he gutted the voting rights act and ushered in a new era of southern redeemers instituting perpetual white rule in the south. trust me, his legacy is secure. just not the way he thinks it is. https://t.co/TlXKsD1rRu
— World Famous Art Thief (@CalmSporting) December 10, 2021
Dahlia Lithwick, at Slate:
… The trouble that the media is having in settling on a coherent frame for this specific decision is both entirely the problem and entirely beside the point. The real story of the two decisions in U.S. v. Texas and Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson is that Chief Justice John Roberts has now lost control of his court. As was the case in the very first shadow docket order that allowed S.B. 8 to go into effect, despite abundant evidence that it was materially harming pregnant people and clearly violated Roe v. Wade, the vote today was 5-4, again with the court behaving as though there is nothing unusual about the Texas scheme. The chief justice had over three months to change a single mind on the conservative flank of the court. He failed to do so. Writing for those five justices, Neil Gorsuch lays out myriad stumbling blocks and problems with the abortion providers’ theory before granting them very limited relief against four state licensing officials who have some authority to enforce S.B. 8.
The chief justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part, pointed out that the purpose of the law was to evade judicial review: “Texas has passed a law banning abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. That law is contrary to this Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey. It has had the effect of denying the exercise of what we have held is a right protected under the Federal Constitution.” He describes Texas’ enforcement mechanisms as “an array of stratagems, designed to shield its unconstitutional law from judicial review.” He goes on to note that “these provisions, among others, effectively chill the provision of abortions in Texas.” All of these statements are facts. To address the problems they lay out, he would add the attorney general and a state court clerk back to the list of folks who could properly be sued…
The problem at the heart of the perception of John Roberts’ moderating influence on the court was that it was always about public perception. When he was still theoretically in charge of the conservative supermajority, his approach was in fact that it could do anything, so long as it didn’t look too radical. Some of us came to confuse that with moderation. But public perception is malleable and can be measured on a sliding scale. Five justices want you to call a narrow loss a “win” for abortion rights, and they want you to think of state nullification as “novel.” They will keep saying that over and over until one concedes that it’s true, and when Dobbs comes down this summer, they will tell you there is nothing radical in doing away with the right to choose. They will assume that if you accepted nullification in September, you’ll be open to overt bans come spring.
Roberts is credited with soothing us that Supreme Court justices are never doing anything more than calling balls and strikes. But under his watch, a conservative supermajority has changed the strike zone, corked the bats, and set the whole infield on fire—all while telling us that the game remains the same. They managed all that with the help of one Chief Justice John Roberts. What this tiny, narrow, wholly radical ruling reveals is that Roberts is now alone in his concern that the fans might soon figure all this out. His problem? He’s not the one calling the game anymore.
You want to let your benchmates know how you really feel, Chief Justice? Flap your wings, instead of your gums. Retire now, and let President Biden appoint your replacement. If your judicial philosophy is as strong as you claim, the court will still have five True Constitutional Conservatives(tm), so it won’t make a difference to future court opinions. You’re 66 years old, you and your corporate-lawyer wife are presumably ‘comfortable’ financially, and staying in the SC(R)OTUS is going to be nothing but a series of public embarrassments and humiliations for the foreseeable future. You’ve got your nice life — lovely wife, grown kids, possibly future grandkids — and a lot of high-profile media attention to look forward to; why spoil it with all this pointless public agitation?
Do yourself and the rest of us a favor, Chief Justice — go away, while you can do it with some semblance of dignity.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
It would be wonderful if he did that, but somehow, I don’t think he’s going to.
NotMax
The three categories of umpires:
1) “There are balls and there are strikes and I calls ’em as I sees ’em.”
2) “There are balls and there are strikes and I calls ’em as they are.”
3) “There are balls and there are strikes but they ain’t neither ’til I says so.”
.
karen marie
“while you can do it with some semblance of dignity.”
That possibility has long ago left the building.
WaterGirl
I love your idea, Anne Laurie!
Ruckus
@karen marie:
The building, the county, the state…….the entire conservative universe.
Not that dignity really ever existed in conservative dogma. Or is that conservative bullshit.
Edmund Dantes
Roberts is the type of GOP that a lot of older Dems would go to their funeral and praise like Bob Dole. Ignoring all the bad things Dole did.
