Dana Milbank wrote a wise analysis of the Trunp Supreme Court’s decisions on abortion and guns, which both threw away precedent and judicial restraint. The Supreme Court is supposed to be a guarantor of stability, law and order. Yet this Court removed restraints on guns even as the nation was reeling from gun violence. And in the Roe decision, it removed a constitutional right—granted 49 years ago— for the first time in history.
Nobody should be surprised that the Supreme Court’s conservative justices on Friday jettisoned nearly 50 years of precedent upon precedent in overturning Roe v. Wade. Heck, they didn’t even honor their own precedent articulated 24 hours earlier.
In their opinion Thursday morning forcing New York and other densely populated states to allow more handguns in public, the conservative majority, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, argued that medieval law imposing arms restrictions — specifically, the 1328 Statute of Northampton — “has little bearing on the Second Amendment” because it was “enacted … more than 450 years before the ratification of the Constitution.”
Yet in their ruling Friday morning in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, setting women’s rights back half a century (and cracking the door to banning same-sex marriage and contraception), the conservative justices, led by Samuel Alito (who was also in the guns majority) and joined by Thomas, argued precisely the opposite. They justified abortion bans by citing, among others, “Henry de Bracton’s 13th-century treatise.” That was written circa 1250 and referred to monsters, duels, burning at the stake — and to women as property, “inferior” to men.
The right-wing majority’s selective application of history reveals the larger fraud in this pair of landmark rulings: Their reasoning is not legal but political, not principled but partisan.
Still, there is a commonality to the rulings. Both decisions foment maximum chaos and were delivered with flagrant disregard for the instability and disorder they will cause.
The high court was meant to be the guarantor of law and order. But the conservative justices, intoxicated by their supermajority, have abandoned their solemn duty to promote stability in the law and are actively spreading real-world disruption.
Worse, this invitation to disorder comes as the nation is trying to restore the rule of law after a coup attempt led by a president who appointed three of the five justices in the abortion majority. The spouse of a fourth — Ginni Thomas, Clarence’s wife — aggressively pushed state legislators and the White House to overthrow the election. Yet Thomas, the senior associate justice, has refused to recuse himself from related cases.
After decades of crocodile tears over imagined “judicial activism,” the conservative supermajority has shed all judicial modesty and embraced radicalism. The liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen G. Breyer, wrote in their Dobbs dissent that the majority’s brazen rejection of stare decisis, respect for precedent, “breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law.”
Even Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who joined the gun ruling, scolded fellow conservatives for blithely overturning the Roe v. Wade super-precedent. “Surely we should adhere closely to principles of judicial restraint here, where the broader path the court chooses entails repudiating a constitutional right we have not only previously recognized, but also expressly reaffirmed,” Roberts wrote. The majority’s “dramatic and consequential ruling is unnecessary,” he said, “a serious jolt to the legal system” that could have been avoided with a narrower decision that would have been “markedly less unsettling.”
Alito, in his (characteristically) sneering opinion in the abortion case, dismissed Roberts as unprincipled and public opinion as an “extraneous” concern. He likewise dismissed the pain the ruling would cause, writing that “this Court is ill-equipped to assess ‘generalized assertions about the national psyche.’ ” He washed his hands of answering the “empirical question” of “the effect of the abortion right … on the lives of women.”
The dissent said the majority’s refusal to address real-world consequences “reveals how little it knows or cares about women’s lives or about the suffering its decision will cause.” It is a “radical claim to power,” the dissent went on, to assert “the authority to overrule established legal principles without even acknowledging the costs of its decisions.”
The liberals described the bedlam to come, with suddenly unanswered legal questions about rape, incest, threats to a mother’s life, interstate travel for abortion, morning-after pills, IUDs, in vitro fertilization. “The majority’s refusal even to consider the life-altering consequences of reversing Roe and Casey is a stunning indictment,” they wrote.
Thomas’s gun ruling was much the same, 63 pages of a cherry-picked history of gun laws, with no concern for the real-life effect of allowing millions of people to carry handguns, with virtually no restriction, in the streets of New York or Los Angeles. Breyer, writing for the same liberal justices in dissent, upbraided the conservative majority for unleashing more guns “without considering the state’s compelling interest in preventing gun violence and protecting the safety of its citizens, and without considering the potentially deadly consequences of its decision.”
Alito added a concurring opinion to express contempt for Breyer’s points about gun violence, saying “it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served” by his mentions of mass shootings and growing firearm mayhem.
The radicals have cast off any pretense of judicial restraint. Now the chaos begins.
