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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Hey Ladies

Hey Ladies

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So apparently the wimmin-folk at the Supreme Court picked up an ultrasound wand and beat some slack-jawed yokel solicitor general from Texas about the head and neck for a couple hours and there wasn’t a GOD DAMNED thing John Roberts could do about it:

It felt as if, for the first time in history, the gender playing field at the high court was finally leveled, and as a consequence the court’s female justices were emboldened to just ignore the rules. Time limits were flouted to such a degree that Chief Justice John Roberts pretty much gave up enforcing them. I counted two instances in which Roberts tried to get advocates to wrap up as Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor simply blew past him with more questions. There was something wonderful and symbolic about Roberts losing almost complete control over the court’s indignant women, who are just not inclined to play nice anymore.

***

So frustrated is Justice Elena Kagan by the conservatives’ repeated insistence that perhaps the clinics just coincidentally all closed within days of HB 2’s passage that she finally has to intervene. “Is it right,” she asks Toti, “that in the two­-week period that the ASC requirement was in effect, that over a dozen facilities shut their doors, and then when that was stayed, when that was lifted, they reopened again immediately?” Toti agrees. “It’s almost like the perfect controlled experiment,” continues Kagan, “as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen?”

***

Ginsburg begins by asking Keller how many Texas women live more than 100 miles from an abortion clinic. When he tells her that women in El Paso can hop over the border to New Mexico, she stops him short. “That’s odd,” she muses, “that you point to the New Mexico facility. New Mexico doesn’t have any surgical ASC requirement, and it doesn’t have any admitting requirement. So if your argument is right, then New Mexico is not an available way out for Texas because Texas says to protect our women, we need these things.” (This is where I want to call up each of the men who demanded that Ginsburg retire in 2014 and just smile, and smile, and smile.)

Sotomyor tags in: “According to you, the slightest health improvement is enough to impose on hundreds of thousands of women.­­ Even assuming I accept your argument, which I don’t, necessarily, because it’s being challenged, but the slightest benefit is enough to burden the lives of a million women. That’s your point?”

Ginsburg: “I can’t imagine. What is the benefit of having a woman take those pills in an ambulatory surgical center when there is no surgery involved?

Read the whole glorious piece by Dahlia Lithwick. I can’t wait to hear the audio, and I would seriously love 5-6 women on the court. Common sense for a damned change.

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  4. 4.

    ? Martin

    Scalia was very effective at heading off the liberal justices and answering on behalf of the position he favored.

    And in case anyone forgot, he’s still dead.

  7. 7.

    muddy

    She seems like one of those tiny bird ladies who will be just as fit and sharp at 100.

  8. 8.

    jl

    Serious legal question for the BJ legal flying wedge: why are the reactionaries defining burden so stringently in this case? If this were, say, a health care ordinance for an indoor tanning salon, seems to me a far lower level of burden would be important if there were no sound scientific basis or compelling social interest for the regulation that required a lot effort for compliance. Saying that there was no burden until a bunch of salons went broke and closed down would be an absurdly stringent definition of burden.

    From my understanding, there is no scientific basis for the TX regulations. May office procedures have far higher rate of dangerous complications. What compelling social interest? Abortion is legal, and these regulations have nothing to do with exposure of general population to anything relating to abortion, for example, our precious youth.

    So, why is burden being defined in such an extreme way? For a tanning salon, the horrible burden of lost profits needed to comply with the regulations, and the restriction on precious commercial freedom would be burden enough, right? Or wrong?

    Biggest problem I have with the reactionaries on the Court is that what they say, and how the reason makes no sense to me, and seems to have no consistency at all. It seems so senseless that the adage ‘not even wrong’ seem to apply.

    But, I am not a lawyer, so maybe I am just not sophisticated enough?

    Edit: couldn’t be that this odd way to measure burden is the only sad ass weak sauce way they can uphold the regulations, is it?

  9. 9.

    Baud

    So frustrated is Justice Elena Kagan by the conservatives’ repeated insistence that perhaps the clinics just coincidentally all closed within days of HB 2’s passage that she finally has to intervene.

    I hadn’t even realized this was a thing that people were arguing. So ridiculous.

