Not going to lie...I'm having a hard time reading these...It just negatively impacts me, I'm sad, mad, angry, etc. All the emotions. Sadness for how far we got only for it to be taken away. Mad because we didn't see the corruption at our highest court and angry because lifetime appointments are just that until the law changes - and who's going to change that law? Honestly? I appreciate you writing them, I need to know these things. It hurts nonetheless.
The decisions of this court might be a gift in the next election, because by making so many subversive decisions this court is certainly making clear who each and every member is. Thanks to the internet Independent press can flourish in counter to the right wingers that are certainly using the medium to their advantage. Right now, you have evil right wingers like Peter Thiel, the Nazi who has slipped into the USA and became filthy rich.
I do not use Paypal for anything because of him. My daughter's friends are used to knowing that she is not going to participate in things we do not support, although as an adult she now can. Still he is managing to steal my tax dollars. Not going to give him any pennies I don't need to. He supports a right wing agenda, even though he is gay. I wonder whether he is 100% on board with the world he is creating for himself and us here. This court may not end up being his friend. Perhaps because he is a billionaire he feels above the laws, since he seems to be. https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/peter-thiel-jeff-thomas/
Thanks to the independent press, we get a bigger picture of how billionaires influence politics and how they are getting away with "murder," while other people have to pay the price for their actions.
Thiel is horrible for any number of reasons. Mostly because he's a hypocrite and very dangerous. He claims to promote individual freedom but founded shady surveillance company Palantir. He's gay but supports Trump. He's an immigrant but advocates restricting immigration. He's got links to James O'Keefe. And so on.
But calling him a Nazi only cheapens the very real horrors of Nazis. If you use that word for just anybody you don't like, what are we gonna call the actual monsters? Please don't do that.
And he didn't "slip into the USA" - he immigrated with his parents when he was a toddler, and became a US citizen at age 11 when his mother was naturalized. Being a US citizen was as much out of his control as it was for a natural-born citizen.
Okay. Accurately I could say White Supremacist, since he is not a member of the German Nazi party, but I am bothered by people who think and behave like Nazis getting to call themselves something else and then not being Nazis. As the grand-niece of a Nazi I use the word intentionally. Yes. Peter Thiel came with his parents from Germany and I have been reading articles and research about and watching several programs about the Right Wing in Germany of late, I do not believe his beliefs just grew out of thin air. There is a historical base. Do you feel that because he was a child he was not indoctrinated by his parents into the beliefs he currently holds? Just because Hitler is not alive does not mean that there are no longer Nazis in Germany. In fact, I consider the AfD to be the new name for the German Nazi party. I hear Germans say Nazi-like things when I am there, just like I read about in the papers here in the USA words from groups of people I do not hang out with that sound just like Nazis. When I ask friends in Germany how the AfD gets to exist when they have Nazi beliefs my friends do not know. If you can just rename your party but practice the politics of Nazis then are Nazis only people who call themselves Nazis and everyone else is just a White Supremacist? So, there are modern day Nazis, and I call Germans who fund groups and policies that are about exterminating everyone but "White Christians" then I don't feel like I am off base. I know the racist thinking I get exposure to it both here and in Germany. Other countries have their own names for groups that are reviving Nazi ideology into the mainstream. If you read Professor Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, and I have been following the White Power movement in European countries too, I know that "anti-immigration" is code for a deeper agenda which Belew spells out in her book, a must read. Nazi's wanted to annihilate everyone who was not White, and everyone who did not get with the program. So did the author of The Turner Diaries the White Power Movement's bible. I am wondering how you differentiate between Nazis of old and Nazis of new. I DO NOT! I recommend watching this program, if you understand German, and then see how I can get the sense that Thiel, who has not only come from Germany, but also lived in South Africa is a Nazi. Here this program, which means confessions of a Neonazi is a mixture of the person's confessions, and the experts who follow various aspects of Right wing-neo-Nazi activities in Germany. https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/gestaendnisse-eines-neonazis
As far as I know White Supremacists in the USA and other countries are arming for a race. Nazis are White Supremacists, who have a final solution to get rid of others, and keep women subservient and breeding babies. If you have evidence that Peter Thiel does not want this, then please share it. And I can tell you there are plenty of real horrors being perpetrated right here in the USA. In fact, according to the series on Race on Facing our History Facing Ourselves, Hitler and the German Nazis got a lot of their ideas from the good old USA. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/race-power-illusion-story-we-tell
It is a 3 part series, and I think that it might be in the second one where they discuss Nazis borrowing racist ideas from the USA. I can call him a German Immigrant to the USA, who practices White Power politics, but I feel that naming things what they are might wake people up to the real dangers, not just the Whitewashing that one can often find people giving people. It is insidious. Before the Nazis exterminated Jews, Gypsies, Brown skinned Germans, Africans from their colonies in Germany, Homosexuals, Communists, Catholics, etc... they just had their racist ideology in preparation for exterminating the people they did not like. Were they not Nazis then?