Roberts has always been bad he just pretended otherwise and a lot of people went along with it cause he could write good to cover up how bad what a lot of what he was doing actually was.
Gin & Tonic
Boy, the persimmon is the king of fruits. A very ripe one in December is a thing of beauty, in its own way like a ripe tomato just off the vine on a sunny August afternoon.
Kropacetic
Don’t be giving TFG titles that might go to his head.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Received a gift of a mini-loaf of persimmon bread from somebody a couple of weeks ago. One nibble, then Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, toss it straight into the trash can.
;)
Quencher
Perhaps Roberts, like RBG and Breyer, is a selfish asshole who thinks he can’t be replaced.
Mike S
Time for a sternly worded letter from Susan Collins.
Kalakal
cancel
Matt
The only way Roberts should ever be considered anything other than a traitor to democracy is if he opens the next round of oral arguments by calmly employing a high-caliber revolver, one bullet to each of his wingnut colleagues, and the last for himself.
Otherwise, he’s just the guy yelling “oh no, stop” very quietly while waiting for his turn to skullfuck Lady Liberty.
Raoul Paste
I can’t even imagine the outrage from the Right if Roberts decided to retire and let Biden replace him.
He’d need to hire security, and he knows it. That is where we are now
SiubhanDuinne
I would love for Biden to have the possibility of elevating Sonia Sotomayor to CJ, and of course to replacing her with a nice liberal Justice.
WaterGirl
PSA for book club peeps. There’s a plan in place, and meeting dates & discussion themes are set, so if you missed the thread from yesterday evening (that almost no one commented on) check out the link under Featuring in the sidebar.
If you missed the posts and want to catch up or if you want all the details, just type “Adam Schiff” into the Search this website box at the top of the sidebar. That will bring up all the book club posts for Midnight In Washington and the great tribute that zhena wrote to him in 2020.
Ohio Mom
Oh, a right-winger is screwing things up. How unusual.
I think it a genius idea that he quit but of course he won’t. That wouldn’t be screwing things up.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raoul Paste:
He’s had seizures in the past. He could always cite health concerns and save face with the wingnuts.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
I always mix up persimmons and pomegranates in my head.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: @Gin & Tonic:
Are persimmons the ones that smell like perm solution?
Rocks
“…go away, while you can do it with some semblance of dignity.” Too late. Much too late.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
You mean that awful ammonia aroma?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Raoul Paste:
You sparked my curiosity, so I did some reading and found out that the Supreme Court Police provide 24/7 protection to all SC justices, former and current, domestically and abroad, through their Dignitary Protection Unit
Omnes Omnibus
@Quencher: Perhaps you would like to fuck off.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Whatever chemicals they use on your hair when you get a perm… there’s a fruit that smells just like that to me.
I think it might be the persimmon. Not surprisingly, it’s a fruit I only tried once. :-)
kindness
It’s funny that we might suggest Chief Justice Roberts would help his future image by retiring now. One problem I see there is Roberts would have to have a conscience to think this and his work and rulings seem to indicate mallibility. That isn’t a conscience, that’s judging if you can get away with it.
Raoul Paste
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): okay, so all we need is for Roberts and Breyer to retire, and then we’re good to go
If only. Sigh
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure if RBG retired in 2016 she would have been replaced by Obama with a liberal justice just like her friend Scalia was. Oh, wait…
Winston
Persimmons are a savory/sweet fruit that ripen after the first frost. So rush out to get them and enjoy.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: I’ve never had a perm, so I can’t answer that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Raoul Paste:
Actually, retired justices still get protection if I read my sources right. However, the protection justices receive is entirely at their discretion. Some have chosen to forego it on trips, like Roberts, funny enough
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: Just a temp then.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder what the Venn diagram would look like of people who blame RBG for today’s USSC and people who said there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Rs and Ds in 2000 and ’16
Chris T.
@Ruckus:
Perhaps a combination: conservative dogshit.
