That's a bit too "sunshine and lollipops". Astoundingly settled decisions continue to simply be ignored, anything about originalism and what the text meant (which is often nonsensical, but in the case of birthright citizenship seemed quite simple). And with the EXCEPTION of the Fed (without a very coherent explanation) this president can now dismiss ANY official of ANY agency, regardless of statues from the legislature about their responsibilities, until he gets one that does what he wants.
I see. So a column which claims that SCOTUS does not give Trump everything he wants, and lists about five things very important to Trump that was denied . . . this is "sunshine and lollipops"? Because the Court didn't stop him at every turn?
I find it impossible to talk to almost anyone about anything political today, because when I criticize just one thing Trump has done, MAGAns accuse me of being a Woke-Antifa-Marxist. And when I mention one policy of Trump's that I am sympathetic to, progressives accuse me of being a fascist.
FFS, the column was simply saying that the Court isn't completely in the tank for Trump, and it did a solid job of making its point. I'm not saying your points are not valid, Marvin, because they are, but how about taking a small portion of your intelligence and using it to demonstrate civility, acknowledging when someone says something true even if you think it's missing a larger point. I am so effing sick of EVERYONE wanting to take issue with anyone who doesn't share 100% of their opinions on every effing issue.
Overreact much? Nowhere does Marvin imply SCOTUS is obligated to always rule against Trump 100% of the time. Marvin's point is that cases where SCOTUS did rule for Trump are especially egregious, dangerous, and authoritarian -- so that it's "a bit" too "sunshine and lollipops" to suggest the Court doesn't need reform because it sometimes, and just barely, does its duty.
This is hardly an affront to civility. You're projecting: you having a meltdown in response, including implied profanities ("FFS" and "effing") is much more uncivil than anything in Marvin's comment. You should follow your own advice before lecturing others. I understand you're mad about criticism you're apparently getting from left and right, but that has nothing to do with Marvin's comment. His critique of Lane's point (which included no profanities, implied or otherwise) is perfectly valid and far less unhinged than your response.
Civility can be defined many ways, and it would have been wiser for me to have remembered that when writing instead of speaking with someone face-to-face, one does not have the benefit of facial expressions and tone.
For me, that FFS is accompanied with a laugh, a sort of comment made in person with the arms raised out to both sides. I'm sure you've seen "WTF" used angrily but sometimes it's used as a way of expressing amazement. Such are the risks of not picking one's words carefully when speaking on line.
On the other hand, you correctly inferred my frustration with both uses of "effing", and you also correctly pointed out that those are in response to frustration that existed before reading Marvin's comment. So I acknowledge that as regrettable poor judgement on my part.
> Marvin's point is that cases where SCOTUS did rule for Trump
Perhaps the court didn't rule for Trump, it ruled for the Constitution? It is theoretically possible for Trump to be right. It is even possible for him to be right for the wrong reason. I myself despise him but he has been right about several things. The Constitution is a grossly flawed document, as even the FF knew. So what to do? Ignore it and simply rule if favor of your tribe? That cuts the anchor loose, does it not? We'd have Red law and Blue law, and every time the government changes the laws of the land would entirely reverse. Smart? Progressives like the idea that the Constitution means whatever the think it should mean, but alas, if they can do it, then so can MAGA. What conservatives understand is that the Constitution is indeed an anchor -- it doesn't change on a whim and it means what it says. Don't like it? Amend it.
("Rule for and against Trump" is in my comment as a direct reference to the comment to which I responded.)
Conservatives can no longer believably claim to see the Constitution as an anchor. If they did, the birthright citizenship case would've ended in a simple 9-0 decision affirming "the words say what they say" -- without the four most conservative members dissenting to push polices preferred their MAGA "tribe," in conflict with the 14th Amendment's plain English.
(An aside, I am more conservative than most Democrats on immigration and despise birth tourism and anchor babies -- from white immigrants too, not just black/brown ones like the modern right. But my complaint is with the flawed, as you say, Constitution -- to which I am required to defer. How can so many so-called constitutional conservatives get this so wrong? Shocking.)
If conservatives believed the Constitution was an anchor, they wouldn't be using their made up "major questions doctrine" and "unitary executive theory" -- neither of which appear in the Constitution -- to reach preferred partisan policy outcomes.
Like inventing corporate personhood, so American elections could be flooded with an unlimited amount of oligarchic dark money in conflict with the common man democratic ethos of our Founding documents.
Or rewriting the Constitution from the bench to invent a heretofore unknown extralegal right for presidents to crime, and just to protect Trump from accountability for his attempted Jan 6 coup -- after an election denial flag was seen flying at Justice Alito's house. Ugh.
Or tearing down 250 years of separation-of-powers precedent to suddenly give peacetime presidents, who per the Constitution are supposed to enforce law not make law, a new right to usurp congressional authority over agencies created by Congress.
Or creating over the last few decades an ever-expanding individual right for almost anyone to own almost any firearm unrestricted -- local control and consequences be-damned. Which conflicts with both the words and the original intent of the 2nd Amendment...but does please the right's corporate gun lobby tribe.
But you are correct to note that if liberal jurists can be activists, so can MAGA's. And that's what conservatives really believe, not that the Constitution is an anchor. The court is unpopular because the right keeps being dishonest about this. Just tell the truth: admit all these decades of Republican scolding about judicial activism was gaslighting.
John Roberts and company wouldn't have seen their popularity (aka. democratic legitimacy) fall so far so fast had they just came clean on being outcome-oriented living-Constitution radicals too. And spared Americans the phony, holier-than-thou lectures about precedent, judicial restraint, originalism, textualism, and dispassionately calling balls-and-strikes.
The self-serving fakery here has been made obvious by the orgy of Constitution-shredding partisanship from the John Crow Court. Hence the Heritage Foundation's fears that long overdue Court reforms might now be possible. SCOTUS did it to themselves.
> Or tearing down 250 years of separation-of-powers precedent
That's a battle that has see-sawed back and forth for 250 years. Sometimes POTUS is a near dictator (FDR or TR), and sometimes he's a footnote to history. Trump clearly wants to be a dictator, but crippling the presidency itself isn't the answer. It's an eternal problem.
> Which conflicts with both the words and the original intent of the 2nd Amendment
The classic case of the Constitution being wrong. But what to do? Ignore it, or interpret it as it is written? Conservatives (small 'c') must rule that 'shall not be infringed' means what it says in the same way that the 14th means what it says. Difficult! Me? I'd rule that, fine, any member of a well-regulated militia has the right to bear a flintlock musket.
> Conservatives can no longer believably claim to see the Constitution as an anchor.
You make a good point. I meant conservatives who really are conservatives, not MAGA people who can be as partisan as anybody else and who are very often not conservatives at all.
> How can so many so-called constitutional conservatives get this so wrong?
'Subject to the jurisdiction' -- there's the ambiguity. A case can be made that this excludes illegals. I disagree, but one can make the attempt.
> Like inventing corporate personhood,
Corporations have been legal persons for a very long time. They have to be in order to be taxed, sued, subject to law or able to enter into a contract.
> so American elections could be flooded with an unlimited amount of oligarchic dark money
The cure for Citizens United isn't to make corporations not legal persons. It must be done, but not that way.
> Or rewriting the Constitution from the bench to invent a heretofore unknown extralegal right for presidents to crime
Virtually every government includes some sort of executive privilege, otherwise every ruler could be harassed to death with lawsuits -- as the Dems attempted with Trump to little effect. Obama ordered the murder of American citizens. He is protected from prosecution because he did it as Commander In Chief. But of course there are limits, as SCOTUS made very clear. At the moment their ruling is mostly protecting Biden.