You are not the only one with Nazi ancestors; I have them in my family, too. Neither of us are Nazis. Yet you accuse Peter Thiel of having been indoctrinated by his family (without even knowing where they stood polically).
Yes, some people in today's Germany (and in today's USA) really are Nazis, some overt, some only behind closed doors. But as horrible as the AfD is, even they don't deserve the label Nazi. All you are doing is diluting the term.
More importantly, the fact that there are a few Nazis does not give us the right to brand anybody with that label based on nothing more than nationality. Peter Thiel is horrible in many respects, but I am not aware of anything that would justify calling him a Nazi.
I hope you are also signed up for Robert Hubbell’s newsletter. He’s a retired judge and stated that there is a way out of this mess. I am waiting anxiously for him to tell us how.
He's a retired attorney. We only wish he were a judge, ideally on SCOTUS. Ahh, I'm dreaming. For additional uplifting content, nonpolitical this time, check out his wife's blog, "Everyday With Jill--home, happiness, and holidays" .
The Constitution says plainly, "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour" - no limit on terms explicit or implicit. A Constitutional amendment is required to impose term limits. The only other remedy for this BS is impeachment. And we know where that goes: nowhere at all, since the Constitution also requires two-thirds of the Senate to convict, even if you could get the House started. Which - hahahahahaha...
You'll get no argument from me. It WOULD be helpful if Article III was a little more specific on the subject. Only thing is - in the current political climate, I doubt you could get an impeachment, never mind a conviction, regardless of the "behavior". There are only two pathways - wait 'em out, or pass an Amendment to give them term limits. Either one requires more patience than I have, and probably more time than I have left on earth. If only Roberts would grow a pair...
I'm wondering why the rightwing justices are being so careless--e.g., the fact that there was no gay couple sending an email to plaintiff--easily verified, as journalists have demonstrated. Is it arrogance? Indifference? Or the clueless detachment from reality on exhibit in Alito's "empty seat on the private jet" op-ed?
They’re not being careless. Carelessness implies in an unawareness of what they’re doing and the consequences of it. But here the justices’s actions are VERY deliberate.
They’re not being careless. They are intentionally, and knowing full well the consequences of their decisions, choosing to violate their oaths and do harm.
And they are doing it because they can. Because there are no consequences to them.
I would say that there might not be immediate consequences, but we have independent press that are going after what they do, and it is making it more and more public. While the Evangelical crowd is hardened in their ignorance, some raised in it have a chance to see things differently if we can get the messages out. Contradict the givens they are raised with. I am starting to believe in consequences when I see Biden elected instead of Trump, and even with gerrymandered districts the House only squeezed in a Republican majority. The country is becoming more secular, and given the scandals in the church, no wonder. The youth benefitted from a more diverse education until these wingnuts like DeSatan decided to remove knowledge from the youth of their states, in a Bradbury-like Fahrenheit 451, or an Orwellian-like 1984 world move. However, we need the youth to vote and get rid of these awful people. I do not think that a court that acts like this will get to stay as long as we are still a country where the majority want a democracy.
JD, and apparently no online web design service in existence. So we have a fictional couple who want to hire a non-existent online website design service.
Ann, once again ignoring precedent. A law professor once told one of my classmates, when she posited a wild hypothetical, responded : “Ms. Singer, if I had wheels, I’d be a wagon.” Apparently, it doesn’t take wheels to make a wagon anymore.
They are breaking the norms as necessary to please their masters. It’s pretty obvious that they have no intention of being anything but a Gang of Six. They are the Untouchables! Of course, it can also be undone over time. The point is not that no gay people can have a web site but that this designer does not have to do one for a gay couple’s wedding. Gays are supposed to take comfort in that distiction. But I am afraid it is just a matter of time before it lends itself to something like a doctor can refuse to treat gays based on the doc’s religious beliefs.
It has never been a judge's (or jury's, let alone a SCOTUS justice's) job to investigate facts. They only look at facts as presented by the parties. If a party doesn't present a fact, that fact does not exist as far as the judge is concerned.
At the District Court level, the State of Colorado should have brought up that fact, and gotten the case tossed for lack of standing.