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Not even that. I just wash my hair and comb it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: Comb it…OK, Mr. Fancypants.
jeffreyw
@Gin & Tonic:
There’s a saying around here: “He’s grinnin’ like a ‘coon shittin’ persimmon seeds.”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Breyer should retire. Why he won’t, I can only guess is because of arrogance. He has to be aware of what the kind of people he sits in oral arguments with are. He should step aside and allow Biden to replace him with a younger liberal justice while that’s still possible, to at the very least shore up the liberal numbers on the Court
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: I cannot remember what persimmons smell like, but pomegranates do not smell like perm solution. They’re delicious.
burnspbesq
@NotMax:
Even the best umpires can be fooled by catchers with advanced pitch-framing skills.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m hearing a Billy Preston song.
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: there are two kinds:
De gustibus and all, so I won’t say which one might find to be tasty. Myself, I find the latter to have a sort of waxiness (or something) that sticks all over the inside of my mouth, so that even if the fruit is kind of tasty, I just can’t eat more than a couple of bites.
The first kind though, I can eat ’em like apples when they’re firm, and but I try to wait until they’re gettin’ a little squishy, b/c then …. boy howdy, they’re sweet and soft and tasty!
I hasten to note: de gustibus non est disputandem, so, y’know try the kind you’re gonna get — you might find it’s not to your liking. Or maybe that you gotta buy 10lb, so you’ll have some for when they finally start to get squishy-ripe!
Gin & Tonic
@jeffreyw: You just made that saying up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That is a viewpoint.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Comb? I run my fingers through mine and that is enough.
Gin & Tonic
@Chetan Murthy: The flat ones are Fuyu, the conical ones are Hachiya. The latter can be chalky and astringent when not fully ripe – you have to let them sit and ripen until they are *very* soft. But then cut off the top and pretend the skin is a container – just spoon out the flesh and enjoy (you can eat the skin as well, it’s just a tougher texture.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: OK, Rambo.
sdhays
@WaterGirl: I have some very ripe hachiya persimmons on my counter for making persimmon bread tomorrow, and they don’t really have a smell. The taste is sweet and mild, with a hint of cinnamon.
Maybe you’re thinking of durian or one of these: https://www.kumuainafarm.com/the-five-stinkiest-fruits/ ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Not at all. My hair is docile and obedient.
ETA: My Indian food delivery, however, is not.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: We grew up eating pomegranates. They are a lot of work, but they were good. I haven’t eaten one in years. If god wanted us to eat pomegranates and artichokes s/he wouldn’t have made them so hard to eat. :-)
Mike in NC
We will happily pay to send Chief Justice Roberts a nice big bag of salted dicks for Christmas.
jeffreyw
@Gin & Tonic: I can still hear him saying it, with that twang of his. He died a few years ago but he would have got a chuckle hearing you. We wrestled together in high school. I miss him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
…..what’s wrong with it? I didn’t realize thinking someone as old as Breyer should retire given the dire circumstances we find ourselves in was a controversial opinion
Old Man Shadow
Roberts personally brought back Jim fucking Crow and shived American Democracy in the back a few dozen times in multiple states.
His legacy is already set in stone: White Authoritarian Ethno-Nationalist.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, but just because there is is nothing wrong with it doesn’t mean that everyone must share it.
Winston
@Chetan Murthy: My best friend had a couple persimmon trees in northern Indiana, when I lived there. The kind that look like tomatoes. After the first frost he would call and say they’re ready and we would hustle over there to harvest them. They have big seeds, and you have to peel them and remove the seeds (we used a colander), so we ended up with a paste and my wife made persimmon pies (like pumpkin pies). We froze a few quarts of the paste and ate pies all winter. Timing is the key. They don’t last long on the tree after the frost, but they freeze well.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic:
Lovely description. Yes! I don’t know why I said “waxy”. But in any case, I guess I didn’t wait long enough, though they *were* really squishy. No matter: the other ones (the hachiya), I can eat those with a spoon, or a fork, or a knife, or a hatchet, or, y’know, any way at all. In The Before Time I’d buy 10lb at a pop, bring ’em home, have ’em for snacks all winter long. Need to go down to the bodega and get some this weekend …..
Jacel
@SiubhanDuinne: I would like for there to be a Democrat-appointed Chief Justice again for far longer than the first several months of my life in the early 1950s. It’s been Republican-appointees CJs all the way since then.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m confused. I don’t think I ever said everyone had to share it?
