative justices to be "peaceful, peaceful, peaceful . . . no intimidation . . . "
Perhaps recall that the Jan. 6 House select committee which holds former President Trump criminally culpable for challenging another voting outcome also selectively edited out his nearly identical admonition to 2020 election integrity protestors.
They omitted the part where Trump said, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."
I’m sure there must be some perfectly good explanation regarding this dramatic change in standards regarding what constitutes "inciting insurrection" as Democrats watch their poll numbers plummet ahead of rapidly approaching congressional midterm elections.
I’ll offer three possibilities: hypocrisy, obfuscation, and desperation.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 11 books, "Beyond Flagpoles and Footprints: Pioneering the Space Frontier" co-authored with Buzz Aldrin (2021), is available on Amazon along with all others. Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.