That brings up a much more interesting question: why wasn't it brought up in the District Court? The original plaintiff would obviously have known, so she probably committed some fraud on the court, and possibly perjury, here.
The second question is: the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was unable to unearth this information before the case ever reached SCOTUS (I don't even want to contemplate the possibility that they knew but ignored it - there is zero evidence for such a serious accusation). But now, it surfaced within days of the SCOTUS decision. Why?
That would be the serious accusation I didn't want to contemplate - deliberately doing something like that against your employer's (or client's) interest would probably be grounds for disbarment.
Frankly, I also consider that unlikely. One person alone couldn't do it without getting exposed; too many people would know, both in the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and in the Colorado Attorney General's office. It would have leaked a long time ago.
If somebody did "let it slide" then the fact that there was no gay couple was utterly immaterial by the time the case reached SCOTUS.
It is because historically this court has been so revered, held in the highest esteem, that we have perhaos been slow to recognize, to concede that we have lost the Supreme Court. Now, letting go is hard to do, but it is time to leggo the ego of that now perverse body, though we might hold fast still to its ideal.
We are,the ones who have empowered that bench, and we are the ones who can, well, bench that team, as they are truly bad news.
In all sincerity, the sycophantic six are showing us exactly who they are, and by boring holes in the 14th they are poised to dismantle all of it....
The only hope is that people remember these things when they vote. Not that it necessarily undoes the harm already done - but resets America onto the path the sensible and enlightened majority want rather that this terrible and, I hope, temporary diversion driven by lunatic far right wing elements.
Two Justices were illegally seated; 3 lied under Oath; 2 have sexual misconduct issues; one was not properly vetted by the FBI; a political/religious conspiracy by the Federalist Society has been revealed; and numerous examples of potential bribery and lack of recusal have occured. At this point a investigation is a priority and removal with the decisions that they contaminated are voided and reheard. Our Country can't have criminals deciding the law.
Someone on Dreher’s substack said that the Supreme Court isn’t there to decide what’s right, but to decide what’s constitutional, and I should know that, so I thought about that, and responded:
I've been thinking about what you said, and it's interesting, but flawed. We all expect more from SCOTUS, whether we admit it or not. Democracy, in and of itself, promises a dream to all citizens that they can participate, have a voice that will be heard (and not drowned out by the powerful) and listened to, and that somehow, out of the stew and chaos of multiplicity, achieve a moral society. That decisions will be made on what’s right, rather than a strictly Legalistic approach to people management. Democracy has an enchantment, a promise, inherent in it, and when that is broken or ignored or shattered – people turn bitter.
The classic example is the Dred Scott decision of 1857, in which Chief Justice Taney ruled “We think ... that they [black people] are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time [of America's founding] considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.”
(BTW, one of the major problems with “originalism” is that it posits making decisions today based upon the thoughts and intentions of a past society when slavery was legal, and the slave states were trying to enforce their ideas of human beings as property on all the other states by various means, including The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.)
Justice Taney himself was an “originalist”: “Now, ... the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. ... Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the [36°N 30' latitude] line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void....”
Stephen Douglas, candidate for President, agreed with Taney: “Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States, because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decisions in that court—to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our constitution.”
Legal and constitutional at that time, yes. But hardly moral to most non-slaveholders. Lincoln dissented. I note that a Civil War followed.
And eventually Chief Justice Taney climbed to the top of "Worst Supreme Court Justices of All Time".
Excellent distinctions. But even worse than a halt on progress is the "quality of the reasoning" that Alito cited--if that is the grounds for overcoming Stare Decisis, these two cases should be easily overturned if a sane majority ever reappears on the court. Both rely on dishonest reasoning based on facts that don't in fact exist.
Correction on "quality of reasoning...in fact Alito goes well out of his way to ridicule and castigate previous Court decisions with the zealous conviction of a Pentecostal preacher railing against Satan. No discipline nor measured argument in his writings.
I was going to quote and comment on just that. The shoddy reasoning (particularly in view of historical reasoning) was absolutely horrifying. Here we have justices spouting off on subjects they know very little about. With the exception of Thomas. He knows quite a bit about affirmative action. My question is why are they handing future courts the easy ability to gut these rulings? Have Leo's tentacles reached so far into the judiciary that we are only seeing the tip of that iceberg, hence giving the renegade six a sense of invincibility?
And now the Chief Justice is relaxing on his estate in my state of Maine. I hope he feels at least a little regret about ‘his court’ sliding toward disrepute.
Highly doubtful...I actually think the opposite. He's strutting around like his shit doesn't stink about how everything is going so "well" for him and his 5 cohorts.