Chetan Murthy
@Winston: The ones we get in CA rarely have seeds, but I’ve found ’em from time-to-time. I’ve never found them an impediment to eat ’em like an apple, or like a really, really squishy tomato.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jacel: The CJ has been a Republican my entire life, I’m almost 62.
dexwood
@WaterGirl: We have a pomegranate bush/tree against our house on the south side. We planted it about 30 years ago. I like it, like what it produces, but find the fruit too much trouble to enjoy, but, damn, they are beautiful as they ripen and change colors. My wife is more patient, loves them. Every other year, we get 100 plus pomegranates from it. We give them away to neighbors, family, and friends. Off years like this one, a dozen or so.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
How’s life been treating you? I remember a few months back you were in some dire straits
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Two of my most favorite foods!
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Lumping together Associate Justices and Chief Justices, over 40% of all who served on the Supreme Court have died while still in office. So a minority, but historically not an uncommon occurrence.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Working at the Home of the Orange Apron, another day, another penny. I got my schedule for the end of the year, I don’t work New Year’s Eve, but have to open at 5am New Year’s Day, Fuckers.
Another Scott
We’ve known Roberts is a bald-faced liar for decades. He doesn’t care what any of us think, and he’s never going to leave the SCOTUS on his own volition.
NPR.org (from 2005):
It’s all just mouth noises to get what he wants.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I like them, too. I was just talking smack about them because, well, because I could!
WaterGirl
@dexwood: Nice! I would kill for a peach tree or a lemon tree or any number of fruit trees.
Chris T.
@Old Man Shadow:
I think there are two Vs in that tense: “shivved”. I shiv, I am shivving, I have shivved. It’s like another word starting with “shi”, the present tense is “shitting”. Although… is it then “shav”? This one is hard to look up. Etymology suggests it’s from chive, thieves’ cant for “knife”. So, not Anglo-Saxon, which probably rules out “shav”.
(Am I serious? I’m not sure if I’m being serious here….)
Lyrebird
@WaterGirl:
@sdhays:
Yeah WG, I wonder if you’re thing of durian fruit, they have a spiky green rind and they stink in a big way. I think the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has a piece in one of his books about putting a big metal bell on top of a durian fruit while he was meditating. they are bigger than footballs, or can be… some people love the taste.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: Made me wonder if David Souter is still living the Ted Kaczynski lifestyle.
NotMax
Persimmon folklore.
;)
dexwood
@WaterGirl: One of the reasons we wanted this house in 87 was the peach tree in back with one pound peaches hanging from it’s branches. 14 months after we moved in we cut the poor dying thing down because of the peach tree borers.
WaterGirl
@Lyrebird: I have seen those but that’s not the fruit I am thinking of. I can picture it and the name is just out of reach.
WaterGirl
@dexwood: Oh, that’s so sad.
Winston
@WaterGirl: When I lived in San Jose, we had a lemon tree, a grapefruit tree and a naval orange tree in the back yard. My refrigerator was always full of grapefruit juice, lemonade and orange juice off the tree. It was great, I tell ya
eta: I also used to grow ganga in the back yard.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Rumor is he and Elvis are very happy together.
//
Ocotillo
I hope I am wrong but I suspect public apathy will render even with the overturning of Roe, nothing changes as far as voting goes.
Ksmiami
@WaterGirl: put on laytex gloves. Cut the pomegranate into 6 wedges and place a container in your sink. Then massage the seeds out. Easy peasy and so much better than seeded containers that sell for 10 or more
Anne Laurie
I’ve always wondered about pawpaws, myself. They’re supposed to be delicious, and would grow in our garden zones. But you need two trees for pollination, and we’ll never have the space for that!
dexwood
@NotMax: Andy Kaufman is the rumor I heard.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
It just seems like Breyer, Sinema, Manchin, et al, either don’t give a shit or have no sense of urgency. All over the country, Republicans have enacted anti-democratic voting laws. It seems like nobody’s hair is actually on fire and we’re all acting either like it’s still “business as usual” (like the press) or we’re utterly helpless to stop what’s coming.
And yes I’m aware people like Stacy Abrams and others are working like hell, but how is that going to help if Republicans can just toss out results they don’t like? Plus extreme gerrymandering, like what’s going on in OH, TX, and even VA. Sorry to be such a downer, but maybe Adam was right after all. Look how the VA election turned out
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
You do you.
