Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / SC(R)OTUS Venality Open Thread: Pictures of Ginni

SC(R)OTUS Venality Open Thread: Pictures of Ginni

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The quote is from a pearl-clutching, gleefully doom-posting Politico article that is exactly as terrible as you would expect, so I’m not gonna bother further extracting: Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe is still the only one circulated inside Supreme Court.

I’ll just add: My suggestion, back in December, is looking more prescient than ever:

… 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.


Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    hells littlest angel

    “There is a price to be paid for what he did.”

    We are a nation of laws, not of men. But seriously, folks, don’t forget to tip your server.

  3. 3.

    dmsilev

    There is a price to be paid for what [Chief Justice Roberts] did

    I’m sure any resemblance between this and stereotypical mobster talk is purely coincidental.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    Hypothetically, if Roberts resigns effective next week, can the already-approved Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson be slotted into the Chief Justice slot?  I seem to recall something like that happened with Roberts’ own appointment.

    EDIT: Checking wikipedia, Roberts had been nominated but not approved to replace O’Connor. The nomination was withdrawn and he was re-nominated for Chief Justice.

  6. 6.

    Shalimar

    I am in full agreement that Roberts should resign if he cares about his personal legacy.  He’s the Chief, so he gets blamed for all the extreme decisions he has no control over.  Might as well give that burden to someone else.

    I also am of the opinion that not only is this leak not unprecedented, but sharing draft opinions with Leonard Leo, various members of Congress, and members of the rightwing press to help develop talking points has become the conservative norm the last 5-15 years and the only new facet is Politico printing the whole thing rather than just gossip about the coming decision.

  7. 7.

    sukabi

    @Ken: if Roberts decides to retire I’d suggest Hillary for chief justice….make the rest of them stroke out.

  8. 8.

    Shalimar

    @sdhays: It does sound a lot like his “I’m gonna get you, my pretties” speech against Democrats at his confirmation hearing, doesn’t it?

  9. 9.

    Dangerman

    First Roe, probably Griswold, almost certainly Obamacare (latter two just as soon as they have a case find their desks, I assume). Gonna be lit.

  11. 11.

    Shalimar

    • @sukabi: Obama is the logical choice.  Hillary would already be the oldest liberal justice by a full decade.
  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    Thread subtitle is the most antithetical picture to the spirit of the song one could possibly conjure. Well played, damn you.

  14. 14.

    Gvg

    @sukabi: The way the “game” is played these days, she is too old. We need to pick someone younger.

    I’d like at least 2 of them to stroke out soon and save our bacon, but probably won’t get my wish. Didn’t realize Roberts was that old.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    @sukabi

    Have Schumer declare the Senate formally in recess and use recess appointment to slide in Doug Emhoff.

    (Ike made three recess appointments to the Supreme Court, all later approved by Senate vote: Chief Justice Ear Warren and Associate Justices William Brennan and Potter Stewart.)

    //

    BTW,

    A 17-year-old girl was arrested after she allegedly made a bomb threat to a school in Washington, D.C., earlier this year while second gentleman Doug Emhoff was visiting. Source

  17. 17.

    kindness

    The nominee doesn’t have to be a lawyer.  They just mostly are.  I think they should name AOC to the court.  We would really see heads explode then.

  21. 21.

    Edmund Dantes

    @kindness: it’s kind of like the pope in some ways. There aren’t a ton of written criteria as to who gets to be a scotus. Though I think there are less for scotus than pope. But not by a lot.

    pope being male and baptized in the Catholic Church.

    I think scotus is alive and confirmed by the senate.

  22. 22.

    James E Powell

    @Kent:

    Ilhan Omar would definitely own the wingers. But Democrats take the supreme court more seriously.

    I’d like to see Katie Porter on the supreme court.

  25. 25.

    TriassicSands

    The Chief Justice always votes to support Republican electoral prospects. By preventing the destruction of the ACA, he did so, indirectly, once again.

  26. 26.

    Major Major Major Major

    God I hate these people so much. Just the sorest winners on the planet.

    And honestly, it might be good to have a non-lawyer on the court. Couldn’t possibly make things worse. Their clerks can write the actual opinions, it’s what they do already.

  29. 29.

    oldgold

    The pool from which they draw the Justices is way too small and shallow.

    Ivies, law review footnoters and bootlicking ex-clerks is a piss poor pool to draw from if you are looking for Justices who know something about how this world spins round.