  10. 10.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    So, Roberts has the sense to not get in the middle of some women punching the shit out of someone. That’s far more sense than I ever would have given him credit for.

    I’m up for more. Of all our institutions that need women, our courts need them the most.

  11. 11.

    dedc79

    Still think she should’ve stepped down last year (yes, even with this recent madness). Now a loss in november will not only mean losing the ability to replace Scalia, but also likely forfeiting her seat as well.

  12. 12.

    Linda Featheringill

    So Roberts can’t control four angry women? Welcome to the human race, sir.

  13. 13.

    Lolis

    The whole world (especially the US) benefits from Scalia no longer being a Supreme Court justice. I hope the EPA resubmits the environmental regulations that the court stayed right before Scalia’s death. It is awesome to see our female justices kicking ass.

  15. 15.

    jl

    @Baud: Breyer an obvious inspiration for the Baud! 2016! campaign. Historians will surely note that. Probably will be his lasing mark.

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    @jl:

    Serious legal question for the BJ legal flying wedge: why are the reactionaries defining burden so stringently in this case?

    Because that gets them the answer they want. Same as it ever was.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    [phone rings]

    RECEPTIONIST: United States Supreme Court. How may I direct your call?

    CALLER: Justice Antonin Scalia, please.

    RECEPTIONIST: I’m sorry to have to inform you that Justice Scalia passed away, ma’am.

    CALLER: Oh. Thanks. Bye.

    [phone rings]

    RECEPTIONIST: United States Supreme Court. How may I direct your call?

    CALLER: Justice Antonin Scalia, please.

    RECEPTIONIST: Justice Scalia passed away, ma’am.

    CALLER: Okay. Thanks. Good-bye.

    [phone rings]

    RECEPTIONIST: United States Supreme Court. How may I direct your call?

    CALLER: Justice Antonin Scalia, please.

    RECEPTIONIST: Ma’am, Justice Scalia passed away.

    CALLER: Oh well. Thanks. Bye.

    [phone rings]

    RECEPTIONIST: United States Supreme Court. How may I direct your call?

    CALLER: Justice Antonin Scalia, please.

    RECEPTIONIST: Lady, this is the fourth time you’ve called! I told you, Justice Scalia is DEAD! Why do you keep calling back and asking for him?

    CALLER: I just wanted to hear you say it again.

    The end.

  19. 19.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    May office procedures have far higher rate of dangerous complications.

    @jl: Not a lawyer. But this is true. I think, for example, if one wanted to enact a law stating that procedures using general anesthetic be conducted only on the grounds of a hospital, that would be sane. I’d support such a law. Of course, since a friend of mine died during an outpatient procedure using general anesthetic, I’m a bit biased. If you’re doing surgery it should be in a place that can handle complications from that, and “handle” does not just mean being capable of dialing 911.

    But we’re talking about dispensing some pills here or a procedure that doesn’t involve general anesthetic. That being the case, the law is not absurd; it is malign and targeted. No other practitioner of medicine is subject to such restrictions.

  21. 21.

    Susan K of the tech support

    The graphic kicks arse, as does JGCole’s intro. I have been reading ALL THE ARTICLES about it, and laughing out loud with glee at that graf in the Lithwick article (first graf blockquoted above)

    There are three great live-tweeted accounts of the transcripts, too:

    Imani Gandy’s Storify of her livetweets. Hooray for legal expertise! “I read the transcript. I tweeted while I read the transcript. This is my story. *cue Law and Order theme song*”

    Chris Geidner’s tweetstream. Beautiful commentary. To wit:

    RETURNING TO THE ARGUMENTS: We pick up when Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller got up.

    In short: Ginsburg. Was. Waiting. For. Him.

    Sarah Tuttle’s Livetweet Storify — Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstadt. The interpretive dance.

  23. 23.

    dedc79

    @jl: One thing to keep in mind is that the right to an abortion was defined by SCOTUS to be part of an individual woman’s right to privacy. This has always been a bit of an odd fit. The abortion right recognized by the court protects the woman seeking the abortion, and not the clinic. So the fact that the clinic closes is significant only to the extent it prevents someone from being able to get an abortion.