;)
Winston
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I just don’t buy the gloom and doom. It’s not going to change my vote.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
I’m witnessing the possible end of American democracy. It’s sort of hard to not be down about that. I mean, was anything I said incorrect?
I’m trying to game scenarios out in my head and I can’t ignore current and historical trends
NotMax
@dexwood
Kaufman, Presley. Potato, persimmon.
;)
Winston
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, yeah. You think anybody but the press and republicans are buying it?
eta: I mean in 2016 republicans turned out 62 million votes. Don’t you think they cheated in 2020 to get to 74 million? It’s common knowledge dems are in the majority. All we have to do is vote like it’s 2020 and we will smother them.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Winston:
It’s not going to change my vote either, but many observers have noted that Republicans have a decent chance of winning control of Congress next year. I mean hell, people are receiving the Child Tax Credit payments right now and Biden’s poll numbers are terrible
It seems like the resurgence of COVID and Afghanistan destroyed his approvals, which could have helped drag down McAufflie and the NJ governor
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You got yourself out on that ledge, you talk yourself down.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, if it’s any consolation, I feel the same way. And so do lots of others: did you see Brian Williams’ sign-off today (he’s retiring) ? Or Jamelle Bouie’s recent NYT column titled “So You Lost the Election. We Had Nothing to Do With It.” Or …. well, all over the place, well-respected people are raising the alarm.
What to do? Well, first, along with @Winston: I’d say: “we need to not give up” and for sure, we need to vote and try to get others to vote for our Republic. But after that? I’m gonna stop there, b/c I don’t feel like being Eeyore tonight. Still, if we don’t vote, then we *will* lose. So there’s that.
But I don’t think it’s inaccurate to say that I’m feeling many if not most of the same feelings you are. You’re not alone: there are many who feel like you in all walks of life, and also in positions of respect, learning, and even authority.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Not in any way motivated to get into a whole serious back and forth about it just now, but I will say it appears from what has been offered in this thread a tendency cherry pick only select data points which manage to inflate your conclusion.
IMHO.
Kropacetic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In Spring of 2010, Governor Deval Patrick of MA had poll numbers in the mid 20s. He won reelection that year. Polls mean nothing this far out.
If you’re feeling powerless, find a way to help. It can even be for a cause and not a politician if you want. Do good and look for people doing good. Eta: That way, even if the shit hits the fan, you know who to look to for support and community.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goku, I think you told me once you’re a nurse, right?
Winston
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, I don’t think any Democratic candidate should concede any election in 2022. They should take a lesson and protest every election if they lose and go to court for recounts and declare fraud on the republican party. See how that goes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Winston:
You can’t outvote state legislatures deciding to throw out election results because they basically didn’t like them. Or extreme gerrymanders that give Rs a majority of seats despite winning less than 50% of the vote.
There need to be new voting rights laws with teeth and Manchin and Sinema won’t even do a filibuster carve out to get laws they’ve co-sponsored passed.
Manchin is the same fuckhead who just voted with the Rs to repeal Biden’s vaccine mandates. Granted, it will never even get a vote in the House, but he’s still an objectively pro-virus asshole. So is Tester, whom many here thought was better than Manchin
Kropacetic
@Winston: Nah, Democrats get held accountable for their actions. Shit, they get held accountable for their “weirdest” voters.
NotMax
@NotMax
a tendency cherry pick = a tendency to cherry pick
@Omnes Omnibus
Danke for that.
Winston
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m talking about throwing a hissy fit in every election. No one concedes until we determine the republicans didn’t cheat.
e ta: And I don’t think it’s clear that state legislatures have a constitutional right to decide against the vote.
guachi
I’m mostly with Goku. I’ll be at my 20 year mark in the military in 9 days. It was a futile waste in defending democracy in the United States. In 11 months the Republicans will have massive House majorities, and they won’t even have to win a majority of the vote to do it. The Ds likely won’t win the Senate. Breyer won’t retire. So many states have such ridiculous gerrymanders that democracy effectively doesn’t exist at the legislative level. There are 5 lunatics on the Supreme Court and replacing them will require three things to happen – a Democratic President, a Democratic Senate, and a dead lunatic SC justice. That will never happen in my lifetime. And not enough Americans actually care. If you asked if Americans would trade democracy for gas costing 50 cents less, cheaper gas would win easily. I see no viable path out. None.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kropacetic:
Good advice
@Winston:
@Chetan Murthy:
Of course we shouldn’t give up and continue trying, if only because it’s the right thing to do. I appreciate what you’re both saying
@NotMax:
Maybe. I can only hope. And continue voting and donating. I just feel like you, Omnes, and others often don’t have very compelling/convincing counterarguments when these discussions come up, being truthful
Winston
@guachi: So you’re a military man. Why don’t you organize a company to set it right,?