Clearly, this ‘supreme Court’ is a dysfunctional mess. And, don’t trust Roberts (snake in the grass, although that’s an insult to snakes).
Back in the day when then number ‘nine’ was established for SC Justices we had about 1/9 the population in the US. If the SC had kept up with the population, we might have about 80 ‘justices’ now, and might be getting far more democratic decisions.
He’s worse than a snake in the grass.
He’s a snake in the briefs.
A limp dead one at that.
If we had 333 million Justices, we could have a truly democratic Court.
Seriously, we could do it over Zoom.
On the birth certificate we could just declare every US citizen (even ones born in Kenya) a Justice for Life.
”…the conservative justices, intoxicated by their supermajority,…”
…and, in at least one instance, beer,…
”[Alito] washed his hands of answering the ‘empirical question’ of ‘the effect of the abortion right … on the lives of women.’”
He can wash all he wants; that blood isn’t coming off.
University of Colorado research- after Roe, 25% more maternal deaths per year
research limited only to medical deaths, assumes all states ban abortion
Ha ha ha
“i like beer.. and power bars.” — Brett K.
That blood isn’t coming off. Precisely, Mr. Rothbart. But he doesn’t care. He kinda likes it that way, it seems.
I understand liking smelly things. . .
. . . The other day as a buddy and I were cleaning a mess of bluegills and a few bass, I told him that I love the smell of fish on my hands! Something primal about it, I guess.
Duane: bluegills are pretty good eatin. I’ll be over soon as I can.
Power Corrupts —
Supreme Power Corrupts Supremely
yes
Back in the early days of Saturday Night live, there was a skit with Father Guido Sarducci called Find the Pope in the Pizza
See this video starting at 3:50
They should update it to Find the Pope in the Supreme Court
Cuz one of those guys (or maybe gal) on the Majority is obviously the Pope in disguise and the rest are his Bishops.
Pope Amy Coney Barrett
Amy is the Pope in drag
Obvious as day
Lacks the purple Papal swag
But rules the Papal way
Or is Kavanaugh the Pope?
Kavanaugh’s the Pope disguised
As Yalie frat boy brat
At his Confirmation, lied
’bout Roe and all of that
To the uninitiated, Confirmation is a major ceremony in the life of a Catholic, in which they affirm their faith. But in Brett’s case , it was the point where he denied it.
Or Maybe Thomas is the Pope?
Thomas is the Pope, I’m sure
Cuz Thomas banned abortion
And Thomas has the Papal cure
For gals who don’t endorse him
Or maybe
Alito is the Pope
Alito is the Pope, in cloak
Alito means “the air”
And “air” is what the Pope’s invoke
To claim the Papal chair
Or maybe
Roberts is the Pope
Roberts is the Pope, it’s true
He’s got the Papal Touch
He’s Papal People, through and through
And loves them oh so much
Gorsuch is the Pope
Gorsuch is the Pope, I vouch
He tells a Papal tale
About a “silent” praying coach
Who hides behind a veil
My
“K is the Pope” ditty is stuck in moderation.
I can only guess that it’s either because WordPress doesn’t like it when you call Brett K a liar or because they dont like it when you call the Pope a liar.
If Thomas called his confirmation hearing a “high tech lynching”, I wonder he will call the 1 million signature petition to start impeachment proceedings .
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/03/impeach-justice-clarence-thomas-petition-nears-1-million-signatures
An “even higher tech lynching?”
I used to love the Lazlo Toth letters when I was a kid.
Me too, FLERP! In fact, I brought them to the kids @the middle school for English class, encouraging them to write letters.
They had a lot of fun w/it, & we read some pretty good letters.
Great idea, retiredbutmissthekids. I wish I’d had a class in middle school where we got to write parody letters to government officials, heads of state, and titans of industry.
Oh my gosh, somehow I missed these! Just ordered the three books for family vacation fun.
The difference in rhetoric
Politicized Catholic conservatives said they were going to overturn Roe.
Biden’s selection for HHS, Becerra, was on a Sunday morning news program today. He, as spokesman for the Biden admin. said he was going to try to do what he could regarding abortion access. He said the admin. had rejected the tactics that the GOP used to get their wins. Just a thought- it’s probably unwise for the party to book Becerra for interviews about abortion rights.
Or maybe
Roberts is the Pope
Roberts is the Pope, it’s true
He’s got the Papal Touch
He’s Papal People, through and through
And loves them oh so much
So you can be the President (You can be the President)
I’d rather be the Pope (Rather be the Pope)
Yeah, you can be the side effect (You can be the side effect)
I’d rather be the dope (Rather be the dope)
The Supreme Court is trying to renorm our society. This is another way for right wing extremists to enforce minority rule. Six members of the court do not represent the political and social leaning of most Americans.