Now there's a true overreaction. Relax. A few comments here are a wee bit theatrical but well within the bounds of a civil discussion. You should follow your own advice before lecturing others: his comment is not 'unhinged'. BTW, your comment, too, is well within the bounds of civil discussion, but I would very politely comment that I think you go a bit too far. I hope I'm not going too far suggesting that you are going too far ;-)
I agree. And its not just too one sided, it's backwards. I'm an FDR-MLK-progressive, just finishing up a book which is 95% critical of my own team. I justify this with a sports metaphor -- sports teams watch game footage not to ridicule the other team, but to learn from their mistakes. That's how you improve and win. The ridicule and slander approach feels good to many, but sabotages your side. It seems like you're the type I'm looking for, so I invite you to join me at free-forever DareToKnow.Stoft.com
I appreciate the kind words, Steve, and I salute you for what you are trying to do. I am loathe to take on anything additional, but I'll go ahead and give you my email just to see what you are doing.
Thanks for giving me a try. No obligations to take on anything, just take a look when you feel like it. If I can get an interesting conversation going (this will take time) join in if you feel inspired.
The Roberts court has sided with Democrat interests many times. But Democrats don't register those things. It is always the last time they didn't get their way.
Yes, Frank Lee, you can go on and on and on and on. You can name a Supreme Court case (without any providing any description or details), and pick a case where all the R appointed justices were in the MAJORITY, and all the D appointed justices were in the MINORITY, and the case was decided FOR REPUBLICAN INTERESTS AND AGAINST DEMOCRATIC INTERESTS (to the extent the case had political implications) and then make the FLAT OUT FALSE CLAIM which is the exact opposite of the TRUTH that the court "sided with Democrat interests".
You did that with Shelby County v. Holder, a landmark decision FOR REPUBLICAN INTERESTS, striking down the core of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a SECOND time with Connick v. Thompson, a major criminal justice decision that protects prosecutors from any negative consequence if they suppress exonerating evidence and send a man to prison for years for a crime he didn't commit, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a THIRD time with AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, a decision allowing businesses to impose arbitration agreements on their employees and customers blocking class action cases, and striking down state laws that prohibited that kind of agreement, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a FOURTH time with Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, a decision striking down an Arizona law establishing public financing of elections in a specific way intended to "level out" any fundraising advantage of one candidate over the other, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a FIFTH time with Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, a decision allowing privately held businesses not to follow certain laws if the owners claim the laws violate their religious beliefs, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
Well of course one can go on and on when you falsify case results.
In what fake alternate reality were Shelby County, Connick, AT&T, Bennett, and Hobby Lobby decided in favor of Democratic interests?
Shelby County infamously started the process of gutting the Voting Rights Act, leading to one of RBG's greatest-ever diddehyd.
Hobby Lobby infamously created a public accommodations exception for Christian business owners to discriminate against gay employees.
I could go on and on about how all but two of the cases you cite upheld Republican interests. What are you even talking about?
As to foreigners dropping babies, this is what the Constitution says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
I understand so-called constitutional conservatives actually don't actually really care about the Constitution except for personal branding, but your complaint is with the 14th Amendment.
Also, QUITE REMARKABLY AND AMAZINGLY, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your SEVENTH EXAMPLE, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, which was obviously against the Democratic and for the Republican position, and once again the R-appointed justices were in the majority and the D-appointed justices were in the minority. That was the case where the Court decided that a privately held business corporation can be exempt from a law that the owners claim is in violation of their religious beliefs, specifically the provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring health insurance plans to include coverage of contraception.
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your FIFTH EXAMPLE, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. (A. SUBTLE. PATTERN. BEGINS. TO. EMERGE.) While also not directly related to partisan political interests, this was a win for businesses and a loss for consumers and employees. Before the decision, many states had enacted laws that allowed consumers and employees to bring class action claims (where alleged wrongdoing by a business affected a class of consumers or employees not just one person), and prohibited businesses from enforcing arbitration agreements that blocked class action claims. THe Supreme Court decision held that a federal law "preempts" those state laws, and thus overturned the state laws, and held that businesses CAN enforce arbitration agreements that block class action claims. "The decision was described by Jean Sternlight as a "tsunami that is wiping out existing and potential consumer and employment class actions"[4]: 704 and by law professor Myriam Gilles as "the real game-changer for class action litigation". By April 2012, Concepcion was cited in at least 76 decisions sending putative class actions to individual arbitration." All the R-appointed justices were in the majority, all the D-appointed justices were in the minority.
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your SIXTH EXAMPLE, Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, a decision with political implications against Democratic and for Republican interests (Democrats generally support and Republicans oppose public financing of elections). In this case, the Court struck down an Arizona law establishing public financing for candidates for public office in a manner intended to "equalize" funding. "Under the law as passed, if a participating candidate is outspent by a non-participating opponent (including the opponent's expenditures of personal funds) the participating candidate receives government funds matching the money spent by the non-participating candidate, up to three times the original government subsidy. Independent expenditures by groups not coordinated with the candidate were also matched." On June 27, 2011, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling and declared matching funds schemes designed to "level the playing field" unconstitutional in a 5–4 decision. ONCE AGAIN, All the R-appointed justices were in the majority, all the D-appointed justices were in the minority.
What are you talking about? Dropping babies was and is against the law because dropping a baby could result in death of the baby. Maybe you should review your English writing skills and edit that.
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your SECOND example, Shelby County v. Holder, because that was decided IN FAVOR OF REPUBLICAN INTERESTS. "a landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision that struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. This ruling effectively neutralized Section 5, which had required states and local jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to get federal preclearance before changing voting laws" [THOSE STATES WERE ALMOST ENTIRELY CONTROLLED BY REBUBLICANS IN 2013] ... "New Voting Restrictions: The decision opened the door for numerous states to immediately pass restrictive voting laws that had previously been blocked or deterred. This included the implementation of strict voter ID laws, purges of voter registration rolls, and the reduction of early voting days."
Also, you are PARTLY WRONG about your THIRD example, NFIB vs. Sebelius, because the Court struck down a major provision of the Affordable Care Act, a decision obviously against Democratic interests. "In a 7-2 vote, the Court ruled that the ACA's provision forcing states to expand their Medicaid programs—or risk losing all of their existing federal Medicaid funding—was unconstitutionally coercive. The Court severed this penalty, making the Medicaid expansion effectively optional for state participation"
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your FOURTH example, CONNICK V. THOMPSON. While that was a criminal justice case and not directly related to partisan political interests, it was a win for the "we need to be tough on crime, so prosecutors can do no wrong" faction and a loss for "protect the rights of people wrongfully sent to prison for a crime they never committed" faction. The majority opinion was by Thomas, the dissenting opinion by Ginsburg. "The case centered on the standards for holding a municipal government or a prosecutor's office liable for the constitutional violations of its employees. The case arose after John Thompson spent eighteen years in prison, including fourteen on death row, for a murder he did not commit. It was eventually discovered that prosecutors in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office had suppressed a blood test report that could have exonerated him ... A jury originally awarded Thompson $14 million in damages, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision ... The Supreme Court, however, reversed the award in a 5-4 decision. ... The Court ruled that to establish "deliberate indifference" for municipal liability, a plaintiff must typically show a pattern of similar constitutional violations." So if one man is locked up for much of his life for a crime he didn't commit, no pattern no foul no blame!
It appears that the liberal justices voted together 14 out of 16 times. The conservatives 9 out of 16. This includes the 9-0 decisions. I pulled this from a WSJ article from yesterday. I didn’t take the time to go through the Justia or similar databases, so I won’t swear to it.
My observation is that this applies regardless of what philosophy dominates the court.
The Roberts court has sided with Republican interests many times. But Republicans don't register those things. Instead Republicans will write and believe total nonsense which is the exact opposite of the truth. For example they'll cite a bunch of Roberts court decisions by name, but without providing even a summary of what the decisions held (FOR GOOD REASON). And then it turns out ALL THE R-APPOINTED JUSTICES were in the majority on those decisions and ALL THE D-APPOINTED JUSTICES were in the minority, and the political impact of each decision (to the extent that the decision had political implications) was "siding with Republican interests".
Sad.
Your post below.