  30. 30.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSBlog – How the leak might have happened (from May 5):

    Start from the premise that there were actually (at least) two leakers, and three leaks. The first leak was to the Wall Street Journal editorial board last week. In substance, it was that the court had voted to overrule Roe v. Wade, but that the precise outcome remains in doubt because Chief Justice John Roberts is trying to persuade either Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Justice Amy Coney Barrett to a more moderate position that would uphold the Mississippi abortion restriction without formally overturning Roe.

    While not formally presented as relying on a leak, the editorial transparently does. The most obvious example is that it predicts that Alito is drafting a majority opinion to overrule Roe, but gives no explanation for that prediction and none is apparent. We now know that Alito did draft that opinion.

    The second leak was to Politico. Likely within the past few days, a person familiar with the court’s deliberations told them that five members of the court – Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – originally voted to overturn Roe and that remains the current vote. In addition, the position of the chief justice is unclear. The remaining justices are dissenting.

    The third leak was also to Politico. It was presumably – but not certainly – by the same person. Someone provided them with Alito’s Feb. 10 draft opinion.

    Note as well what was not leaked. Politico seemingly was not told which justices had joined the Alito opinion. (The fact that five justices voted in December to overturn Roe as a general matter does not mean that all five of them necessarily would have agreed to sign on to Alito’s draft.) And Politico apparently was not provided with a subsequent draft, which ordinarily would have circulated to the court by now – in response to comments from some members of the would-be majority.

    Here is what you would conclude is the state of play if you took all the leaks as both accurate and pretty complete (assumptions that, admittedly, are by no means certain). Alito’s opinion probably has been joined by Thomas and Gorsuch. Kavanaugh and Barrett have yet to join – most likely because they are waiting to consider an alternative opinion from the chief justice.

    In these circumstances, which ideological side would think it benefits from leaking the opinion? It seems to me, that is the left. I can see conservatives believing that they would gain from leaking the fact that Kavanaugh had originally voted to strike down Roe. They might believe it would tend to lock him into that position. But that was accomplished by leaking that fact to both The Wall Street Journal and Politico.

    The question here is who believed they would benefit from leaking the opinion itself. That document was much more likely to rally liberals than conservatives. It brought home the fact that the court was poised to overrule Roe in much more concrete terms than merely leaking the vote. The opinion is also a full-throated attack on abortion rights and – with important caveats – substantive due process rights more broadly. And as a first draft – without the benefit of later refinement – it does not yet present the critique of Roe in its most persuasive form.

    It is also important to look at the leak of the opinion through the lens of the fact that someone – almost certainly a conservative – had just before leaked the court’s tentative decision and the state of the voting to The Wall Street Journal. That leak was itself an extraordinary and unethical breach of confidences and certainly caused very deep concern inside the court.

    My guess is that someone on the left felt somewhat justified in releasing the opinion in response. Through the opinion, one would see what the Journal was saying Kavanaugh and Barrett were considering. That leak was a historically unprecedented violation of the deepest and most solemn trust among the justices and the court’s staff. It wounded the institution.

    “It wounded the institution” is just mouth-noises, IMHO. Justices who throw out 50-year old rights and try to impose their religion on the country are damaging the institution much, much more than a leaked draft opinion.

    On the rest, plausible? No idea. But the players and their hangers-on know this is a potential important inflection point. Too many RWNJs have worked too long for this to think that they’re going to care about tradition and “the institution” when they think victory is at hand…

    The fact that it was Politico that got the draft is the biggest “tell” for me. They’re intimately plugged into the GQP. A liberal supporter of Roe would probably send it to Mother Jones or something similar. Unless, they were hoping to cover their tracks…, but even then it still doesn’t smell quite right to me.

    Maybe we’ll know some day, maybe we never will. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s in the the signed opinion, and how voters react to it.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  31. 31.

    eversor

    @sukabi:

    they wouldn’t stroke out they’d be overjoyed at the own goal the democrats just did.  Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack

    A couple of tweets from Bill Kristol, presumably still a semi-connected GOP insider:

    @BillKristol: It’s become pretty clear the leaks about internal Court deliberations (if not the draft opinion itself) are from the Thomas-Alito camp, and are designed to weaken the Chief Justice and intimidate any of the newer justices from joining him for fear of seeming weak or unprincipled.

    @BillKristol: 3 of the 5 conservatives weren’t on the Court when Roberts saved Obamacare—so they presumably don’t “remember it” as an insult to them (though I realize they know of it). The trashing of Roberts would seem to come from the two conservative justices whose “feathers were ruffled.”

  34. 34.

    Cameron

    Hey, why would they stop with Roe and Griswold and ACA?  Why not Social Security and Medicare and SNAP and TANF while they’re at it?  Nothing there that the private sector can’t provide, right?