The Court was never intended to “represent” the populace.
It was a decidely undemocratic, elite and elitist body from it’s inception.
Thomas Jefferson understood as much and strongly criticized Chief Justice John Marshall’s claim of the power of “judicial review” for the court in 1803 precisely because it afforded just a handful of unelected individuals virtually unlimited power.
But Jefferson actually cared about such “fluff” as undemocratic bodies yielding unlimited power.
The immunity card that the Catholic Church has had for 50 years has been very costly to American democracy and to the advancement of Blacks and women.
Georgetown (Catholic) University’s hiring of the Koch network’s Ilya Shapiro in 2022 for a top position in its law school, surprise or, not so much?
The immunity card that the Catholic Church has had for
502000+ yearsFixed it for you.
And you could have just said “has been very costly” and left it at that.
I hope the book Greg brought to our attention about the Pope, Mussolini and Hitler leads to an end of tax exemptions for religious organizations.
It will probably lead to just the opposite.
You know, to “stick it to the atheist Libs” who are blaspheming the Pope.
Evidence supports the fact that if everyone eligible to vote, voted, the dark-ages theofascist justices on the US Supreme Court that are bringing back the inquisition would be overruled by Congress.
The Fascist Republican Party (or maybe they should call themselves the Trump Loyalist Anti-Constitutionalist Party) would be a small minority – about 20% of registered voters.
The Traditional Conservative Republican Party would be even smaller – about 10% of registered voters.
And the Democrats (about 30% of registered voters) would possibly end up controlling enough votes to pass legislation and even add new amendments to the US Constitution to limit the kind of dystopian insanity coming from all of those fascists in government from the US Supreme Court, to Congress, to state governors and legislatures.
Of course!
Why do you think the Republicans are obsessed with making it as hard as possible for traditional Democratic voters to vote?
Why are Republicans obsessed with ending voting rights?
Why do Republicans HATE Stacey Abrams?
We should be united to elect Democrats. Stacey Abrams isn’t a perfect progressive. But she is a good person. She would make a fine lawmaker.
She understands the failure of Dems isn’t because they aren’t mouthing some perfect progressive ideology that would draw voters to them.
Republicans aren’t winning because they are offering policies good for the working class. They are winning by lying, demonizing non-whites and having some on the left help them by amplifying the anti-Dem rhetoric where the Dems are the enemy because of their flaws.
Republican voters are motivated to vote because they believe it is very important to keep those dangerous Democrats and progressives from power.
In 2016, Democrat voters heard non-stop how there is no reason to vote for the Democrat – and if they heard it only from the far right, they would know it was a lie. But they also heard it from progressives, so many started to believe it. Not motivated to vote because “it didn’t matter”.
In 2020, folks didn’t hear that as much, thankfully, and voters knew it mattered.
But sadly, I am starting to hear the same dangerous rhetoric again. Not from the far right, which is absolutely united and motivated to vote and crush the Democrats.
Sadly, why aren’t people who aren’t right wing racists absolutely united and motivated to vote and crush the far right Republicans?
Instead, the loudest messages the voters who are in the middle hear is always “Dems can’t be trusted”. And they never hear the far more important message that it is the Republicans who can’t be trusted and have no interest in helping them.
^^In short, there are a lot more of us than them.
We should be motivated to unite and crush the far right Republican Party.
Because they are certainly united to crush us, and they don’t care if we are moderates or progressives or on the far left. The far right Republican party wants to crush us all. And until the Republican party is completely disempowered, our infighting doesn’t get us progressive legislation, it gets us more far right empowerment like this Supreme Court.
NYC public school parent
Perhaps your are being divisive . Who are the voices you are hearing. Who is it that that is attacking whom. And who scuttled the Biden Agenda. Lets not go back to 2016. Because we disagree on who cost Clinton that election. I say in addition to Comey and the Russians ,it was Obama pushing TPP down the throat of those Mid Westerners almost right up till the Election. The poor girl on the White House’s switchboard is still recovering from the ear injury she suffered from me.
One of the most successful things Republicans have done is doubling down on their message. They do not have to achieve much legislatively because they are inherently anti regulation and anti Government, except when it comes to the bedroom or the belly .