Shelby County v. Holder
Connick v. Thompson
AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion
Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennet
I could only read a bit of your lengthy tantrum to see that you are way off. You must know that long shouting does not correct for being wrong.
But you have confirmed my point, that lefties scream and screech about the last SCOTUS decision that did not go their way, but ignore all the previous that did.
Thank you, my good friend, for confirming my expectation that you would flat out ignore the proven fact that your own previous post is close to 100% false. You actually had the chutzpah to take a bunch of Supreme Court cases that the Republican-appointed justices won and the Democratic-appointed justices lost, on straight party-line [*] votes, deliberately conceal that undisputable fact by writing the names of the cases only and nothing about the content, and cap your pile of falsehoods by saying "the Court sided with Democratic interests" in those cases when obviously the Court did the exact opposite and sided with Republican interests.
"You must know that long shouting does not correct for being wrong." Small (in importance) comment about this - perhaps you intend to convey some meaning with this statement other than pure emoting, specifically that I was "shouting" by writing some words in my posts in ALL CAPS which is of course a long-standing Internet convention. (If that's what you meant, you did write one thing that we agree is true, yay.) However, *you* must know that shouting, or writing in all caps, neither makes a false statement less false nor a true statement less true.
I should probably have used less all caps, but I suspected it would annoy you and the people who liked your post with its blatantly made-up "facts", and thus amuse me - a vice I admit to. Maybe I should repost my posts with the all-caps changed to normal sentence case. But all paragraphs repeated 10 times. 100 times? https://www.google.com/search?q=repetition+in+education. (wink)
As you can see, my posting habits are full of vice. But I think these vices are, according to some systems of ethics, "venial" sins. Whereas posting blatant falsehoods about one Supreme Court decision after another, essentially the same falsehood over and over, and such a crude falsehood it can be believed only by people too lazy to do the simplest check by looking up the opinions directly - surely that is a "mortal" sin.
In conclusion, you know as well as I do that I am completely correct on the facts (as summarized again in first paragraph of this post) and you are wrong. Whatever you post, it won't be a substantive rebuttal on the merits of the argument, because no such rebuttal is possible. Farewell, my friend!
Has it registered with Republicans that this court sides with their interests far more than Dem ones -- like giving Trump immunity for his document theft and criminal Jan 6 coup attempt, creating NO GAYS ALLOWED businesses, setting Christianity above other religions, dismantling affirmative action and voting rights, gutting federal agencies, or letting red states redistrict in the middle of an election while blocking blue state redistricting months out from an election?
One wouldn't know given the meltdown from Trump and the right over the last time they didn't get their way on birthright citizenship, since conservatives can't understand plain English: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
One cannot debate a retard, and it isn't worth any time to try as they lack the mental capacity and critical thinking skills to get it.
The reason the court sides with Republican interest more than Democrats is that Democrats are communists today and pushing a radical agenda that conflicts with the constitution, law and legal precedent. Democrats are on the wrong side of constitutional justice. They want their radical agenda and the court comprised of at least six real jurists is not going along with the three radicals on the bench that are masquerading as judges.
However, there are some Democrat interests that the courts have supported. The Obamacare mandate is one. This recent decision perpetuating children of illegal immigrants and visitors getting citizen for the babies they drop from their womb after crossing the border. There have been several SCOTUS decisions against the Trump Admin. But you radicals are like tantrum-throwing infants that scream when you don't get your radical agenda way 100%.
"Smart people don't like me" and "We won with poorly educated, I love the poorly educated." - incompetent, unqualified, warmongering, economy-destroying, Epstein-bestie pedophile and wannabe communist-dictator Trump talking about you.
The reason both Trump and the MAGA Court are historically unpopular (while Dems are now winning elections everywhere) is because you are not just communists and fascists -- but low IQ, amoral, unethical, racist, sexist, homophobic, hatemongering, anti-American pathological liars.
Communism is Putin-puppet rapist Trump inciting the deadly Jan 6 terror attack, demanding private companies give him stakes in their profits, and telling private businesses the exact price they can charge.
Communism is being compared to Hitler by your own VP and Health Secretary, while saying you need Hitlerian generals, and don't mind being compared to Stalin.
Communism is you Rethuglikkklans banning books, using the FCC to silence comedians, taking control away from parents of trans kids to try to suicide their children instead, helping the corporate gun lobby make guns the #1 killer of American kids, taxing the middle class with tariffs while shoveling trillions in corporate welfare to kleptocrat welfare queens like Trump and Musk.
Communism is the Trump Crime Family taking Mulim bribe planes and corruptly using the presidency to secure foreign real estate deals, including billions from the Saudis on top of $2 billion in crypto scams.
Communism is masked ICE goons tear gassing children, profiling citizens, and murdering Americans and migrants without due process. Communism is killing and controlling women with abortion bans.
The shameless stupidity of you deranged rightwing hacks is exemplified by you condescendingly lecturing about "legal precedent" -- as the corporate-owned Federalist Society hacks masquerading as jurists invent corporate personhood and presidential immunity from thin air and gut both minority rights and separation of powers, shredding precedents that are 50-100 years old on abortion, voting rights, executive power, campaign finance and more.
You just are not good people. You're dumb, incapable of telling the truth, and have no principles or decency besides blindly worshipping a fat old pedophile.
And the American people, especially regretful Trumpers, are well and truly sick of you. Imagine a "conservative" movement so evil it chases out everyone from Liz Cheney to Tucker Carlson to Jeff Flake to Thomas Massie and everyone in between. But it can't be that under Trump you people have lost your minds. They just must all be tards. Yeah, go with that. See how far that gets you Trump sucking idiots.
You're gonna get your delusional, lying, commie-fascist Trump slave butts kicked in 2026, 2028, and beyond. And you deserve it.
You are not a smart person. Your writing proves it. Spewing an Internet hive of lefty-crafted lying rhetoric demonstrates the opposite of smart.
Go back to your mom's computer, play some more video games and read more TDS garbage on your algorithm-corrupted social media feeds. Then hang out on BlueSky where people like you get your constant (artificial) safe space feedback that you are special and righteous. You are not. You are a retard that regurgitates political propaganda without an ounce of humility, critical thinking or rational processing.
No, we are not going to lose in 2026 and 2028. You radical woke commies are a fucking joke and the electorate would vote for a pile of dogshit over you.
TDS = Trump D***riding Syndrome. And yed, you have it. And yes, I am more righteous that a pathological lying scumbag like you. Amoral immature, psychotic trailer trash liars like you care are the epitome of evil, and that's why Trump's popularity is in the toilet. Because a-holes of a feather flock together.
Keep making a fool out of yourself from your MAGA feedback loop Trump slave safe spaces, bootlicking a pedophile that ran notable "lefties" like Tucker Carlson and the Cheney out of your imploding party with his deranged incompetence.
Bookmarked just to laugh at you on election night, when I will be back here to rub your delusion and stupidity in your face, after you lose bigtime. Yeah, normal people definitely will take seriously phony lectures about rationality and critical thinking from you antivaxxing, climate change denying rightwing lunatics who still can't admit Trump lost the 2020 election by millions of votes.
Prepare to storm the Capitol again, you violent, America-hating communist thug.
"...as well as inject ugly partisanship into the nation’s top court." So, you are of the opinion that such partisanship hasn't already infected SCOTUS? The birthright vote should have been 9-0. Instead, three judges left the door ajar for future challenges to an absolutely clear constitutional guarantee. The lower courts were gobsmacked by the audacity of the challenge and made it very clear in their opinions. If congress wants to tackle "tourism births" as an exception, let them get started. I wouldn't object to the effort.
I'm sorry, I don't know how to start this except by saying that the Supreme Court IS Trump's lackey, and so is Charles Lane and the American Enterprise Institute. The conservative justices used the shadow docket repeatedly to overturn lower court decisions that reflected thousands of hours of thoughtful deliberations and impeccably argued positions. The top court in the land repeatedly threw hundreds of lower court judges under the bus without so much as a word of explanation. Almost without exception, these midnight injunctions backed an executive order issued by Trump, or sometimes an action taken, under Trump's direction, by a secret police force operating outside of the rule of law, that was flagrantly unconstitutional, illegal, and morally depraved.