  25. 25.

    Kylroy

    @dedc79: With you on this. The theatrics are nice, but I have total faith any replacement Obama named would match her vote on this case; I can’t be so sure of whoever will eventually end up replacing her.

    It just reminds me that we need to stop pretending the Supreme Court is a non-partisan institution and get rid of lifetime appointments.

  26. 26.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    Dahlia Lithwick and Dear Prudence are why Slate is still worth keeping around.

  27. 27.

    muddy

    @Betty Cracker: That’s excellent. Jack Benny had a similar bit. In that one someone keeps calling for George and being told there’s no George there. At the end another guy calls and says that he is George, and do they have his messages? I think it was called “the difference between annoyance and aggravation”.

    In your scenario, a man calls up the 4th time and says he’s Antonin Scalia calling from Hell and do they have his messages?

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    I’m waiting for a more talented Hamimaniac than I to create a Schulyer sisters parody graphic starring Ruth, Elena, and Peggy … I mean, Sonia. It’s probably already out there, but I don’t have time to look.

  29. 29.

    joel hanes

    I would seriously love 5-6 women on the court.

    When SCOTUS has been nine women for a solid century, it might be OK to nominate another male.

    Historical parity would still not have been achieved, but it would be a start.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @Thoroughly Pizzled: Agree on Lithwick. Do you like the new Prudence though? I thought the former was much better, but maybe the replacement will eventually get up to speed.

  31. 31.

    trollhattan

    I don’t want to ascribe too much weight to Lithwick’s Kennedy quotes, but they seem vaguely…hopeful.

    Then Kennedy asks Keller a surprising question: Is the effect of this law “to increase surgical abortions as distinct from medical abortions,” he wonders, because “this may not be medically wise.”

    Lithwick is such a court geek, I love reading her.

  34. 34.

    CZAnne

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    A significant percentage of dentists provide the same type of mild sedation (see: sleep dentistry) that is used in some clinics without need for an ambo surgical system. (Most clinics do not provide general sedation because it’s not necessary.) This also applies to a range of medical services, from liposuction and minor cosmetic surgery to colonoscopy to vasectomy to uterine ablation.

    All of which carry higher risks of severe consequences than a first trimester suction abortion or a medication abortion. So unless we want to start regulating dentists as surgical centers and push all cosmetic procedures out of the clinic setting, we need to compare like to like.

  35. 35.

    Ex Libris

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    Of all our institutions that need women, our courts need them the most.

    except maybe banking, legislative bodies, corporate boardrooms, law enforcement, the military, etc. But definitely courtrooms, too.

  36. 36.

    danielx

    Luvluvluv the graphic. Now if if just included lightning bolts shooting from her eyes….

  37. 37.

    Ready

    Did you see Mitt’s speech today?

    Very bold, quite dynamic. At last we have a real foil for Trump.

    This is just the opening salvo.

    Just wait till you see what “Helicopter” Paul Singer and the Hedge Fund Boys have in store…

  38. 38.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    There was some lying sack of crap on NPR using Gosnell as the justification for the Texas laws.
    Either he was too ignorant or stupid to speak in public or he was lying intentionally.
    It will not be long til there is an underground version Gosnell in every town that lost its clinic.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @CONGRATULATIONS!:

    IIRC, surgical abortions are usually done with a “twilight sleep” type of anesthetic similar to what you get when getting your wisdom teeth out, not a true general anesthetic like you would get during major surgery. It induces amnesia rather than putting you out.

    Sorry about your friend — that’s so unusual that it would be extra shocking to have it happen.

  40. 40.

    Disgruntled former Baud supporter

    @Ready: OMG you’re back. I’m sure that a few more truckloads of cash is all it will take to extract the Trump monkey from your collective Republican back. Couldn’t happen to a nicer political party.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @jake the antisoshul soshulist:

    Wasn’t the whole point with Gosnell that he was operating an illegal, unlicensed clinic? It’s like saying we should shut down all dermatologist’s offices because unlicensed idiots have been caught injecting silicone into people’s faces.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    @Ready:
    Aww, cute, naptime and it’s back with the same line as before morning recess, only now with added “bold, dynamic” Willard. [Three words technically illegal to use in one paragraph.]