The lesson that they learn from a defeat since Goldwater, is to double down on their message and run a more ideological candidate the next time. Granted that ideology is racial, religious and sexual demagoguery, mixed in with a touch of economic policy meant to inflict pain on their targeted groups. Pain which their base loves to inflict , while cutting taxes on their financial enablers.
Now we can have a debate on how you confront that. I thought an aggressive and swift Justice Dept. assault on all the seditionist criminals and their financial enablers for their criminal enterprises( ie Eric Prince / DeVos ) was the answer. That we may never see.
Biden was a healer not a fighter thus Garland. A George Mitchel, a Ken Star or a Bill Bar he did not choose . How is that working out?
Obviously Biden felt the answer was to go “Big economically ” or go home. So who scuttled those plans. Before the BBB left the House Progressives warned that separating the Infrastructure Bill from the BBB was a fatal error. That seeking Republican votes was a waste of time and effort. But that warning was not heeded . News flash the lag time between the passage of an infrastructure bill and major projects being shovel ready is so great that it is tough to convince even. Construction workers that Biden and Democrats did anything for them Take that to the bank I try daily . The lag time to completion will be long after the 2024 election . And frankly if that new Bridge or Sewer is not in my neighborhood I don’t give a crap. . That would not have been the case with BBB. Every retired toothless hillbilly (not very PC of me but” ask if I care “) would know that Joe Biden gave them new front teeth . Every parent struggling to afford child care or elder care, every person who paid for prescription drugs…
But before it left the House Progressives compromised endlessly to have a bill that would get 50 Democrats in the Senate.
Those 5 progressives that objected to the watered down Hard Infrastructure bill being separated from BBB made sure that Pelosi had the votes to pass it before they voted NO ! And we know what happened to BBB and which Politicians scuttled it . Is it too much to ask that they should be challenged in Primaries .Is it too much to ask that the Majority Leader in the Senate force painful votes on those that killed the Biden Agenda. Or force a cloture vote on BBB , on Voting Rights ,on Abortion Rights ,on the Pro Act . On killing the Filibuster to put every Senator on record , saying we don’t have the votes does not cut it. Some votes he did make . But no one faced the same wrath that a dying John McCain did. The Republicans certainly have no problem with their litmus tests. They shiver at the thought of a primary challenge from the Right.
But when you say starting to hear . I assume you mean in the “Liberal Media” or from Progressive Pundits . Perhaps we agree there is no “Liberal Media ” certainly not on the Networks, Cable Networks or the Nations 2 papers of record . Some opinion writers aside. . They drove hysteria over inflation through the roof from last Spring through Fall when inflation was barely over 4% . When gas was $3.41 a gallon costing less in hourly wages than in 2008 or 14 . Not only are wages higher millage is higher.
And who were the Pundits who did the most damage, why Larry (I left Harvard in disgrace) Summers and Steve( I can not trade securities no mas ) Rattner. One a Clinton appointee the other an Obama appointee . They gave Manchin all the ammunition he needed to stab Bidden in the heart with a dagger. If the Fed worried about inflation being an expectations nightmare . Those expectations were driven by the” Liberal Media” (LOL). Corporations surely got the message even as workers did not. Record profits and stock buy backs instead of belt tightening to make up for rising costs . And as Pandemic employment normalized wages have actually been falling for 2 quarters. Tough to see an inflationary spiral with falling wages. But Powell is now in Panic mode. He buckled to Trump when the Economy was roaring. But Larry Summers being like a broken clock has him quivering . And those moderate Democrats are silent. Trump may have been despicable and his attacks on the Press and the Fed may have been for all the wrong reasons . But was he wrong?
And what is the latest media kick ,non stop RECESSION talk out of the chattering class, Not Fox I do not give a damn what the right says .
56% of Americans according to an Economist / YouGuv poll now believe we are in a recession. That is the neatest trick of mind control on record , with 3.6% unemployment . Don’t tell me about a few Progressive critics when the vast majority of the mainstream media claims to be moderates, is perceived to be Democratic . They are doing there best to re-elect Trump.
I would love to discuss my favorite moderate Democrat in NY who just go his butt kicked. Running for Governor on Republican talking points and attacks on Progressives. But my keyboard has had enough.
The ignorance and arrogance of this crew is gobsmacking. You have to wonder how these justices attained the ages they have without learning, let alone growing.
You cannot stand still. If you try to, you will assuredly move backward. And if you move backward, you defy the entire enterprise of life. Life doesn’t regress as a general rule, it strives, it advances, it seeks to overcome, it seeks to improve. We didn’t get where we are because nature said, “Eh, that’s enough.”