If "textualism" doesn't give the desired far-right outcome on case decisions, well, let's cite the new and novel "major questions" so-called "doctrine", now openly invoked ad libitum when judging challenges to the agencies in particular, and the administrative state
Cut myself off, yet again...to conclude: [...] in general. The idea here is to get to a pre-determined majority decision by any means necessary, which of course includes just simply making up "doctrines" having ZERO precedence in constitutional law.
I again invite people to join me in writing to the Supreme Court and saying that the charlatans need to resign. it would be powerful for multiple millions to write this to the courts. It would give them a visual, palpable sense of the anger they are creating and the lack of legitimacy. They are not Putin, therefore we do not need to fear their fear that they might have gone too far. Here is an address that you can use. https://www.supremecourt.gov/contact/contact_pio.aspx
What drives me nuts is, the way things stand right now, there are no ramifications for these corrupt judges. They will not resign, they don't care how much scandal there is, and I seriously doubt they will be impeached.
To me these decisions are just the tip of the iceberg. They are an obvious reflection of a new “southern strategy.”.What we are witnessing is a second attempt to stop and turn back the “ Reconstruction “ of this country. The election is our only hope to prevent at least in part the continuation of this disastrous turn of events.
These justices are injecting their personal views as well as being bought and paid for. And Roberts wants to be a whiney bit $$ about not getting respect. They are a political entity that has control over our belief in the rule of law.
When I attended law school, and in the Constitutional Law course, we were told that Harvard has been proclaiming since the middle of the Depression that the Supreme Court is essentially political arm of the government, and because of that, it was reasonable for FDR to add to the Court. It was necessary to perform such a nakedly political act, because he was dealing with a "political" Court that was busily destroying the institution by overtly favoring the wealthy while normal citizens were starving.
President Biden made it clear the other day on MSNBC that he thought it would be a disaster if he "packed" the Court because (get this) it would politicize the Court. However, that is ignoring the extreme political process that made the Court what it is today and the highly political (even radical) decisions of this Kangaroo Court which are totally destroying the "Rule of Law." (See Heather Cox Richardson's substack post of July 3 for an excellent history of the runup to the Declaration of Independence and her subtext that clarifies the necessity of "Rule of Law" as apposed to "Rule of King and Court" to the process of democracy ---of the people--i.e."common" law)
Under "normal" circumstances I would agree with President Biden.
No longer.
(and, yes, I am a lawyer. And I am so devoted to the rule of law, that my entire practice is predicated on it--tax law)
We need to save the underpinnings of Democracy. Overcoming these Craven Fools is absolutely necessary. Otherwise they will utterly destroy the rule of law and we will end up in some form of "King and Court"=== probably a "Christian Meritocracy" that is made up of White "Christian" Men by, for, and with White Christian Men. (or men of color who very foolishly identify as White Men) They will continue to Legislate from the Court--
Not going to lie...I'm having a hard time reading these...It just negatively impacts me, I'm sad, mad, angry, etc. All the emotions. Sadness for how far we got only for it to be taken away. Mad because we didn't see the corruption at our highest court and angry because lifetime appointments are just that until the law changes - and who's going to change that law? Honestly? I appreciate you writing them, I need to know these things. It hurts nonetheless.
The decisions of this court might be a gift in the next election, because by making so many subversive decisions this court is certainly making clear who each and every member is. Thanks to the internet Independent press can flourish in counter to the right wingers that are certainly using the medium to their advantage. Right now, you have evil right wingers like Peter Thiel, the Nazi who has slipped into the USA and became filthy rich.
https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank
I do not use Paypal for anything because of him. My daughter's friends are used to knowing that she is not going to participate in things we do not support, although as an adult she now can. Still he is managing to steal my tax dollars. Not going to give him any pennies I don't need to. He supports a right wing agenda, even though he is gay. I wonder whether he is 100% on board with the world he is creating for himself and us here. This court may not end up being his friend. Perhaps because he is a billionaire he feels above the laws, since he seems to be. https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/peter-thiel-jeff-thomas/
Thanks to the independent press, we get a bigger picture of how billionaires influence politics and how they are getting away with "murder," while other people have to pay the price for their actions.
I’ve known Peter for a long time and he has always been pretty darned horrible.
Thiel is horrible for any number of reasons. Mostly because he's a hypocrite and very dangerous. He claims to promote individual freedom but founded shady surveillance company Palantir. He's gay but supports Trump. He's an immigrant but advocates restricting immigration. He's got links to James O'Keefe. And so on.
But calling him a Nazi only cheapens the very real horrors of Nazis. If you use that word for just anybody you don't like, what are we gonna call the actual monsters? Please don't do that.