  46. 46.

    D58826

    OT but good news on AP –

    A federal indictment accuses renegade Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and at least five other men of conspiracy, obstruction, threatening federal officers and other charges in a 2014 armed standoff over grazing cattle on U.S. land near Bundy’s ranch.

    Bundy and seven other people named in a redacted indictment obtained Thursday following the arrest of alleged co-conspirator Jerry DeLemus in New Hampshire were already identified by federal authorities as having taken part in both the Nevada standoff and the occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon.

    Seems the mills of the gods grind slowly but exceedingly fine

  47. 47.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne:

    Actually, at the PP clinic I worked at, most abortions were performed under local anaesthesia, unless the woman was really, really, nervous about it. But we only performed the prcedure up to 12 weeks. It might be different at clinics where they do them at later stages of pregnancy.

  48. 48.

    Davebo

    John,

    Scott Keller is no idiot. He’s just been put in a position of trying to defend the indefensible.

    Not that I like the guy, but don’t underestimate him.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @jl: Because the anti-abortion movement, from 1973 on, has been about punishing the sluts.

  51. 51.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @CZAnne:

    So unless we want to start regulating dentists as surgical centers and push all cosmetic procedures out of the clinic setting, we need to compare like to like.

    Hahaha, that would be funny if it weren’t so fucking depressing.

    We know that Justice Kennedy’s position has basically been “little ladies with their heads full of fairy dust and cotton wool don’t know what’s in their best interests so they surely benefit from waiting periods and ultrasounds and suchlike”, but actually shutting down clinics under a bullshit rationale may be a bit much even for him. I’d still expect a 4-4 split or a 5-3 that simply remands back to the lower court.

  52. 52.

    Elizabelle

    @lurker dean: Yeah, I love that NYTimes story about Judge Jane Kelly of Iowa being vetted for a possible nomination. Story notes that President Obama named a new Supreme Court nominee within 4-5 weeks with earlier vacancies. Scalia has been dead 3 weeks (praise the Lord and don’t shoot his animals).

    Good to see Senator Grassley on the hot seat here. Heat it up!

    From the NY Times, but the whole thing is worth a read:

    WASHINGTON — President Obama is vetting Jane L. Kelly [age 51], a federal appellate judge in Iowa, as a potential nominee for the Supreme Court, weighing a selection that could pose an awkward dilemma for her home-state senator Charles E. Grassley, who has pledged to block the president from filling the vacancy.

    … In a Senate floor speech in 2013, Mr. Grassley effusively praised Judge Kelly, a longtime public defender, just before she won unanimous confirmation to her current position on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

    The senator read from a handwritten recommendation letter he had received from a retired judge, David R. Hansen, a Republican appointee he counted as an old friend. Mr. Hansen called Judge Kelly a “forthright woman of high integrity and honest character” and a person of “exceptionally keen intellect.”

    “I congratulate Ms. Kelly on her accomplishments and wish her well in her duties,” Mr. Grassley said at the time. “I am pleased to support her confirmation and urge my colleagues to join me.”

    Democrats have privately said that selecting Judge Kelly might force Mr. Grassley to change his stance and hold hearings, out of a sense of obligation to a respected jurist from his home state and concern about tarnishing his reputation in Iowa months before he faces re-election. The six-term senator is facing pressure from voters to consider any nominee on the merits, but he said in an interview Wednesday that he would not change his position even for a fellow Iowan.

    …. Mr. Grassley, in the interview on Wednesday, said he hoped Judge Kelly would be on a short list of potential Supreme Court nominees for the next Democratic president. “In this particular instance,” Mr. Grassley said about the election-year vacancy, “it has got to be the process, and the person doesn’t matter, see.”

    Nice try, Senator Jackhole. But — no!

    Last:

    He also broke with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has flatly ruled out meeting with the president’s nominee. Mr. Grassley said that he had not yet decided whether he would do so, and that Judge Kelly, as an Iowan, would be welcome in his office any time.