That is why conservatism, defined once by William F. Buckley as standing athwart history and shouting “Stop!”, is so fundamentally stupid and wrong. Because stopping is never “stopping”: It’s regressing. It’s covering one’s ears and shouting “La la la la la la!” because you’re displeased that things aren’t what they used to be. Grow the hell up.
I always think of the Gary Larson cartoon of dinosaurs pointing and laughing at a furry little mammal walking by, while only one of them looks up and notices a snowflake falling.
Pack the Court. A society interested in progress and survival does not put its faith in dinosaurs. Pack the Court. NOW.
I must, respectfully, disagree. These recent decisions, taken together, along with the decision in Moore v. Harper to come at the end of the court’s next session, are laying the groundwork not for anarchy, for the end of law and order, but for an extremely oppressive law and order state to come. The guns decision, for example, will be used to justify the citizens’ militias that will play the same role in that fascist U.S. state to come that the Sturmabteilung (the S.A.) played in the rise to power of the NSDAP in Germany. The Dobbs decision provides a template for overturning an enormous body of law protecting unenumerated rights and transferring power to the state. This court is in the midst of effecting a revolution, and it knows it. It’s decisions, taken together, are our Enabling Act.
What we are seeing is the beginning of a Judeo-Christian fascist state. It’s ironic that it was the U.S. that played the decisive role in stopping fascism in the middle of the last century but will be the place where the Fourth Reich arises.
“The fundamentals which God gave to the Commonwealth of Israell, were a sufficient Rule to them, to guide all their Affaires.” –John Winthrop, “Arbitrary government described and the Government of the Massachusetts vindicated from that aspersion” (1644)
God, ofc, embodied in a Glorious Leader empowered by an Extreme Court
Yes, there is bedlam to come, but it is increasingly looking as though it will be the bedlam of a civil war between those supporting the emerging fascist state and those opposing it. Tzar Vlad must be very happy about his investment in his dog Trump and in agents and assets in the United States encouraging far right nationalism, fudnamentalism, and guns.
The Supreme Court wants the bedlam. The Republican Party wants the bedlam. From the advocates of “disruption “ to the government haters, all want bedlam they can blame on their opponents, thus justifying erosion of the important amendments, the middle sections outlining rights of the accused
This is how you get to the full-blown fascist state: protests in the streets met with violence, met with violence in turn, escalating in a positive-feedback loop until you have all state violence all the time.
I’d venture to say what the current Religiously Supreme Majority are after is not “Bedlam”, but “Bethlehem” (birthplace of Christ) — to codify it as the birthplace of The United States.
yup
In a purely Yeatsian sense …
cx:
The guns decision, for example, will enable the citizens’ militias that will play the same role in that fascist U.S. state to come that the Sturmabteilung (the S.A.) played in the rise to power of the NSDAP in Germany. The independent state legislatures voting power ruling in Moore v. Harper will wrest voting rights from the people and concentrate them in a higher power in preparation for concentrating all power at the top.
“What we are seeing is the beginning of a Judeo-Christian fascist state.”
No, it isn’t going to include Jews. The Jews are going to be the scapegoats. Anti-semitism is a weapon in the far right arsenal. Right now they only use it quietly, targeted toward very specific groups. “Jews will not replace us.” As soon as they need a new scapegoat because there is only one party left – the Republicans – but it isn’t doing anything for anyone who isn’t rich and people are suffering – it will be the Jews who are to blame.
In the 40’s, there wasn’t an alliance in the U.S. between conservative Catholics and evangelicals. It’s possible that protestants were the leading supporters for America’s allies. The church of the British was a protestant sect, the Church of England. How it would have played out if Catholics and protestants had merged interest then, we don’t know. The two are siding with fascists now so, they may have sided with the Axis in WWII i.e. Mussolini or may have taken no action. The book that Greg told us he is reading now which is based on new documents about the Pope’s involvement with Mussolini and Hitler provides a picture of where the U.S. may have stood.
FDR was from the social gospel wing, a protestant movement.
My comment is in moderation. The following is an addition to it. Dorothy Day was a vocal pacifist, opposed to WW II. She was also opposed to Social Security. Archbishops Edward Mooney and Francis Spellman were supporters of the U.S. involvement.
When the Catholic immigrant demographic segment acquired greater wealth, a transitioning from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party was seen.
Thom Hartmann offers a vey chilling description of what may be coming down the pike:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/102247/the-nightmare-scenario-scotus-is-plotting-for-the-2024-election-takeover
Exactly, Eleanor. This is precisely the scenario to which I was alluding–or, rather, is one of a number of like scenarios. Introducing the post-democratic Nullification by State Legislature Era.