And he didn't "slip into the USA" - he immigrated with his parents when he was a toddler, and became a US citizen at age 11 when his mother was naturalized. Being a US citizen was as much out of his control as it was for a natural-born citizen.
Okay. Accurately I could say White Supremacist, since he is not a member of the German Nazi party, but I am bothered by people who think and behave like Nazis getting to call themselves something else and then not being Nazis. As the grand-niece of a Nazi I use the word intentionally. Yes. Peter Thiel came with his parents from Germany and I have been reading articles and research about and watching several programs about the Right Wing in Germany of late, I do not believe his beliefs just grew out of thin air. There is a historical base. Do you feel that because he was a child he was not indoctrinated by his parents into the beliefs he currently holds? Just because Hitler is not alive does not mean that there are no longer Nazis in Germany. In fact, I consider the AfD to be the new name for the German Nazi party. I hear Germans say Nazi-like things when I am there, just like I read about in the papers here in the USA words from groups of people I do not hang out with that sound just like Nazis. When I ask friends in Germany how the AfD gets to exist when they have Nazi beliefs my friends do not know. If you can just rename your party but practice the politics of Nazis then are Nazis only people who call themselves Nazis and everyone else is just a White Supremacist? So, there are modern day Nazis, and I call Germans who fund groups and policies that are about exterminating everyone but "White Christians" then I don't feel like I am off base. I know the racist thinking I get exposure to it both here and in Germany. Other countries have their own names for groups that are reviving Nazi ideology into the mainstream. If you read Professor Kathleen Belew's book Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, and I have been following the White Power movement in European countries too, I know that "anti-immigration" is code for a deeper agenda which Belew spells out in her book, a must read. Nazi's wanted to annihilate everyone who was not White, and everyone who did not get with the program. So did the author of The Turner Diaries the White Power Movement's bible. I am wondering how you differentiate between Nazis of old and Nazis of new. I DO NOT! I recommend watching this program, if you understand German, and then see how I can get the sense that Thiel, who has not only come from Germany, but also lived in South Africa is a Nazi. Here this program, which means confessions of a Neonazi is a mixture of the person's confessions, and the experts who follow various aspects of Right wing-neo-Nazi activities in Germany. https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/gestaendnisse-eines-neonazis
The anti-immigrant agenda is just to be politically palatable, as code for anti non Whites. The long term goal is to get rid of everyone else. Now, you might not see Thiel's actions as indicating such, but I do. Not just the investment in his hidden bunker in New Zealand, which after a lot of publicity is not going to fly, or may fly, but under the radar, who knows, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/18/peter-thiel-refused-consent-for-sprawling-lodge-in-new-zealand-local-council
indicates a plan for a sort of armageddon. https://www.dw.com/en/new-zealand-the-ideal-spot-to-ride-out-the-apocalypse/a-58826995
As far as I know White Supremacists in the USA and other countries are arming for a race. Nazis are White Supremacists, who have a final solution to get rid of others, and keep women subservient and breeding babies. If you have evidence that Peter Thiel does not want this, then please share it. And I can tell you there are plenty of real horrors being perpetrated right here in the USA. In fact, according to the series on Race on Facing our History Facing Ourselves, Hitler and the German Nazis got a lot of their ideas from the good old USA. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/race-power-illusion-story-we-tell
It is a 3 part series, and I think that it might be in the second one where they discuss Nazis borrowing racist ideas from the USA. I can call him a German Immigrant to the USA, who practices White Power politics, but I feel that naming things what they are might wake people up to the real dangers, not just the Whitewashing that one can often find people giving people. It is insidious. Before the Nazis exterminated Jews, Gypsies, Brown skinned Germans, Africans from their colonies in Germany, Homosexuals, Communists, Catholics, etc... they just had their racist ideology in preparation for exterminating the people they did not like. Were they not Nazis then?
You are not the only one with Nazi ancestors; I have them in my family, too. Neither of us are Nazis. Yet you accuse Peter Thiel of having been indoctrinated by his family (without even knowing where they stood polically).
Yes, some people in today's Germany (and in today's USA) really are Nazis, some overt, some only behind closed doors. But as horrible as the AfD is, even they don't deserve the label Nazi. All you are doing is diluting the term.
More importantly, the fact that there are a few Nazis does not give us the right to brand anybody with that label based on nothing more than nationality. Peter Thiel is horrible in many respects, but I am not aware of anything that would justify calling him a Nazi.
I guess we are just going to disagree on this. Did you look at the program I linked in? If you do, I could tie it into what I am talking about.