The authors of the Constitution never imagined a Supreme Court this corrupt, but with their usual foresight, they did provide a remedy: impeachment. This would have been appropriate for the five justices to voted for Citizens United. It would be self-explanatory for the four who recently argued that the Fourteenth Amendment does not say what it says. When justices tear up the Constitution, Congress must supply the punishment. Instead of praising the Supreme Court for its power grab, he should be examining why Congress remains supine when its own powers are eviscerated by the other two branches.
Trump's corruption would not have surprised the founders. His immunity from impeachment, when he commits an impeachable offense almost daily, is what they could not imagine. They could not foresee that an ENTIRE major political party would sell its soul.
Let us examine the term "conservative". Conservative means different things to different people. Conservative according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary is - "Conservative" fundamentally means a preference for maintaining established traditions, institutions, and values, coupled with a general caution toward rapid social or political change. The term traces back to the Latin word conservare, meaning "to keep or guard". Today's iteration of the Republican Party claims to be conservative. The concept of the "Unitary Executive" they claim is part of their conservatism. Trump desperately wants the title of Unitary Executive. In acquiring that position he is tearing up everything in his path that came before and destroying norms that have been in place for decades if not a hundred years. Is Trump conservative? Or does he and his base want to burn it all down and recreate something akin to The Law of the Jungle. Power subjugates all and the strong take what they will while the weak suffer what they must. Conservatism formerly was aligned with individual rights and minimal government interference in one's life. In observing Trump's actions and those of his followers, one may easily conclude that they are not conservatives. Theirs is a quest for power that has nothing to do with conservatism, but everything to do with a Unitary Executive. Conservatism is nothing more than a convenient political label and lever for power.
"Let us examine the term 'conservative' . . . Today's iteration of the Republican Party claims to be conservative."
To the extent that the Republican Party serves to be Trump bootlickers, they are not conservative. While there are a few traditionally conservative beliefs (associated with Goldwater and Reagan) that are still held by today's Republicans, that is merely a coincidence. The Republican Party has lost all contact with conservatism, because it is the tool of Donald Trump, who has NEVER been a conservative. Trump's ideas actually lack ANY ideological consistency, any binding force, except for one thing: What is going to make Trump richer? The Oval Office is simply the new location of the Trump Company.
"Conservatism formerly was aligned with individual rights and minimal government interference in one's life. In observing Trump's actions and those of his followers, one may easily conclude that they are not conservatives."
"The concept of the "Unitary Executive" they claim is part of their conservatism. Trump desperately wants the title of Unitary Executive."
I doubt very much that Trump has ever read an article in The Atlantic, nor that he paid attention to any classes on the subject of government when he was in high school or college. But the fact is, the concept of the "unitary executive" IS ultimately a conservative idea, if we mean that conservatism seeks to preserve the original meaning of the Constitution, as it was written in 1787.
The only reason that the concept of a "unitary executive" strikes anyone as even slightly controversial is because Congress is not doing ITS job. As written in the Constitution, Congress is supposed to be the leading branch of our federal government. We can all see now that this is not true; Congress over the past 100 years (or more) has failed to hold onto its powers and determine the direction of government. But if it was doing this, the supposed problem of a unitary executive would not be a problem at all. All Congress needs to do is to pass laws to implement the policies it wants, and then the President is supposed to carry those out. The reason this is not happening is because Congress has very knowingly given its power to the various government departments and agencies, with the polite fiction that these agencies are "independent", instead of being the instruments of the executive branch that they are.
Because here's the thing: The executive is SUPPOSED to be "unitary". This was explicitly debated at the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787. The New Jersey Plan is most famous for its proposal that all states should be equally represented in Congress, but a more critical proposal would have been to have a plural executive, perhaps as many as seven "presidents". Alexander Hamilton argued at the Convention (and later in the Federalist Papers) that the executive branch's powers were already so weak compared to those of Congress, that there needed to be a unitary executive to balance those great Congressional powers. And so the Constitution reads: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Full Stop. And thus was the unitary executive born. NO ONE else is in charge of the executive branch. If Congress objects to the manner in which the President is executing his authority, they have two choices: 1) by law they may remove the power in question from the executive branch, or 2) they can impeach him.
The problem today is that Congress has ceded far too much power to a President, and when you have a President who is a good guy, no one cares. But then you get an arse like DJT, and all of a sudden everyone objects to one of the core principals of the Constitution.
Meh. This column is tantamount to arguing that one should not call for a broken clock to be fixed or replaced because it's right twice a day.
A 5-4 ruling that just barely affirms the plain English language of the 14th Amendment ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.") reinforces the notion this John Crow Court needs serious reform. Because this should have been an easy 9-0 "the words are what they are" ruling. 5-4 here is an embarrassment.
This radical rightwing activist Court does not get a pass because it sometimes, and just barely, does the right thing. One does not applaud the tenor for clearing his throat.
The awful Trump immunity ruling, in which Roberts and Co. invented from whole cloth a heretofore unknown right for presidents to crime, by itself justifies impeachment and court packing -- even if the Court got every other ruling right.
Which they don't. Instead, we get more democracy-dismantling abominations from the Republican judges, to the ruination of domestic tranquility and the general welfare:
- Setting the presidency above Congress, turning him into a near-king with near-unlimited immunity and power -- except where his actions might threaten the bottom line of corporate donors
- Dismantling the Voting Rights Act -- the crowning achievement of the our Civil Rights Act -- with the childishly dishonest Orwellian pretense that anti-black racism has stopped existing and that mitigation of racism is racist
- Blocking redistricting in blue states with the explanation that it's too close to elections still months away, but allowing red states to redistrict after voting has started
- Ignoring the "well-regulated militia" clause to create a heretorefore unknown individual right for any nutjob to buy and posses any firearm anywhere at any time, to the point that guns are now the #1 killer of American children
- Inventing corporate personhood to create a heretorefore unknown right for oligarchs to flood American elections with an unlimited amount of dark money
And more. Worse still, is how the conservative justices find these awful results -- reaching into a constantly changing partisan grab bag of originalism one day, textualism the next, the invented and fake "major questions doctrine" on the 3rd, then the phony made-up "unitary executive theory" when giving Trump power over agency created by Congress, (a theory that, of course, was nowhere to be found when insisting Biden had to defer to Congress on student debt administration), then hewing to precedent, then shredding it, then kneecapping appellate court judges with unsigned and half-baked pro-Trump shadow docket rulings, then oh "history and tradition" (while getting the history wrong, like Alito sloppily not knowing common law once protected abortion before fetal movement), then blah blah blah whatever.
All a bunch of malarkey designed to give the Republican elite a preferred outcome. And done, laughably, while swearing they oppose activism and legislating from the bench, and are just innocently and impartially calling balls-and-strikes (pay no attention to those angry public speeches spewing Fox News talking points, secret meetings with rich donors, or that insurrection flag at Justice Alito's house).
All this screams for court reform. Even if 5 of the 9 justices just barely managed to get some things right sometimes, like affirming through gritted teeth that the 14th Amendment's words mean what they say.
P.S. Progressives believe SCOTUS is in the tank for the Kochs and their klepto iik, not for Trump. I'm no Bernie stan, but on this they are right.
That's a bit too "sunshine and lollipops". Astoundingly settled decisions continue to simply be ignored, anything about originalism and what the text meant (which is often nonsensical, but in the case of birthright citizenship seemed quite simple). And with the EXCEPTION of the Fed (without a very coherent explanation) this president can now dismiss ANY official of ANY agency, regardless of statues from the legislature about their responsibilities, until he gets one that does what he wants.
I see. So a column which claims that SCOTUS does not give Trump everything he wants, and lists about five things very important to Trump that was denied . . . this is "sunshine and lollipops"? Because the Court didn't stop him at every turn?