  38. 38.

    catothedog

    @Cameron:

    Hey, why would they stop with Roe and Griswold and ACA?  Why not Social Security and Medicare and SNAP and TANF while they’re at it?  Nothing there that the private sector can’t provide, right?

    As sure as night follows day.

    People are arguing about right to privacy, enumerated rights and constitution. They still don’t get it.

    The real import of this decision is the  thuggery. Might is right.  There is no rule of law anymore, just power.

  39. 39.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Another Scott: I still haven’t read a plausible explanation for why a liberal leaks any of the current roe stuff. It’s all down side for the liberals in outcome.

    There is no plausible logic yet that I have seen as to how leaking the draft opinion gets a wobbling conservative (Kavanaugh or Barrett) to join Roberts once it’s found out they originally had voted to overturn than backed down.

    I still think the Alito/Thomas wing makes the most sense. Plus there is a bit of a bridesmaid thing with Alito and Roberts. I bet Alito thinks Roberts got his Chief Justice seat so he is probably relishing a chance to stick it to Roberts a bit. Especially since Roberts hasn’t been a “steady” conservative (aka ACA ruling) while Alito has always been a good Federalist society soldier

  40. 40.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Edmund Dantes:

    I still haven’t read a plausible explanation for why a liberal leaks any of the current roe stuff. It’s all down side for the liberals in outcome.

    Panic, heat of the moment, miscalculation… I wouldn’t be surprised if it were from either wing. Seems more likely to be a conservative though.

  41. 41.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    All these leaks make the those six conservatives SCOTUS justices sound like they are well into their second childhoods and have a shared delusion they are group of mean girls at some high school.  “No, I am sorry, Alito has more friends!” “No, I am sorry for you that, Roberts has more friends!” kind of nonsense.  I am sure we will be seeing a cell phone video of a slap fight between two old white guys in the court soon.

    The woman are complaining their fate is being decided by a group of men, my god, it’s not even mature men.

  42. 42.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I was listening to Danny Cevallos yesterday. He thinks its definitely one of the justices since they have lifetime appointments and he was leaning towards Breyer since he’s retiring so he really has NFLTG. It also explains his retirement since he seemed to be iffy on the retirement. He must have seen where the court was going this last term and decided not to pull an RBG. Anyhow, Cevallos said there’s no way a USSC clerk, a big time overachiever  is going to blow their career  after working so hard to get there  which was my initial thought. I personally think one of the conservative judges is going to kick the bucket  and put an unexpected hurdle in front of the Federalist Society’s well laid plans.

  43. 43.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Major Major Major Major: ​
     

    God I hate these people so much. Just the sorest winners on the planet.

    There’s no joy in these people. Without having shit to be mad about, these SWINE* would wither up and die.

    *Seditionists Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything (swiped from Al Capp, and modified to fit the times)

  45. 45.

    lowtechcyclist

    Pictures of Ginni

    make my life so horrible
    Pictures of Ginni
    make me scream at night

    @Kropacetic:

    Are you suggesting that this ::gestures broadly toward the US and its institutions:: is all a joke?

    But you and I, we’ve been through that…​​​

  46. 46.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @sab: Seriously. Who GAF about where the leak came from and what it does to the SCOTUS? So much ink spilled over so little. A corollary is all the hyperventilating about protests in front of the Justices’ houses. For Christ sake, why should they be immune from expressions of the free speech they’re supposed to be there to protect? When did they become so fucking special that they can make decisions that immiserate millions and just never have to hear about it from anyone?

    But my money is on a conservative leaker because the last admin leaked like a bucket without a bottom. The Obama and so far Biden Admins don’t leak, at all. Our side has proven we can keep things close to the vest, their side has a terrible record in that regard.

  49. 49.

    EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)

    @What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: Who GAF about where the leak came from and what it does to the SCOTUS? So much ink spilled over so little. A corollary is all the hyperventilating about protests in front of the Justices’ houses.

    The leaked opinion says there is no real right to privacy. It tries to put the only applies to abortion fig leaf on it but that’s what it says. Caring about leaks and protests in front of justices’ houses when there’s no right to privacy is ludicrous. It’s a different world now. Act accordingly.

  50. 50.

    JR in WV

    Actually, I think these “justices” are ignoring the piece of the Constitution that applies the most to this situation: The Ninth Amendment, short and sweet:

    The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

    Perhaps the shortest yet most important clause in the whole Constitution! “…Shall not be construed to deny… others [ rights ] retained by the people!”

    All the rights are addressed by this tiny but crucial piece of the Constitution!!! All of them!!!

    So Fuck those fascist “justices” who intend to remove all the rights from the people, except the right to obey.

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