I hope you are also signed up for Robert Hubbell’s newsletter. He’s a retired judge and stated that there is a way out of this mess. I am waiting anxiously for him to tell us how.
He's a retired attorney. We only wish he were a judge, ideally on SCOTUS. Ahh, I'm dreaming. For additional uplifting content, nonpolitical this time, check out his wife's blog, "Everyday With Jill--home, happiness, and holidays" .
I am not - thank you for that recommendation - I will go find Robert's newsletter and sign up.
“because lifetime appointments are just that until the law changes”
As I understand it, there is no law stating that appointments to the court are for life. That’s just been the tradition.
So, while setting term limits would be passing a new law, there is no existing law that has to be overturned.
The Constitution says plainly, "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour" - no limit on terms explicit or implicit. A Constitutional amendment is required to impose term limits. The only other remedy for this BS is impeachment. And we know where that goes: nowhere at all, since the Constitution also requires two-thirds of the Senate to convict, even if you could get the House started. Which - hahahahahaha...
Ahhhh: sounds like it’s time to define “good Behaviour”
You'll get no argument from me. It WOULD be helpful if Article III was a little more specific on the subject. Only thing is - in the current political climate, I doubt you could get an impeachment, never mind a conviction, regardless of the "behavior". There are only two pathways - wait 'em out, or pass an Amendment to give them term limits. Either one requires more patience than I have, and probably more time than I have left on earth. If only Roberts would grow a pair...
I'm wondering why the rightwing justices are being so careless--e.g., the fact that there was no gay couple sending an email to plaintiff--easily verified, as journalists have demonstrated. Is it arrogance? Indifference? Or the clueless detachment from reality on exhibit in Alito's "empty seat on the private jet" op-ed?
They’re not being careless. Carelessness implies in an unawareness of what they’re doing and the consequences of it. But here the justices’s actions are VERY deliberate.
They’re not being careless. They are intentionally, and knowing full well the consequences of their decisions, choosing to violate their oaths and do harm.
And they are doing it because they can. Because there are no consequences to them.
I would say that there might not be immediate consequences, but we have independent press that are going after what they do, and it is making it more and more public. While the Evangelical crowd is hardened in their ignorance, some raised in it have a chance to see things differently if we can get the messages out. Contradict the givens they are raised with. I am starting to believe in consequences when I see Biden elected instead of Trump, and even with gerrymandered districts the House only squeezed in a Republican majority. The country is becoming more secular, and given the scandals in the church, no wonder. The youth benefitted from a more diverse education until these wingnuts like DeSatan decided to remove knowledge from the youth of their states, in a Bradbury-like Fahrenheit 451, or an Orwellian-like 1984 world move. However, we need the youth to vote and get rid of these awful people. I do not think that a court that acts like this will get to stay as long as we are still a country where the majority want a democracy.
JD, and apparently no online web design service in existence. So we have a fictional couple who want to hire a non-existent online website design service.
They knew it was hypothetical and addressed that as having merit anyway. Really unreal.
Ann, once again ignoring precedent. A law professor once told one of my classmates, when she posited a wild hypothetical, responded : “Ms. Singer, if I had wheels, I’d be a wagon.” Apparently, it doesn’t take wheels to make a wagon anymore.
They are breaking the norms as necessary to please their masters. It’s pretty obvious that they have no intention of being anything but a Gang of Six. They are the Untouchables! Of course, it can also be undone over time. The point is not that no gay people can have a web site but that this designer does not have to do one for a gay couple’s wedding. Gays are supposed to take comfort in that distiction. But I am afraid it is just a matter of time before it lends itself to something like a doctor can refuse to treat gays based on the doc’s religious beliefs.
It has never been a judge's (or jury's, let alone a SCOTUS justice's) job to investigate facts. They only look at facts as presented by the parties. If a party doesn't present a fact, that fact does not exist as far as the judge is concerned.
At the District Court level, the State of Colorado should have brought up that fact, and gotten the case tossed for lack of standing.
That brings up a much more interesting question: why wasn't it brought up in the District Court? The original plaintiff would obviously have known, so she probably committed some fraud on the court, and possibly perjury, here.
The second question is: the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was unable to unearth this information before the case ever reached SCOTUS (I don't even want to contemplate the possibility that they knew but ignored it - there is zero evidence for such a serious accusation). But now, it surfaced within days of the SCOTUS decision. Why?
Another good question.
That would be the serious accusation I didn't want to contemplate - deliberately doing something like that against your employer's (or client's) interest would probably be grounds for disbarment.