I find it impossible to talk to almost anyone about anything political today, because when I criticize just one thing Trump has done, MAGAns accuse me of being a Woke-Antifa-Marxist. And when I mention one policy of Trump's that I am sympathetic to, progressives accuse me of being a fascist.
FFS, the column was simply saying that the Court isn't completely in the tank for Trump, and it did a solid job of making its point. I'm not saying your points are not valid, Marvin, because they are, but how about taking a small portion of your intelligence and using it to demonstrate civility, acknowledging when someone says something true even if you think it's missing a larger point. I am so effing sick of EVERYONE wanting to take issue with anyone who doesn't share 100% of their opinions on every effing issue.
Overreact much? Nowhere does Marvin imply SCOTUS is obligated to always rule against Trump 100% of the time. Marvin's point is that cases where SCOTUS did rule for Trump are especially egregious, dangerous, and authoritarian -- so that it's "a bit" too "sunshine and lollipops" to suggest the Court doesn't need reform because it sometimes, and just barely, does its duty.
This is hardly an affront to civility. You're projecting: you having a meltdown in response, including implied profanities ("FFS" and "effing") is much more uncivil than anything in Marvin's comment. You should follow your own advice before lecturing others. I understand you're mad about criticism you're apparently getting from left and right, but that has nothing to do with Marvin's comment. His critique of Lane's point (which included no profanities, implied or otherwise) is perfectly valid and far less unhinged than your response.
Civility can be defined many ways, and it would have been wiser for me to have remembered that when writing instead of speaking with someone face-to-face, one does not have the benefit of facial expressions and tone.
For me, that FFS is accompanied with a laugh, a sort of comment made in person with the arms raised out to both sides. I'm sure you've seen "WTF" used angrily but sometimes it's used as a way of expressing amazement. Such are the risks of not picking one's words carefully when speaking on line.
On the other hand, you correctly inferred my frustration with both uses of "effing", and you also correctly pointed out that those are in response to frustration that existed before reading Marvin's comment. So I acknowledge that as regrettable poor judgement on my part.
Now there's strength thru courtesy. Bravo.
> Marvin's point is that cases where SCOTUS did rule for Trump
Perhaps the court didn't rule for Trump, it ruled for the Constitution? It is theoretically possible for Trump to be right. It is even possible for him to be right for the wrong reason. I myself despise him but he has been right about several things. The Constitution is a grossly flawed document, as even the FF knew. So what to do? Ignore it and simply rule if favor of your tribe? That cuts the anchor loose, does it not? We'd have Red law and Blue law, and every time the government changes the laws of the land would entirely reverse. Smart? Progressives like the idea that the Constitution means whatever the think it should mean, but alas, if they can do it, then so can MAGA. What conservatives understand is that the Constitution is indeed an anchor -- it doesn't change on a whim and it means what it says. Don't like it? Amend it.
("Rule for and against Trump" is in my comment as a direct reference to the comment to which I responded.)
Conservatives can no longer believably claim to see the Constitution as an anchor. If they did, the birthright citizenship case would've ended in a simple 9-0 decision affirming "the words say what they say" -- without the four most conservative members dissenting to push polices preferred their MAGA "tribe," in conflict with the 14th Amendment's plain English.
(An aside, I am more conservative than most Democrats on immigration and despise birth tourism and anchor babies -- from white immigrants too, not just black/brown ones like the modern right. But my complaint is with the flawed, as you say, Constitution -- to which I am required to defer. How can so many so-called constitutional conservatives get this so wrong? Shocking.)
If conservatives believed the Constitution was an anchor, they wouldn't be using their made up "major questions doctrine" and "unitary executive theory" -- neither of which appear in the Constitution -- to reach preferred partisan policy outcomes.
Like inventing corporate personhood, so American elections could be flooded with an unlimited amount of oligarchic dark money in conflict with the common man democratic ethos of our Founding documents.
Or rewriting the Constitution from the bench to invent a heretofore unknown extralegal right for presidents to crime, and just to protect Trump from accountability for his attempted Jan 6 coup -- after an election denial flag was seen flying at Justice Alito's house. Ugh.
Or tearing down 250 years of separation-of-powers precedent to suddenly give peacetime presidents, who per the Constitution are supposed to enforce law not make law, a new right to usurp congressional authority over agencies created by Congress.
Or creating over the last few decades an ever-expanding individual right for almost anyone to own almost any firearm unrestricted -- local control and consequences be-damned. Which conflicts with both the words and the original intent of the 2nd Amendment...but does please the right's corporate gun lobby tribe.
But you are correct to note that if liberal jurists can be activists, so can MAGA's. And that's what conservatives really believe, not that the Constitution is an anchor. The court is unpopular because the right keeps being dishonest about this. Just tell the truth: admit all these decades of Republican scolding about judicial activism was gaslighting.
John Roberts and company wouldn't have seen their popularity (aka. democratic legitimacy) fall so far so fast had they just came clean on being outcome-oriented living-Constitution radicals too. And spared Americans the phony, holier-than-thou lectures about precedent, judicial restraint, originalism, textualism, and dispassionately calling balls-and-strikes.
The self-serving fakery here has been made obvious by the orgy of Constitution-shredding partisanship from the John Crow Court. Hence the Heritage Foundation's fears that long overdue Court reforms might now be possible. SCOTUS did it to themselves.
(continued)
> Or tearing down 250 years of separation-of-powers precedent
That's a battle that has see-sawed back and forth for 250 years. Sometimes POTUS is a near dictator (FDR or TR), and sometimes he's a footnote to history. Trump clearly wants to be a dictator, but crippling the presidency itself isn't the answer. It's an eternal problem.
> Which conflicts with both the words and the original intent of the 2nd Amendment
The classic case of the Constitution being wrong. But what to do? Ignore it, or interpret it as it is written? Conservatives (small 'c') must rule that 'shall not be infringed' means what it says in the same way that the 14th means what it says. Difficult! Me? I'd rule that, fine, any member of a well-regulated militia has the right to bear a flintlock musket.
Excellent comment ;-)
Excellent comment!
> Conservatives can no longer believably claim to see the Constitution as an anchor.
You make a good point. I meant conservatives who really are conservatives, not MAGA people who can be as partisan as anybody else and who are very often not conservatives at all.
> How can so many so-called constitutional conservatives get this so wrong?
'Subject to the jurisdiction' -- there's the ambiguity. A case can be made that this excludes illegals. I disagree, but one can make the attempt.
> Like inventing corporate personhood,
Corporations have been legal persons for a very long time. They have to be in order to be taxed, sued, subject to law or able to enter into a contract.
> so American elections could be flooded with an unlimited amount of oligarchic dark money
The cure for Citizens United isn't to make corporations not legal persons. It must be done, but not that way.
> Or rewriting the Constitution from the bench to invent a heretofore unknown extralegal right for presidents to crime
Virtually every government includes some sort of executive privilege, otherwise every ruler could be harassed to death with lawsuits -- as the Dems attempted with Trump to little effect. Obama ordered the murder of American citizens. He is protected from prosecution because he did it as Commander In Chief. But of course there are limits, as SCOTUS made very clear. At the moment their ruling is mostly protecting Biden.
Now there's a true overreaction. Relax. A few comments here are a wee bit theatrical but well within the bounds of a civil discussion. You should follow your own advice before lecturing others: his comment is not 'unhinged'. BTW, your comment, too, is well within the bounds of civil discussion, but I would very politely comment that I think you go a bit too far. I hope I'm not going too far suggesting that you are going too far ;-)
I agree. And its not just too one sided, it's backwards. I'm an FDR-MLK-progressive, just finishing up a book which is 95% critical of my own team. I justify this with a sports metaphor -- sports teams watch game footage not to ridicule the other team, but to learn from their mistakes. That's how you improve and win. The ridicule and slander approach feels good to many, but sabotages your side. It seems like you're the type I'm looking for, so I invite you to join me at free-forever DareToKnow.Stoft.com
I appreciate the kind words, Steve, and I salute you for what you are trying to do. I am loathe to take on anything additional, but I'll go ahead and give you my email just to see what you are doing.