Fake Irishman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
look, I get the frustration over Manchin et al, and that vax vote was obnoxious. However, they’ve quietly all been voting to put lots of Democratic judges on the bench. Each one of those judges provides another figure to man the barricades, especially in the appeals courts. Right now most of those picks are up Clinton and Obama appointees, but not all…
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Yes, everything is not beer and skittles. But it never has been. Liberty does not run on autopilot.
Another Scott
@guachi: Things have been worse in the past – they really have. Giving up makes it easy for them. Our forbearers didn’t give up.
Abe had a few words:
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
There is more going on than “current and historical trends.” Things happen—events.
You love hypotheticals. What if Clarence Thomas, who is obese and looks to be dreadfully out of shape, keels over tomorrow with a stroke or a heart attack? Boom—empty Supreme Court seat to be filled by Biden. It wouldn’t solve everything, but it would shake things up. And I’m certainly not saying that we should just sit around with our fingers crossed hoping for some deus ex machina event like that.
But I am saying that, on the other hand, it’s equally useless to look at “current and historical trends,” throw up our hands and say, “Game over, man.”
The future is unwritten, and there is a lot that we can do to help it turn out the way that we want. It is the nature of things that you can’t know the end until, well, the end. So I suggest that you find some way to defuse or channel your anxiety other than obsessing about the most negative forecasts of current events.
sdhays
I am here at CVS for my Covid booster shot at 11pm (because getting an appointment at a decent time on a weekend has proven challenging) and they just took out a new vial, so I have wait another 15 minutes before it can be used. And there’s a gentleman ahead of me.
I hope I can get home before midnight, but I’m not holding my breath.
q
Roberts says the quiet parts quietly. The Trump appointees say the quiet parts out loud. There is effectively no difference otherwise.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Cannot speak for Omnes but I generally don’t come here to argue.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Many people need to believe they can succeed, in order to have the motivation to fight. There’s no sin in that, eh? And if you believe in a thing, then hearing somebody tell you that you’re wrong, will cause you to defend your position. Yes?
And hey, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing.
Steeplejack (phone)
@sdhays:
Kudos for getting your booster. Hang in there!
Winston
Well, I don’t normally get involved in this kind of discussion. But I have a lot of opinions.
We are at war to save our democracy and we are in the majority.
Given that we are at war, there are no holds bar what we should do.
We are justified in killing those who oppose us. It’s what our opposition is proposing.
And if we don’t do it first, we will lose.
Leto
@Winston: civilians say the funniest things.
Winston
@Leto: Tell me how it’s funny when they have already started doing it.
Citizen Alan
@?BillinGlendaleCA
The idea, for those so petty as to continually make it, is that RGB should have retired in 2014, having had the foresight to realize both that the GOP would retake the senate and also that they would abandon all prior senate norms and simply refuse to seat a democratic nominee.
stinger
Do you have any Black friends? Talk to
themtheir grandmothers about persevering through hard times. Black Americans know more about that than anybody, and giving up isn’t an option.And when I say “talk”, I mean of course “listen”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Citizen Alan: But the Senate still had the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, the Republicans still could have blocked it.
Unique uid
@Anne Laurie:
FIL was in Michigan Nut Growers and had many paw paw trees. Might be more complicated than having two for pollination … He used to collect road kill to hang in the trees. Raccoons, possums, squirrel. Would attract some carrion fly that was best for pollination.
He died three years back, no pawpaw’s there since then.
Still picking persimmons and kiwi on his property.
NotoriousJRT
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
A person vociferously disagreeing doesn’t make your opinion controversial. I agree that Breyer has had his time and should retire. I’m not going to try to characterize why he has not. I just wish he would.