Frankly, I also consider that unlikely. One person alone couldn't do it without getting exposed; too many people would know, both in the Colorado Civil Rights Commission and in the Colorado Attorney General's office. It would have leaked a long time ago.
If somebody did "let it slide" then the fact that there was no gay couple was utterly immaterial by the time the case reached SCOTUS.
It is because historically this court has been so revered, held in the highest esteem, that we have perhaos been slow to recognize, to concede that we have lost the Supreme Court. Now, letting go is hard to do, but it is time to leggo the ego of that now perverse body, though we might hold fast still to its ideal.
We are,the ones who have empowered that bench, and we are the ones who can, well, bench that team, as they are truly bad news.
In all sincerity, the sycophantic six are showing us exactly who they are, and by boring holes in the 14th they are poised to dismantle all of it....
The only hope is that people remember these things when they vote. Not that it necessarily undoes the harm already done - but resets America onto the path the sensible and enlightened majority want rather that this terrible and, I hope, temporary diversion driven by lunatic far right wing elements.
Two Justices were illegally seated; 3 lied under Oath; 2 have sexual misconduct issues; one was not properly vetted by the FBI; a political/religious conspiracy by the Federalist Society has been revealed; and numerous examples of potential bribery and lack of recusal have occured. At this point a investigation is a priority and removal with the decisions that they contaminated are voided and reheard. Our Country can't have criminals deciding the law.
Someone on Dreher’s substack said that the Supreme Court isn’t there to decide what’s right, but to decide what’s constitutional, and I should know that, so I thought about that, and responded:
I've been thinking about what you said, and it's interesting, but flawed. We all expect more from SCOTUS, whether we admit it or not. Democracy, in and of itself, promises a dream to all citizens that they can participate, have a voice that will be heard (and not drowned out by the powerful) and listened to, and that somehow, out of the stew and chaos of multiplicity, achieve a moral society. That decisions will be made on what’s right, rather than a strictly Legalistic approach to people management. Democracy has an enchantment, a promise, inherent in it, and when that is broken or ignored or shattered – people turn bitter.
The classic example is the Dred Scott decision of 1857, in which Chief Justice Taney ruled “We think ... that they [black people] are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time [of America's founding] considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.”
(BTW, one of the major problems with “originalism” is that it posits making decisions today based upon the thoughts and intentions of a past society when slavery was legal, and the slave states were trying to enforce their ideas of human beings as property on all the other states by various means, including The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.)
Justice Taney himself was an “originalist”: “Now, ... the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. ... Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the [36°N 30' latitude] line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void....”
Stephen Douglas, candidate for President, agreed with Taney: “Mr. Lincoln goes for a warfare upon the Supreme Court of the United States, because of their judicial decision in the Dred Scott case. I yield obedience to the decisions in that court—to the final determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to our constitution.”
Legal and constitutional at that time, yes. But hardly moral to most non-slaveholders. Lincoln dissented. I note that a Civil War followed.
And eventually Chief Justice Taney climbed to the top of "Worst Supreme Court Justices of All Time".
Until now, that is. But ^^^^ deserves applause! Brava, Eve!
Excellent distinctions. But even worse than a halt on progress is the "quality of the reasoning" that Alito cited--if that is the grounds for overcoming Stare Decisis, these two cases should be easily overturned if a sane majority ever reappears on the court. Both rely on dishonest reasoning based on facts that don't in fact exist.
Correction on "quality of reasoning...in fact Alito goes well out of his way to ridicule and castigate previous Court decisions with the zealous conviction of a Pentecostal preacher railing against Satan. No discipline nor measured argument in his writings.
Sorry, Susan, meant to write "correct" on your "quality" statement!
Agree 100%.
I was going to quote and comment on just that. The shoddy reasoning (particularly in view of historical reasoning) was absolutely horrifying. Here we have justices spouting off on subjects they know very little about. With the exception of Thomas. He knows quite a bit about affirmative action. My question is why are they handing future courts the easy ability to gut these rulings? Have Leo's tentacles reached so far into the judiciary that we are only seeing the tip of that iceberg, hence giving the renegade six a sense of invincibility?
And now the Chief Justice is relaxing on his estate in my state of Maine. I hope he feels at least a little regret about ‘his court’ sliding toward disrepute.
Gah! I knew Leonard Leo had a palatial "cottage" in NE Harbor...but CJ Roberts too? Ick, ick, ick!
Highly doubtful...I actually think the opposite. He's strutting around like his shit doesn't stink about how everything is going so "well" for him and his 5 cohorts.
Great analysis, thanks. But now I’m more depressed.