Thanks for giving me a try. No obligations to take on anything, just take a look when you feel like it. If I can get an interesting conversation going (this will take time) join in if you feel inspired.
The Roberts court has sided with Democrat interests many times. But Democrats don't register those things. It is always the last time they didn't get their way.
Data, Frank, we need data. "Many times" means what, exactly?
Just a few...
The latest for refusing to block illegal immigrant and foreign visitors from dropping babies that get automatic citizenship.
Shelby County v. Holder
NFIB v. Sebelius
Connick v. Thompson
AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion
Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett
Hobby Lobby v. Burwell
And of course the big one... Roberts siding with the Obamacare Mandate.
I could go on and on and on and on.
"I could go on and on and on and on."
Yes, Frank Lee, you can go on and on and on and on. You can name a Supreme Court case (without any providing any description or details), and pick a case where all the R appointed justices were in the MAJORITY, and all the D appointed justices were in the MINORITY, and the case was decided FOR REPUBLICAN INTERESTS AND AGAINST DEMOCRATIC INTERESTS (to the extent the case had political implications) and then make the FLAT OUT FALSE CLAIM which is the exact opposite of the TRUTH that the court "sided with Democrat interests".
You did that with Shelby County v. Holder, a landmark decision FOR REPUBLICAN INTERESTS, striking down the core of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a SECOND time with Connick v. Thompson, a major criminal justice decision that protects prosecutors from any negative consequence if they suppress exonerating evidence and send a man to prison for years for a crime he didn't commit, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a THIRD time with AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, a decision allowing businesses to impose arbitration agreements on their employees and customers blocking class action cases, and striking down state laws that prohibited that kind of agreement, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a FOURTH time with Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, a decision striking down an Arizona law establishing public financing of elections in a specific way intended to "level out" any fundraising advantage of one candidate over the other, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
You then made the same false claim a FIFTH time with Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, a decision allowing privately held businesses not to follow certain laws if the owners claim the laws violate their religious beliefs, with an all R-appointed majority and all D-appointed minority, where you falsely, deliberately, and bizarrely claimed the court "sided with Democrat interests", the exact opposite of the truth.
five strikes and you're out and out and out
Well of course one can go on and on when you falsify case results.
In what fake alternate reality were Shelby County, Connick, AT&T, Bennett, and Hobby Lobby decided in favor of Democratic interests?
Shelby County infamously started the process of gutting the Voting Rights Act, leading to one of RBG's greatest-ever diddehyd.
Hobby Lobby infamously created a public accommodations exception for Christian business owners to discriminate against gay employees.
I could go on and on about how all but two of the cases you cite upheld Republican interests. What are you even talking about?
As to foreigners dropping babies, this is what the Constitution says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
I understand so-called constitutional conservatives actually don't actually really care about the Constitution except for personal branding, but your complaint is with the 14th Amendment.
Also, QUITE REMARKABLY AND AMAZINGLY, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your SEVENTH EXAMPLE, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, which was obviously against the Democratic and for the Republican position, and once again the R-appointed justices were in the majority and the D-appointed justices were in the minority. That was the case where the Court decided that a privately held business corporation can be exempt from a law that the owners claim is in violation of their religious beliefs, specifically the provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring health insurance plans to include coverage of contraception.
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your FIFTH EXAMPLE, AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion. (A. SUBTLE. PATTERN. BEGINS. TO. EMERGE.) While also not directly related to partisan political interests, this was a win for businesses and a loss for consumers and employees. Before the decision, many states had enacted laws that allowed consumers and employees to bring class action claims (where alleged wrongdoing by a business affected a class of consumers or employees not just one person), and prohibited businesses from enforcing arbitration agreements that blocked class action claims. THe Supreme Court decision held that a federal law "preempts" those state laws, and thus overturned the state laws, and held that businesses CAN enforce arbitration agreements that block class action claims. "The decision was described by Jean Sternlight as a "tsunami that is wiping out existing and potential consumer and employment class actions"[4]: 704 and by law professor Myriam Gilles as "the real game-changer for class action litigation". By April 2012, Concepcion was cited in at least 76 decisions sending putative class actions to individual arbitration." All the R-appointed justices were in the majority, all the D-appointed justices were in the minority.
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your SIXTH EXAMPLE, Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, a decision with political implications against Democratic and for Republican interests (Democrats generally support and Republicans oppose public financing of elections). In this case, the Court struck down an Arizona law establishing public financing for candidates for public office in a manner intended to "equalize" funding. "Under the law as passed, if a participating candidate is outspent by a non-participating opponent (including the opponent's expenditures of personal funds) the participating candidate receives government funds matching the money spent by the non-participating candidate, up to three times the original government subsidy. Independent expenditures by groups not coordinated with the candidate were also matched." On June 27, 2011, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling and declared matching funds schemes designed to "level the playing field" unconstitutional in a 5–4 decision. ONCE AGAIN, All the R-appointed justices were in the majority, all the D-appointed justices were in the minority.
What are you talking about? Dropping babies was and is against the law because dropping a baby could result in death of the baby. Maybe you should review your English writing skills and edit that.
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your SECOND example, Shelby County v. Holder, because that was decided IN FAVOR OF REPUBLICAN INTERESTS. "a landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision that struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965. This ruling effectively neutralized Section 5, which had required states and local jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to get federal preclearance before changing voting laws" [THOSE STATES WERE ALMOST ENTIRELY CONTROLLED BY REBUBLICANS IN 2013] ... "New Voting Restrictions: The decision opened the door for numerous states to immediately pass restrictive voting laws that had previously been blocked or deterred. This included the implementation of strict voter ID laws, purges of voter registration rolls, and the reduction of early voting days."
Also, you are PARTLY WRONG about your THIRD example, NFIB vs. Sebelius, because the Court struck down a major provision of the Affordable Care Act, a decision obviously against Democratic interests. "In a 7-2 vote, the Court ruled that the ACA's provision forcing states to expand their Medicaid programs—or risk losing all of their existing federal Medicaid funding—was unconstitutionally coercive. The Court severed this penalty, making the Medicaid expansion effectively optional for state participation"
Also, you are FLAT OUT, TOTALLY WRONG about your FOURTH example, CONNICK V. THOMPSON. While that was a criminal justice case and not directly related to partisan political interests, it was a win for the "we need to be tough on crime, so prosecutors can do no wrong" faction and a loss for "protect the rights of people wrongfully sent to prison for a crime they never committed" faction. The majority opinion was by Thomas, the dissenting opinion by Ginsburg. "The case centered on the standards for holding a municipal government or a prosecutor's office liable for the constitutional violations of its employees. The case arose after John Thompson spent eighteen years in prison, including fourteen on death row, for a murder he did not commit. It was eventually discovered that prosecutors in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office had suppressed a blood test report that could have exonerated him ... A jury originally awarded Thompson $14 million in damages, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision ... The Supreme Court, however, reversed the award in a 5-4 decision. ... The Court ruled that to establish "deliberate indifference" for municipal liability, a plaintiff must typically show a pattern of similar constitutional violations." So if one man is locked up for much of his life for a crime he didn't commit, no pattern no foul no blame!
It appears that the liberal justices voted together 14 out of 16 times. The conservatives 9 out of 16. This includes the 9-0 decisions. I pulled this from a WSJ article from yesterday. I didn’t take the time to go through the Justia or similar databases, so I won’t swear to it.
My observation is that this applies regardless of what philosophy dominates the court.
The Roberts court has sided with Republican interests many times. But Republicans don't register those things. Instead Republicans will write and believe total nonsense which is the exact opposite of the truth. For example they'll cite a bunch of Roberts court decisions by name, but without providing even a summary of what the decisions held (FOR GOOD REASON). And then it turns out ALL THE R-APPOINTED JUSTICES were in the majority on those decisions and ALL THE D-APPOINTED JUSTICES were in the minority, and the political impact of each decision (to the extent that the decision had political implications) was "siding with Republican interests".