Rural votes- religious and Republican
This is quite the drama we are seeing unfold. At the very time when we are finding out whether this is a country of law that can be used to prevent a fascist coup, the Extreme Court is revisiting whole bodies of law to prepare the ground for the fascist state to come.
This will be quite the story to tell in the future. Well, there was this guy, Trump, who was a fascist Glorious Leader wannabe, and he tried to effect a coup. He actually claimed that as president he had the right to do whatever he wanted to. There were even hearings that laid out his various simultaneous plots to overthrow democracy in the United States. And guess what happened as a result of those?
Nothing. Can you believe it? Nothing. At least in Germany, after the Beer Hall Putsch, they gave Hitler some minimal sentence.
Bannon and Navarro are confident that soon their party will be in power again and all the feeble attacks on them, all that pea shooter stuff, will go away. Miller is toiling away at his America First Legal. DeSantis is amassing an enormous war chest. The Extreme Court is plowing, plowing, plowing under U.S. law, preparing the field for the terrible beast about to be birthed.
Mixing my metaphors a bit, but so be it.
Mixing your Meta-Friends
Mixing your Meta-friends
Friending your enemies
NOTworking never ends
Unfriending frenemies
haaa!
Mixed Semaphores
Mixing up your Semaphores
“End of word” and “error”
Mixing up your “A-N-D”s and “O-R”s
Leads to utter terror
https://cdn.britannica.com/41/133741-050-FA798221/Semaphore-flag-signals.jpg?w=400&h=300&c=crop
Haaa!
You can be sure if AG Attorney (Go-Easyonem) Garland ever does indict and prosecute Trump for aiding and abetting an insurrection, the Supreme Majority will simply throw out the conviction.
That’s the beauty of having the final say in the judicial review process: you can’t be overruled.
“When I read the Constitution” John Roberts said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
Was Justice K a part of the Beer hall Putsch? Can he even remember?
I bet college is just one long drunken frat party blur (,or maybe blackout) for Brett.
He seems to be the epitome of the Ivy League fratboy.
He probably knows more about drinking games than about the law.
DARNED GOOD QUESTION, ROY!
Hitler’s sentence for the Putsch was actually 5 years, but he was released after only 9 months.
Big mistake.
The other big mistake Germany made was not forcing him to leave Germany after he got out.
And they allowed him to live like a rajah and write his book while he was “imprisoned.” Sort of like the kind of imprisonment that Jeffrey Epstein got–all conjugal visit, almost no prison.
I am being immoderate, I guess. Everything I write is going into moderation. lol
Given the details of the agreement regarding Epstein’s first conviction, the only surprising thing about the “punishment” is that the Florida “justice” system wasn’t actually supplying Epstein with young girls for raping during his “imprisonment” sojourn.
Or maybe I am simply mistaken and they were?
Florida is the spitting image of a Banana Republic
Jeffrey Epstein got–all conjugal visit, almost no prison.”
Epstein’s “visits” outside the prison involving the rape of young girls would much more aptly be called “DonJugal visits”
For a perspective from a writer who is far more knowledgeable and talented than the hysteric Dana Milbank, see the link below. BTW, this writer conspicuously refused to vote for Trump and enraged Trump supporters by calling him a “witless ape.”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/lessons-from-the-lefts-implosion/
This is BS. The Democrats believe in DEMOCRACY. Republicans are doing everything in their power to limit people’s right to vote.
Your racist, nasty party hates democracy.
And your party is the one who believes in breaking the norms of democracy to sieze those institutions. So 9 months is too late for a democrat to fill an open Supreme Court seat, but a few days is just fine for a Republican. And you aren’t even ashamed of it. Apparently you teach your kids that this is what they should do — win at all costs and might makes right.
No scruples or principles. You won’t even stick up for Liz Cheney. I dare you to.
Show us you aren’t a far right troll and say “Liz Cheney is telling the truth about January 6.”
If you can’t say it, your links are worthless.
Stop being so hysterical about democracy. What scares you so much about democracy that you would rather kill people than embrace the truth?
Catfishing
Catfish baits the lure
And catfish reels them in
Catfish? Jill?, for sure
Probably a man
WordPress put that in the wrong spot
It was a reply to Linda below
If Jill isn’t catfishing us”
Seriously? You are recommending for our consideration a piece by someone who uses the phrase “the women-with-penises claque” to Democrats?
cx: to describe Democrats
If Jill isn’t catfishing us, pretending to be a woman, she’s stupid to support a party that has taken away her rights and plans to take away more of them.