    “You know, one of the questions I will ask them,” he said of the eventual nominee, will be “what they feel about being used as a political pawn.”

    “If I talk to them in my office, I’d do that,” he said.

    Political pawn. Weak sauce.

  55. 55.

    Brachiator

    Great Scalia’s ghost, this is just funny for days.

    Great reporting by Lithwick.

  57. 57.

    Ready

    Once we get rid of Trump (and it starts today) Paul Singer will start hammering on the Clinton Emails (who none other than Bob Woodward said could be his generation’s Nixon Tapes), Hillary is old, scandal plagued, and dull. Rubio or even Cruz would shellack her, the adults in the Party will take charge and make sure they happens.

    Stand by and watch the Hedge Fund Boys make it rain, make it rain…

  58. 58.

    Ready

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The only person that’s delusional is you. Clinton doesn’t stand a chance. Most flawed Dem candidate since Dukakis.

    WE will win, hopefully with Rubio but I’d be down with Cruz if necessary, we will then control all three branches of government, appoint Scalia’s successor, reform entitlements, rein in the IRS and repeal what’s left of the “Great Society”.

  60. 60.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ready: All the Brinks Trucks on the planet couldn’t save ¡Heb!

    Clinton emails? It is to laugh, you are so fucking deluded.

  62. 62.

    Chyron HR

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Wait, you’re not supposed to know that this is the guy who spent the last six months threatening us with a Jeb landslide! He changed his name and everything! It’s not fair!!!!!!

  63. 63.

    Ready

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    One election to repeal the Great Society and even a good portion of the New Deal. The Children of the Reagan Revolution are coming to power.

    Freedom is back in style…Welcome to the Second Reagan Revolution!

  64. 64.

    Ready

    Don’t count out Jeb if it’s a brokered convention! Or Romney or even Rick Perry, we have an embarrassment of riches under that scenario.

    You have…:a 70 year old, uncharismatic scandal plagued woman who has been in national public life for 24 years.

  65. 65.

    Chyron HR

    @Ready:

    Children of the Reagan Revilution

    You may not believe in Freudian slips, but they believe in you.

  66. 66.

    Disgruntled former Baud supporter

    @Ready: Have y’all picked who this second-coming of Reagan’s gonna be yet? You seem to be having a little trouble deciding…

  67. 67.

    scav

    @Chyron HR: His last dead horse to flog just finally fell apart into tainted hamburger, he really did need to find a new one — although dragging out last seasons prophetic white horse as possible savior is an unexpected twist of replacing a tattered dead horse with an even older one.

  68. 68.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    @Betty Cracker: I liked the new one before she got the job, but I think she’s still growing into it. I mostly read it for the letter writers, though.

  71. 71.

    Chyron HR

    @Ready:

    You forgot George P. Bush. America wasn’t ready for a JEB, but they’ll be happy to take a P.

  72. 72.

    Disgruntled former Baud supporter

    @Ready: I love your blissfully ignorant confidence, it’s a refreshing contrast to the usual concern trolling that we get here at BJuice!

  73. 73.

    nominus

    @Susan K of the tech support:
    much appreciated for the storify links, this has to be one of the best:

    @niais So if I'm looking at this right, the entirety of the prep put into this by the state was "We thought Scalia would be here."— Patina of Good Taste (@lizzrest) March 2, 2016

    …and yeah, the court needs to have as many women as possible. Maybe forever.

  74. 74.

    Fair Economist

    @Elizabelle: Followup on a possible Kelley nomination:

    Democrats just found a top candidate to run against Grassley in 2016 (previously they didn’t have any top candidates). She’s held statewide office before, but the kicker is her name:

    Patty Judge

  75. 75.

    Ready

    Watch tonight! #NeverTrump movement just beginning!

    Pro-lifers, constitutionalists, real evangelicals, Second Amendment enthusiasts, supply spiders, national security hawks, and libertarians are all united under #NeverTrump.

  76. 76.

    John Revolta

    @Patricia Kayden: You know what I love?

    The difference in the expressions on the faces of the two black women being harassed in those photos. Speaks volumes.

  78. 78.