Sad.
Your post below.
Shelby County v. Holder
Connick v. Thompson
AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion
Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennet
Hobby Lobby v. Burwell
I could only read a bit of your lengthy tantrum to see that you are way off. You must know that long shouting does not correct for being wrong.
But you have confirmed my point, that lefties scream and screech about the last SCOTUS decision that did not go their way, but ignore all the previous that did.
🤗🤗📽️🤗🤗 📽️
Thank you, my good friend, for confirming my expectation that you would flat out ignore the proven fact that your own previous post is close to 100% false. You actually had the chutzpah to take a bunch of Supreme Court cases that the Republican-appointed justices won and the Democratic-appointed justices lost, on straight party-line [*] votes, deliberately conceal that undisputable fact by writing the names of the cases only and nothing about the content, and cap your pile of falsehoods by saying "the Court sided with Democratic interests" in those cases when obviously the Court did the exact opposite and sided with Republican interests.
"You must know that long shouting does not correct for being wrong." Small (in importance) comment about this - perhaps you intend to convey some meaning with this statement other than pure emoting, specifically that I was "shouting" by writing some words in my posts in ALL CAPS which is of course a long-standing Internet convention. (If that's what you meant, you did write one thing that we agree is true, yay.) However, *you* must know that shouting, or writing in all caps, neither makes a false statement less false nor a true statement less true.
I should probably have used less all caps, but I suspected it would annoy you and the people who liked your post with its blatantly made-up "facts", and thus amuse me - a vice I admit to. Maybe I should repost my posts with the all-caps changed to normal sentence case. But all paragraphs repeated 10 times. 100 times? https://www.google.com/search?q=repetition+in+education. (wink)
As you can see, my posting habits are full of vice. But I think these vices are, according to some systems of ethics, "venial" sins. Whereas posting blatant falsehoods about one Supreme Court decision after another, essentially the same falsehood over and over, and such a crude falsehood it can be believed only by people too lazy to do the simplest check by looking up the opinions directly - surely that is a "mortal" sin.
In conclusion, you know as well as I do that I am completely correct on the facts (as summarized again in first paragraph of this post) and you are wrong. Whatever you post, it won't be a substantive rebuttal on the merits of the argument, because no such rebuttal is possible. Farewell, my friend!
Has it registered with Republicans that this court sides with their interests far more than Dem ones -- like giving Trump immunity for his document theft and criminal Jan 6 coup attempt, creating NO GAYS ALLOWED businesses, setting Christianity above other religions, dismantling affirmative action and voting rights, gutting federal agencies, or letting red states redistrict in the middle of an election while blocking blue state redistricting months out from an election?
One wouldn't know given the meltdown from Trump and the right over the last time they didn't get their way on birthright citizenship, since conservatives can't understand plain English: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
One cannot debate a retard, and it isn't worth any time to try as they lack the mental capacity and critical thinking skills to get it.
The reason the court sides with Republican interest more than Democrats is that Democrats are communists today and pushing a radical agenda that conflicts with the constitution, law and legal precedent. Democrats are on the wrong side of constitutional justice. They want their radical agenda and the court comprised of at least six real jurists is not going along with the three radicals on the bench that are masquerading as judges.
However, there are some Democrat interests that the courts have supported. The Obamacare mandate is one. This recent decision perpetuating children of illegal immigrants and visitors getting citizen for the babies they drop from their womb after crossing the border. There have been several SCOTUS decisions against the Trump Admin. But you radicals are like tantrum-throwing infants that scream when you don't get your radical agenda way 100%.
You are retards.
"Smart people don't like me" and "We won with poorly educated, I love the poorly educated." - incompetent, unqualified, warmongering, economy-destroying, Epstein-bestie pedophile and wannabe communist-dictator Trump talking about you.
The reason both Trump and the MAGA Court are historically unpopular (while Dems are now winning elections everywhere) is because you are not just communists and fascists -- but low IQ, amoral, unethical, racist, sexist, homophobic, hatemongering, anti-American pathological liars.
Communism is Putin-puppet rapist Trump inciting the deadly Jan 6 terror attack, demanding private companies give him stakes in their profits, and telling private businesses the exact price they can charge.
Communism is being compared to Hitler by your own VP and Health Secretary, while saying you need Hitlerian generals, and don't mind being compared to Stalin.
Communism is you Rethuglikkklans banning books, using the FCC to silence comedians, taking control away from parents of trans kids to try to suicide their children instead, helping the corporate gun lobby make guns the #1 killer of American kids, taxing the middle class with tariffs while shoveling trillions in corporate welfare to kleptocrat welfare queens like Trump and Musk.
Communism is the Trump Crime Family taking Mulim bribe planes and corruptly using the presidency to secure foreign real estate deals, including billions from the Saudis on top of $2 billion in crypto scams.
Communism is masked ICE goons tear gassing children, profiling citizens, and murdering Americans and migrants without due process. Communism is killing and controlling women with abortion bans.
The shameless stupidity of you deranged rightwing hacks is exemplified by you condescendingly lecturing about "legal precedent" -- as the corporate-owned Federalist Society hacks masquerading as jurists invent corporate personhood and presidential immunity from thin air and gut both minority rights and separation of powers, shredding precedents that are 50-100 years old on abortion, voting rights, executive power, campaign finance and more.
You just are not good people. You're dumb, incapable of telling the truth, and have no principles or decency besides blindly worshipping a fat old pedophile.
And the American people, especially regretful Trumpers, are well and truly sick of you. Imagine a "conservative" movement so evil it chases out everyone from Liz Cheney to Tucker Carlson to Jeff Flake to Thomas Massie and everyone in between. But it can't be that under Trump you people have lost your minds. They just must all be tards. Yeah, go with that. See how far that gets you Trump sucking idiots.
You're gonna get your delusional, lying, commie-fascist Trump slave butts kicked in 2026, 2028, and beyond. And you deserve it.
You are not a smart person. Your writing proves it. Spewing an Internet hive of lefty-crafted lying rhetoric demonstrates the opposite of smart.
Go back to your mom's computer, play some more video games and read more TDS garbage on your algorithm-corrupted social media feeds. Then hang out on BlueSky where people like you get your constant (artificial) safe space feedback that you are special and righteous. You are not. You are a retard that regurgitates political propaganda without an ounce of humility, critical thinking or rational processing.
No, we are not going to lose in 2026 and 2028. You radical woke commies are a fucking joke and the electorate would vote for a pile of dogshit over you.
TDS = Trump D***riding Syndrome. And yed, you have it. And yes, I am more righteous that a pathological lying scumbag like you. Amoral immature, psychotic trailer trash liars like you care are the epitome of evil, and that's why Trump's popularity is in the toilet. Because a-holes of a feather flock together.
Keep making a fool out of yourself from your MAGA feedback loop Trump slave safe spaces, bootlicking a pedophile that ran notable "lefties" like Tucker Carlson and the Cheney out of your imploding party with his deranged incompetence.
Bookmarked just to laugh at you on election night, when I will be back here to rub your delusion and stupidity in your face, after you lose bigtime. Yeah, normal people definitely will take seriously phony lectures about rationality and critical thinking from you antivaxxing, climate change denying rightwing lunatics who still can't admit Trump lost the 2020 election by millions of votes.
Prepare to storm the Capitol again, you violent, America-hating communist thug.
Go back you your mom's basement and computer. We patriots are only getting stared ridding the country of your commie trash ilk.
"...as well as inject ugly partisanship into the nation’s top court." So, you are of the opinion that such partisanship hasn't already infected SCOTUS? The birthright vote should have been 9-0. Instead, three judges left the door ajar for future challenges to an absolutely clear constitutional guarantee. The lower courts were gobsmacked by the audacity of the challenge and made it very clear in their opinions. If congress wants to tackle "tourism births" as an exception, let them get started. I wouldn't object to the effort.