“She” is supporting a writer who calls Democrats “women with penises.” Imagine the difficulty of trying to explain the many, many ways in which that is just vile to someone so clueless that he or she doesn’t understand that it’s vile.
“this writer conspicuously refused to vote for Trump and enraged Trump supporters by calling him a “witless ape.”
When did stating the obvious become something to put on one’s writing resume?
That’s nothing. I once wrote that grass is green.
Homo witless
The last of homo witless
A type of witless ape
As God will be my witness
His oranges are fake
Should probably be
“The peak of homo witless”
Undoubtedly not the “last” by any means. Unfortunately
“Homo witless” is a branch of “homo electus”, in case anyone has forgotten their physical anthropology.
Which is itself a branch of “homo phobic”
From the first paragraph, the vaunted author of this piece is patronizing and pathetic. Suggesting that “liberals” (where to find them since 1980?) have no philosophical sharpness and that they have taken over universities is the silliest idea since Koch bought George Mason.
“Their reasoning is not legal but political, not principled but partisan.”
Yes, it’s partisan. . . xtian fundie faith belief partisan politics. And while it is considered “legal” it certainly has nothing to do with justice.
I’d say even to call it legal is a stretch since legal implies it is based in the law and much what the Supremes are doing is based in their rectums.
In the Roe decision, it removed a constitutional right—granted 49 years ago— for the first time in history.”
I’d say the main problem with the overturn is not whether abortion was a constitutional right to begin with but the fact that the right has existed now for half a century, with all the ramifications.
The main issue with overturning Roe would seem to have little to do with whether the right actually exists in the Constitution to begin with. Protecting a person’s (in this case woman’s) control over their own body and health (and in some cases even life) would certainly seem to be entirely consistent with a document that includes a Bill of Rights and other amendments to protect individual liberties, but since there is no specific mention of abortion, one could argue either way and neve settle the issue objectively. When it comes down to it, there IS NO objective answer. Even rights that are mentioned by name in the Constitution are not entirely clear (eg, right to bear arms) and open to debate.
Do the main issue is actually not the “Constitutionality” one.
The main issue is the fact that the Supremes overturned something that has had a profound effect on women’s equality, health and lives in the half century since.
What kind of pompous ass would be so sure that he/she is so absolutely “correct” in his/her interpretation (which, hilariously, is subjective , by definition) that they can unhesitatingly overturn a formerly perfectly reasonable interpretation and thereby effectively jettison something that is inextricably bound up with 50 years of progress for women? The hubris is these Just-asses is astounding.
fascinating:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/03/opinions/newsom-desantis-2024-campaign-ad-obeidallah/index.html
Thanks for the link
To your 7/3/22 12:52 PM comment, SDHP:
Now we can call it “judISHial review.”
Ha ha ha
Great one.
Judis is certainly who the Supreme Majority are emulating when they sell out the United States of America and hang the Constitution on the cross.
Judisial Review
Judisial Review
The method of Judis
To stab (out of view)
And claim to be Jurists
I guess it’s spelled Judas,, so it’s
Judassial Review, which is even better
Judassial Review
Judassial Review
The method of Judas
To stab (out of view)
And claim to be Jurists
The great Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan once presciently observed that “violence is the quest for identity. When identity disappears…violence is the natural recourse”. Today’s SCOTUS reminds us what occurs when the identity of the nation’s high court disappears. Stability and constancy were obvious concerns for the founders who conceived of the Senate as a “sober second thought” as compared to the relatively chaotic cantankerous workings of the House. Why have a third of the Senate up for reelection every two years instead of everyone every six years? Stability and constancy. So even if every incumbent senator lost their election the Senate would still remain 2/3 stable. Similarly, Hamilton favored the Court having the power of judicial review because SCOTUS was not a popularity contest like Congress so our judiciary would retain its independent objective function free of any tainting contemporary influence. Stability and constancy. But now that political expediency has replaced sober reflection; now that radical extremism has supplanted judicial conservativism; now that the Super-majority contorts and distorts reality to justify retrograde sophomoric reasoning we are left with a snarling snarky defensive Supreme Court that has lost its historical identity. It has become the hallmark of a vainglorious Russian asset bent on demolishing our fragile beleaguered democracy. January 6th makes more sense when viewed as the result of a party that has lost its identity. And when that happens, isn’t violence the only natural recourse?
Lost its identity or had it stolen by Koch?