Nettoyeur
@guachi: Retire to France. American retirement income from Soc Sec, private pensions, 401Ks, etc are not taxed, you just continue to pay US taxes. There is a 22% sales tax, and gas is 2x the price, but real estate outside of Paris and the Riviera is cheaper than most places in the US worth living in. Good medical care, reasonably priced. You pretty much have to learn French, but it is a really close to English and much easier than most other languages for Americans. Plenty of things to do in Europe, good public transport. We are seriously thinking about it….of course we have lived and worked there, and we and our kids have spoken French most of our lives.
SeattleDem
@Nettoyeur: Germany, Netherlands, and Denmark are also great places to live on an American’s retirement. Danish is like English with weird spellings and Dutch is like simplified German with gargle noises. Don’t like “der, die, das”, try “het and de”. Most of the time the Dutch either gently correct me or just answer in English.
LongHairedWeirdo
I’m sorry, but he’s down with a ruling, on the VRA, that says the precise opposite of what the VRA says.
(i.e.: the VRA forbids facially neutral laws that discriminate based on race – like, e.g., literacy tests, where white voters need to read “see Jane. See Jane Run. Run, Jane, run!” and black voters get asked to explain a complicated chemical engineering doctoral thesis).
It’s too late to retire with dignity. His best is to retire before he literally craps his pants in public.
Chetan Murthy
@Nettoyeur:
And French is a beyoooteful language! I learned it at age 26, for a job. Literally couldn’t ask where the loo was when I landed in Paris for the job *grin*. By 3yr later, I was arguing about politics with the postdocs and grad students in my lab. Loved it!
I’m brown, so not sure that I’d want to move to Europe (most European countries don’t really know how they’re gonna deal with people who don’t look like them) but France is one of the better ones, AFAICT. Even so, I’d probably still wanna do it, but the rest of my family is monolingual, and I don’t think they’re up for learning a new language.
Lacuna Synecdoche
Anne Laurie @ Top:
This is exactly what I was thinking too. And while he’s at it, he can serve as a role model for Breyer to retire too.
lowtechcyclist
“Do you want to be a polyester bride?
Or do you want to hang your head and die?
Do you want to find alligator cowboy boots they just put on sale?
Do you want to flap your wings and fly away from here?”
-Liz Phair, “Polyester Bride”
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Tester has online superfans who are flat-out white supremacists and spew all the telltale Nazi memes. I just discovered that by accident. They want him to primary Biden.
Matt McIrvin
@Winston: A preemptive mass slaughter of civilians ten times as large as the Holocaust doesn’t seem like the thing to put the US back on a path to liberal democracy.
Gvg
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: 0 overlap.
i don’t solely blame RBG though. She was a contributor and should have had more sense.
Gvg
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): We started with slavery. How was that democracy? But we persisted and eventually fixed that. Then we lost interest after reconstruction and allowed Jim Crow, but eventually overturned that. Women’s rights (lack of) were quietly never really there but we have made progress there even while they are under attack again. Things have actually been bad to awful a lot of our time, and yet, we have made progress.
Just because things are getting really bad again is no reason to despair overall.
You are prone to depression or something. You always think things are awful. I don’t think like that so I don’t know what to say to you. Even the worst is not permanent. The end of American democracy is ignoring that history won’t stop. And I don’t think it will be the end. However these conservative laws will kill people and there are still choices. Some possible roads ahead of us are less bad than others so every step must be fought for.
Booger
@SiubhanDuinne: What do you do with your brain while you’re mixing them?
Sloegin
The problem with this whole post by the OP is the assumption that Roberts is somehow a centrist, thrust into that position to referee the court and to maintain its decorum and maintain respect for SCOTUS.
That’s entirely a media created myth. The media slapped the lipstick on this particular black-robed pig and he’s played along. Gutting the VRA was *his purpose* for getting put on the court. It was *his baby* that he ushered thru the system from his early law clerk days. Everything that followed is due to him and he’s not remotely done causing damage yet.
Matt McIrvin
One thing about “flee the country” ideas is that I’ve never been sure whether the rest of the Western world is now less prone to right-wing poison than us or just a little behind on the track. I don’t want to go somewhere else and just watch it all happen again. Better stay and try to preserve something for much later.
Grum Grumby
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Supreme Court Justices have always been particularly vulnerable to assassination attempts, as documented by The Pelican Brief.