I'm sorry, I don't know how to start this except by saying that the Supreme Court IS Trump's lackey, and so is Charles Lane and the American Enterprise Institute. The conservative justices used the shadow docket repeatedly to overturn lower court decisions that reflected thousands of hours of thoughtful deliberations and impeccably argued positions. The top court in the land repeatedly threw hundreds of lower court judges under the bus without so much as a word of explanation. Almost without exception, these midnight injunctions backed an executive order issued by Trump, or sometimes an action taken, under Trump's direction, by a secret police force operating outside of the rule of law, that was flagrantly unconstitutional, illegal, and morally depraved.
The authors of the Constitution never imagined a Supreme Court this corrupt, but with their usual foresight, they did provide a remedy: impeachment. This would have been appropriate for the five justices to voted for Citizens United. It would be self-explanatory for the four who recently argued that the Fourteenth Amendment does not say what it says. When justices tear up the Constitution, Congress must supply the punishment. Instead of praising the Supreme Court for its power grab, he should be examining why Congress remains supine when its own powers are eviscerated by the other two branches.
Trump's corruption would not have surprised the founders. His immunity from impeachment, when he commits an impeachable offense almost daily, is what they could not imagine. They could not foresee that an ENTIRE major political party would sell its soul.
Let us examine the term "conservative". Conservative means different things to different people. Conservative according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary is - "Conservative" fundamentally means a preference for maintaining established traditions, institutions, and values, coupled with a general caution toward rapid social or political change. The term traces back to the Latin word conservare, meaning "to keep or guard". Today's iteration of the Republican Party claims to be conservative. The concept of the "Unitary Executive" they claim is part of their conservatism. Trump desperately wants the title of Unitary Executive. In acquiring that position he is tearing up everything in his path that came before and destroying norms that have been in place for decades if not a hundred years. Is Trump conservative? Or does he and his base want to burn it all down and recreate something akin to The Law of the Jungle. Power subjugates all and the strong take what they will while the weak suffer what they must. Conservatism formerly was aligned with individual rights and minimal government interference in one's life. In observing Trump's actions and those of his followers, one may easily conclude that they are not conservatives. Theirs is a quest for power that has nothing to do with conservatism, but everything to do with a Unitary Executive. Conservatism is nothing more than a convenient political label and lever for power.
"Let us examine the term 'conservative' . . . Today's iteration of the Republican Party claims to be conservative."
To the extent that the Republican Party serves to be Trump bootlickers, they are not conservative. While there are a few traditionally conservative beliefs (associated with Goldwater and Reagan) that are still held by today's Republicans, that is merely a coincidence. The Republican Party has lost all contact with conservatism, because it is the tool of Donald Trump, who has NEVER been a conservative. Trump's ideas actually lack ANY ideological consistency, any binding force, except for one thing: What is going to make Trump richer? The Oval Office is simply the new location of the Trump Company.
"Conservatism formerly was aligned with individual rights and minimal government interference in one's life. In observing Trump's actions and those of his followers, one may easily conclude that they are not conservatives."
Perfectly stated.
"The concept of the "Unitary Executive" they claim is part of their conservatism. Trump desperately wants the title of Unitary Executive."
I doubt very much that Trump has ever read an article in The Atlantic, nor that he paid attention to any classes on the subject of government when he was in high school or college. But the fact is, the concept of the "unitary executive" IS ultimately a conservative idea, if we mean that conservatism seeks to preserve the original meaning of the Constitution, as it was written in 1787.
The only reason that the concept of a "unitary executive" strikes anyone as even slightly controversial is because Congress is not doing ITS job. As written in the Constitution, Congress is supposed to be the leading branch of our federal government. We can all see now that this is not true; Congress over the past 100 years (or more) has failed to hold onto its powers and determine the direction of government. But if it was doing this, the supposed problem of a unitary executive would not be a problem at all. All Congress needs to do is to pass laws to implement the policies it wants, and then the President is supposed to carry those out. The reason this is not happening is because Congress has very knowingly given its power to the various government departments and agencies, with the polite fiction that these agencies are "independent", instead of being the instruments of the executive branch that they are.
Because here's the thing: The executive is SUPPOSED to be "unitary". This was explicitly debated at the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787. The New Jersey Plan is most famous for its proposal that all states should be equally represented in Congress, but a more critical proposal would have been to have a plural executive, perhaps as many as seven "presidents". Alexander Hamilton argued at the Convention (and later in the Federalist Papers) that the executive branch's powers were already so weak compared to those of Congress, that there needed to be a unitary executive to balance those great Congressional powers. And so the Constitution reads: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Full Stop. And thus was the unitary executive born. NO ONE else is in charge of the executive branch. If Congress objects to the manner in which the President is executing his authority, they have two choices: 1) by law they may remove the power in question from the executive branch, or 2) they can impeach him.
The problem today is that Congress has ceded far too much power to a President, and when you have a President who is a good guy, no one cares. But then you get an arse like DJT, and all of a sudden everyone objects to one of the core principals of the Constitution.
Meh. This column is tantamount to arguing that one should not call for a broken clock to be fixed or replaced because it's right twice a day.
A 5-4 ruling that just barely affirms the plain English language of the 14th Amendment ("All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.") reinforces the notion this John Crow Court needs serious reform. Because this should have been an easy 9-0 "the words are what they are" ruling. 5-4 here is an embarrassment.
This radical rightwing activist Court does not get a pass because it sometimes, and just barely, does the right thing. One does not applaud the tenor for clearing his throat.
The awful Trump immunity ruling, in which Roberts and Co. invented from whole cloth a heretofore unknown right for presidents to crime, by itself justifies impeachment and court packing -- even if the Court got every other ruling right.
Which they don't. Instead, we get more democracy-dismantling abominations from the Republican judges, to the ruination of domestic tranquility and the general welfare:
- Setting the presidency above Congress, turning him into a near-king with near-unlimited immunity and power -- except where his actions might threaten the bottom line of corporate donors
- Dismantling the Voting Rights Act -- the crowning achievement of the our Civil Rights Act -- with the childishly dishonest Orwellian pretense that anti-black racism has stopped existing and that mitigation of racism is racist
- Blocking redistricting in blue states with the explanation that it's too close to elections still months away, but allowing red states to redistrict after voting has started
- Ignoring the "well-regulated militia" clause to create a heretorefore unknown individual right for any nutjob to buy and posses any firearm anywhere at any time, to the point that guns are now the #1 killer of American children
- Inventing corporate personhood to create a heretorefore unknown right for oligarchs to flood American elections with an unlimited amount of dark money
And more. Worse still, is how the conservative justices find these awful results -- reaching into a constantly changing partisan grab bag of originalism one day, textualism the next, the invented and fake "major questions doctrine" on the 3rd, then the phony made-up "unitary executive theory" when giving Trump power over agency created by Congress, (a theory that, of course, was nowhere to be found when insisting Biden had to defer to Congress on student debt administration), then hewing to precedent, then shredding it, then kneecapping appellate court judges with unsigned and half-baked pro-Trump shadow docket rulings, then oh "history and tradition" (while getting the history wrong, like Alito sloppily not knowing common law once protected abortion before fetal movement), then blah blah blah whatever.
All a bunch of malarkey designed to give the Republican elite a preferred outcome. And done, laughably, while swearing they oppose activism and legislating from the bench, and are just innocently and impartially calling balls-and-strikes (pay no attention to those angry public speeches spewing Fox News talking points, secret meetings with rich donors, or that insurrection flag at Justice Alito's house).
All this screams for court reform. Even if 5 of the 9 justices just barely managed to get some things right sometimes, like affirming through gritted teeth that the 14th Amendment's words mean what they say.
P.S. Progressives believe SCOTUS is in the tank for the Kochs and their klepto iik, not for Trump. I'm no Bernie stan, but on this they are right.