    Steve from Antioch

    (This is where I want to call up each of the men who demanded that Ginsburg retire in 2014 and just smile, and smile, and smile.)

    So. Fucking. Stupid.

    There’s a serious chance that the next president will be a Republican and that RBG will die within the next few years.

    I hope this empty-headed shitbrain enjoys basking in this oh so massive oral argument smackdown when Janice Rogers Brown is sitting in RBGs seat for the next twenty fucking years.

  79. 79.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ready:

    You want a revolution?
    I want a revelation
    So listen to my declaration:
    We hold these truths to be self-evident
    That all men are created equal
    And when I meet Thomas Jefferson,
    Imma compel him to put women in the sequel
    WORK!

  82. 82.

    p.a.

    I just want to live long enough to feel the tide has turned, know it’s turned, and know it’s turned HARD.

  84. 84.

    Susan K of the tech support

    @nominus: Yes, I LOVED ALL THE COMMENTARY. But yeah, that. So much that. Reading those three livetweets, especially for experienced/knowledgeable SCOTUS watchers to point out the verbal oral argument vacuum that opened up in Scalia’s absence, was something else.

    Between that and the three-for with all the questions and observations made by the three women judges, and the takeover — one more Q, Chief, one more Q, it’s a thing of beauty.

    Between companies like Dow saying, Naah, we fold, we’ll settle, and this, it’s downright glorious. Add to that the eleventy-dimensional chess of POTUS looking at a woman judge from the Sen Judiciary Committee Chair Grassley’s State of Iowa, and I’ve got a skip in my step. (In light of Drumpf candidacy, I’ll take all the skip in steps that I can!)

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @Ready: Don’t count out Jeb if it’s a brokered convention! Or Romney or even Rick Perry, we have an embarrassment of embarrassments…

    FTFY

  86. 86.

    J R in WV

    @Ready:

    People call Hillary Clinton scandal-plagued, but all of the phony accusations about her have never resulted in any guilt – or even court references. She has never been found to have indulged in mis-conduct under any circumstances whatsoever.

    The scandal is that Republicans continue to make baseless accusations about her behavior, which is above board, honest, and scrupulous in every way. Unlike nearly all Republicans who have attempted to show her guilty of everything, but have never shown her guilty of anything.

    Fuck you very much, Ready. Very much!

  87. 87.

    Chyron HR

    Did you know that the average American will swallow eight supply spiders in their sleep* over the course of their lives**?

    * The Americans are sleeping, not the spiders, obviously.
    ** The Americans’ lives, not the spiders, obviously.

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    @jake the antisoshul soshulist:

    I heard that asshole repeat Gosnell’s name 10 or 20 times. If it had been Trump (or Lee Papa) instead of Ashbrook, he would have said to the guy “Give me a fucking break! You’re using the ONE EXAMPLE of an illegal “clinic” to justify shutting off potential access for millions of women? How fucking intellectually dishonest is that? Why don’t you assholes be honest, and says what the law was REALLY supposed to do.”

    (Un)fortunately, Tom Ashbrook is not a dick the way Trump is. But you could his patience was wearing thin with that bullshit argument.

  94. 94.

    SFAW

    @danielx:

    Is this Ready person a representative of the Onion, or just a douchebag?

    “Ready” is the latest incarnation of our old racist “friend,” Reich to Rise, a/k/a RtR, formerly Bush’s Butt Boy, now Rubio’s, until Rubio drowns in a pool of flop-sweat. Then it will either be Drumpf or Cruz-i-fux

  96. 96.

    A Ghost To Most

    @danielx:
    Former ardent jeb supporter,now ardent who-the-Fuck-ever is paying for his comment count. Fond of serial nyms that start with R.

  97. 97.

    Steve in the ATL

    @jl:

    Serious legal question for the BJ legal flying wedge: why are the reactionaries defining burden so stringently in this case? If this were, say, a health care ordinance for an indoor tanning salon, seems to me a far lower level of burden would be important if there were no sound scientific basis or compelling social interest for the regulation that required a lot effort for compliance. Saying that there was no burden until a bunch of salons went broke and closed down would be an absurdly stringent definition of burden.