Dark Money and Power Worshippers – the theft of American democracy
“Hamilton favored the Court having the power of judicial review because SCOTUS was not a popularity contest like Congress so our judiciary would retain its independent objective function free of any tainting contemporary influence.”
Ha ha ha ha.
What a hamilton.
If Hamilton actually said that about the Judicial review, I suspect that his actual rationale was so that the Court could overrule the laws made by what Hamilton viewed would be ignorant riff-raff in the Congress. Hamilton was an elitist who simply did not trust (or even like) democracy.
Yes or that an independent federal judiciary would be the appropriate referee of the Constitutionality of Congressional law, one in which Insulating lifetime appointments would make up for the Court’s inability to tax or command an army. And of course he would have been happy to hear you refer to him as elitist! Happy 4th and thanks for all the great bars!
Happy 4th to you too
And may Alexander Hamilton rest his elitist , undemocratic head in pieces.
The Current Majority summarized the situation going forward best when they recently (implicitly) said
“We’re the Umpire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
The Supreme
UVampireSupreme Court is the umpire
They’re bound to make the call
With bloody fangs of vampire
And “Liberty” for all
Of course, vampires live forever (liberating, right?) as long as they can get a blood meal every so often — and avoid the sunlight
SDHP: My JudISHal is not based on Judas (because I wouldn’t have misspelled his name), but it’s ISH, as in, well, ISH. (Like I write itch
mICKonnell –ICK.) Ever watch “Seinfeld?” (I know a lot of people don’t like the show.) If you do/did–for those of you who do/did–in the series finale, their lawyer, Jackie Chiles (they’re on trial for breaking the Good Samaritan Law–don’t ask) says, “You people have a name for everything, don’t you?” (Or everyone, which is more accurate.) That’s me.
But I think I like your Judasial better. Although: how about
JudasISHal? Nah.
The Supreme Court is NOT supreme:
James Madison, Father of our Constitution, recorded in the actual minutes of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that when writing Article III, the intent of and the understanding among the delegates was that “the jurisdiction given [to the Supreme Court] was constructively LIMITED TO CASES OF A JUDICIARY NATURE” and did not include issues of constitutionality.
Thomas Jefferson, author of our Declaration of Independence, pointed out: “The question whether the [Supreme Court] judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law…there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches.”
Founding Father Jefferson also pointed out the very real danger to our republic of allowing the Supreme Court the non-constitutional power to decide the constitutionality of laws: “Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so,” Jefferson noted. “They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps…and their power is all the more dangerous because they are in office for life and are not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots” and “Experience has already shown that the impeachment it [our Constitution] has provided is not even a scare-crow…The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”
Since the Constitution does NOT give the Supreme Court any authority to decide on the constitutionality of laws, where did the Court seize the authority that it claims to have? Well, the Court GAVE ITSELF that alleged authority in its Marbury v. Madison ruling.
Must be nice to give yourself constitutional authority that the Constitution doesn’t give you.
When the Court gave itself that unconstitutional authority, Jefferson sadly said that it was “the end of our democracy.”
He was right, as is clear today.
And the REASON why the Supreme Court has been allowed to get away with unconstitutionally making constitutional decisions is because with the Supreme Court doing the job for them, members of Congress don’t have to pass often unpopular laws — they can let the Supreme Court do the dirty work and then the members of Congress can say to their voters “See — it’s that terrible activist Supreme Court that has done this, not us.” In short, allowing the Supreme Court to make the hard decisions gets the cowardly Congress off the hook.
Judging what is constitutional is the job of Congress, not the states, as Thomas Jefferson pointed out. Clarence Thomas’s right to live in an interracial marriage is nowhere explicitly stated in the Constitution and was outlawed by many states, but the 9th Amendment protects that unstated right to interracial marriage and all other unstated rights, such as abortion; and the 14th Amendment then requires that all those unstated rights are protected from state and other laws that discriminate against those rights.
NEEDED IMMEDIATELY: Pass new federal law that recognizes that the right to abortion is based on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause, upon which Justice Thomas’s unstated right to live in an interracial marriage — which right is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution — is based and on the 9th Amendment which states that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Not every individual right can be specifically cited in the Constitution because the list would be so long and continually unfolding that our Founding Fathers would still be writing the list; the 9th Amendment makes clear that every individual right which is unstated in but which is intrinsically inherent in the Constitution is protected by the Constitution.
The Court’s 1973 decision on Roe was based on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and should have been based on the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and on the 9th Amendment. A new law recognizing the clear right to abortion should be based on the 9th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.