If "textualism" doesn't give the desired far-right outcome on case decisions, well, let's cite the new and novel "major questions" so-called "doctrine", now openly invoked ad libitum when judging challenges to the agencies in particular, and the administrative state
Cut myself off, yet again...to conclude: [...] in general. The idea here is to get to a pre-determined majority decision by any means necessary, which of course includes just simply making up "doctrines" having ZERO precedence in constitutional law.
...backfilling decisions with hot air
Awesome!
I again invite people to join me in writing to the Supreme Court and saying that the charlatans need to resign. it would be powerful for multiple millions to write this to the courts. It would give them a visual, palpable sense of the anger they are creating and the lack of legitimacy. They are not Putin, therefore we do not need to fear their fear that they might have gone too far. Here is an address that you can use. https://www.supremecourt.gov/contact/contact_pio.aspx
How can we set term limits for extreme court justices??
Article III of the Constitution would have to be amended. I urge you to read the attached (gifted) article from the New York Times. Jill Lepore is a chaired Harvard professor of American History who also has a side gig writing for the New Yorker. She is always worth a listen. Yesterday, on David Remnick's 'New Yorker Radio Hour' she flat-out stated that the 'political quagmire' we find ourselves in can be laid at the failure of the ERA in the '70s. I do agree with her on that point, a solid ERA would have gone a long way to ending the false disputes being put forth by the extreme right. Anyway, here's the article (as I said above, gifted, so all can read it): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/opinion/constitutional-amendments-american-history.html?unlocked_article_code=cy1Z-qXxH9G4EE6o4AhAOFpvATvI03cAz9Joyo0HZFJk4FHcw6uRNnE5t_w4AVYEtB7uTfVTjaLfmMTqYRbqvxpYVSH-4mqvXQUa-U4hzmxdphQgf2AtLT1Yy-i1s8Aj5vG7E5ZnVpa4P66nFuJ1l0UCPB1QHyCG0RvJUfY3kywqW09c5X3o5Wr927KevvhaquQyF5uvesQhc4RZWutJjbYryN7-RXUycmWRQxYPg6tqrFZQPXbioxBqz2mYsWZJb8ig0j_c6O3QPqm8F-SV7shTAUbPPwVtUMciZG3eDvsc6crMDJAOsOVIFsmDFz1rx2fVU7d2bjxgy1HH0BVyKkBnPWICoTOk-Jtz-5r7K1vKpiN4&smid=url-share
What drives me nuts is, the way things stand right now, there are no ramifications for these corrupt judges. They will not resign, they don't care how much scandal there is, and I seriously doubt they will be impeached.
To me these decisions are just the tip of the iceberg. They are an obvious reflection of a new “southern strategy.”.What we are witnessing is a second attempt to stop and turn back the “ Reconstruction “ of this country. The election is our only hope to prevent at least in part the continuation of this disastrous turn of events.
These justices are injecting their personal views as well as being bought and paid for. And Roberts wants to be a whiney bit $$ about not getting respect. They are a political entity that has control over our belief in the rule of law.
When I attended law school, and in the Constitutional Law course, we were told that Harvard has been proclaiming since the middle of the Depression that the Supreme Court is essentially political arm of the government, and because of that, it was reasonable for FDR to add to the Court. It was necessary to perform such a nakedly political act, because he was dealing with a "political" Court that was busily destroying the institution by overtly favoring the wealthy while normal citizens were starving.
President Biden made it clear the other day on MSNBC that he thought it would be a disaster if he "packed" the Court because (get this) it would politicize the Court. However, that is ignoring the extreme political process that made the Court what it is today and the highly political (even radical) decisions of this Kangaroo Court which are totally destroying the "Rule of Law." (See Heather Cox Richardson's substack post of July 3 for an excellent history of the runup to the Declaration of Independence and her subtext that clarifies the necessity of "Rule of Law" as apposed to "Rule of King and Court" to the process of democracy ---of the people--i.e."common" law)
Under "normal" circumstances I would agree with President Biden.
No longer.
(and, yes, I am a lawyer. And I am so devoted to the rule of law, that my entire practice is predicated on it--tax law)
We need to save the underpinnings of Democracy. Overcoming these Craven Fools is absolutely necessary. Otherwise they will utterly destroy the rule of law and we will end up in some form of "King and Court"=== probably a "Christian Meritocracy" that is made up of White "Christian" Men by, for, and with White Christian Men. (or men of color who very foolishly identify as White Men) They will continue to Legislate from the Court--
That will utterly destroy this grand experiment.
And who can stop them?
We--the People.
Let's do it.