    From my understanding, there is no scientific basis for the TX regulations.

    As 007 noted above, the reason is politics. There is no legal or medical justification for this. Which makes Kennedy’s “every burden is reasonable!” jurisprudence all the more maddening.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    @Ready:

    Trump is going down tonight.

    #LosHermanosCubanos

    Oh, my, how many times have we heard Reich to Rise tell us that someone is “going down”? I guess he’s trying to prove that Bill Kristol has some serious competition.

    And you spelled “Los Pendejos Cubanos” rong.

  99. 99.

    Redshift

    @J R in WV: Also, in the few instances where they’re not complete fabrications, Democratic scandals tend to be about personal misconduct or amounts of money small enough to be rounding errors on Republicans’ bank accounts. Whereas Republican scandals (W, Cheney, Reagan, Nixon) tend to be about undermining our system of government and elections.

    Weird. It’s almost as if one party actually supports in principle the Constitution and the will of the people, and the other just believes they should rule, and considers those principles disposable if they become an obstacle.

  103. 103.

    danielx

    @SFAW:

    I guess he’s trying to prove that Bill Kristol has some serious competition.

    If you go to kill the king, you best not miss.

  104. 104.

    D58826

    @J R in WV: i AGREE. The old saying where there is smoke there is fire but in this case the smoke is from the little man with a smoke generator hiding behind the curtain.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @SFAW:

    Oh, my, how many times have we heard Reich to Rise tell us that someone is “going down”?

    Now I see why DougJ titled the above thread the way he did.

  107. 107.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Redshift:

    Also, in the few instances where they’re not complete fabrications, Democratic scandals tend to be about personal misconduct or amounts of money small enough to be rounding errors on Republicans’ bank accounts. Whereas Republican scandals (W, Cheney, Reagan, Nixon) tend to be about undermining our system of government and elections.

    QFT, as the kidz say

  110. 110.

    Keith G

    A quote that should not be overlooked in the least.

    (This is where I want to call up each of the men who demanded that Ginsburg retire in 2014 and just smile, and smile, and smile.)

  112. 112.

    Bill Arnold

    @Miss Bianca:
    Did you see the story that Germy linked a few days ago about Scalia’s hunting buddy C. Allen Foster? (Had been feeling some upset about his demise (and also glee!), but this had a curative effect).

    Foster went on, “I am pleased to report that I’ve killed lots of elephants, lions, buffalo, leopards, kudu, deer and the last legally shot black rhinoceros, together with more than 150,000 birds of various species. When the last duck comes flying over with a sign around his neck ‘I am the last duck,’ I will shoot it.”

  113. 113.

    Wilson Heath

    @Davebo:

    Scott Keller is no idiot. He’s just been put in a position of trying to defend the indefensible.
    Not that I like the guy, but don’t underestimate him.

    Pretty much on the same page as you. Keller is a semi-stealth movement conservative with mostly impeccable credentials–the potential flaw on stealth was his stint on Cruz’s senate staff, but that have been an attempt at boosting a wished for judicial career. Because in a Republican administration he would be short-listed for an appellate seat. The failure of the McCain and Romney campaigns explain why he’s stuck in the relative backwater of being SG of Texas.

    And if you met him, you’d see that he’s less like Cruz and Scalia and more like Roberts–he’d be disarmingly affable come confirmation time. For me he’s one of the scariest parts of the possibility of the GOP picking federal judges again anytime soon.

  115. 115.

    TriassicSands

    …and I would seriously love 5-6 women on the court. Common sense for a damned change.

    Only if the women were appointed by a Democratic president. Imagine the “common sense” we’d get from a Justice Marsha Blackburn or Justice…hell, any woman nominated by any Modern Republican. Don’t forget, Bush v. Gore was made possible by the common sense of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

    That said, when I saw that Obama was considering nominating Judge Jane Kelly (a person the Senate Republicans could not justify denying a seat on the Court — though that is exactly what they will do if she is nominated), the idea of having four women on the SCOTUS put a huge smile on my face.

    What the SCOTUS absolutely does not need is another white, Catholic man on the Court. Personally, I think the Court needs four to six atheists — though just one would be amazing.

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