Hard to believe it’s almost time for the Federalist Society-captured U.S. Supreme Court to restart its work of stripping away individual rights and dismantling the underpinnings of our modern democracy, but they’ll be back at it in less than a month. There are things to look forward to in the coming term, including the official investiture of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She’ll soon have an opportunity to join Justices Sotomayor and Kagan in fiery dissents.
But there’s plenty to dread about the first Monday in October given the items on the docket, which include cases that could extract the VRA’s remaining teeth, eliminate affirmative action in student admissions, blow up federal program beneficiaries’ right to sue when states violate federal protections, and further undermine the regulatory power of the EPA and SEC.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts, echoing the sentiments of fellow Fed-Soc hacks earlier this year, meeped about declining public perceptions of the court’s legitimacy:
(CNN) Chief Justice John Roberts — making his first public comments since the US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade last term, triggering demonstrations across the country — defended the legitimacy of the court Friday night while also acknowledging it had been “gut-wrenching” to drive into a barricaded high court every morning.
Roberts’ using a VIP gate pass to get to his office isn’t as “gut-wrenching” as the experience of women who arrive at red state ERs with incomplete miscarriages being given the choice to wait at home or in a hospital room for their own health to deteriorate to the point that the doctor isn’t afraid of getting sued over a medically necessary D&C. The Roberts Court did that.
Roberts, without directly mentioning protests, said that all of the court’s opinions are open to criticism, but he pointedly noted that “simply because people disagree with opinions, is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court.”
Maybe it’s not simple disagreement but rather Fed-Soc nominees lying under oath about their respect for “settled law” and ignoring “precedent upon precedent” to construct rulings that just so happen to dovetail perfectly with Federalist Society donor objectives. Perhaps it’s the brazen theft of two of the nine seats. (BTW, if you missed Al Franken’s pitch-perfect take down of a right-wing hack on CNN who tried to justify the theft, check it out in TaMara’s post here.)
The SCOTUS conservatives demand the deference and respect. They won’t get it because they haven’t earned it. But over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern remind us that the problem is much larger than the SCOTUS — the lower courts are shot through with Trumpy hacks, as exemplified by the MAGA Hat Cannon judge in Florida’s absurd “special master” ruling:
So the problem is not just the extreme and heinous flaws in Cannon’s ruling. It’s also the Trump-shaped world in which Cannon operates, with impunity, which we will all have to endure for the foreseeable future. It’s the brutal reality that we may face a steady stream of depraved decisions like Cannon’s for the rest of our lives—and the pain of hearing from every quarter that nothing can be done to remedy it…
We get it. Lawyers are trained to lawyer. But if you are lawyering within a system you believe to be broken, or immoral, or lawless, and you aren’t standing up with meaningful fixes for that system, you are, fundamentally, acceding to that lawlessness. It is a moral victory to point out the errors, but it’s also a tacit concession that the system is, in fact, legitimate, no matter how low it may go. Every one of us is going to need to decide how long we can continue to operate that way.
There are too many things wrong with the Cannon order to litigate. And there are too many things wrong with Trump’s judicial dominion of every part of our lives— for years to come—to litigate. So maybe it’s time to stop litigating them and start fixing them.
Lithwick and Stern offer some ideas to reform the system, including adding seats to the lower courts, which have long been overwhelmed by their case loads. They say ideas like term limits, limits on jurisdiction and restrictions on rulings that suppress voting rights before elections should be considered too.
Sounds like a good start to me. If the Dems hold the House and make gains in the Senate, maybe they can begin to defuse this ticking time bomb next year. Yet another reason to vote your ass off in November.
Open thread.
Bonus: via valued commenter Baud in the morning thread, here’s a PDF link to Trump’s lawyers’ response to the DOJ’s motion for a partial stay pending appeal. I didn’t read the whole thing, but it seems to boil down to “MINE!”
Frankensteinbeck
I’m reading a lawyer going over it, and among its many bizarrities, it assumes that Trump is still president. For one example, that as president he has ‘absolute’ access to all presidential records, and the rest of the executive branch only limited access.
Ksmiami
Complete judicial reform has to be a top priority if g-willing the Dems hold it together.
dmsilev
Re: the Trump case, I got just about this far:
before wondering whether some bright spark in the DEA could use this filing as legal proof that illegal substances were in use among Trump’s attorneys.
Kay
It’s been fascinating to watch Dahlia Lithwick’s progression on this- it’s a kind of mourning process, where she wants to believe in the validity and credibility of the courts but simply no longer can- she can’t finesse it anymore. It has to be faced.
New Deal democrat
@Kay: One very big problem is, you’re not doing any of your clients any favors by getting the courts in which you practice really p****d off at you.
Betty Cracker
@dmsilev: The claim is absurd on its face since it’s been documented that spies and assorted mobsters have frequented Trump’s Florida dump. But the “principally located” description is especially laughable — he had classified stuff in his fake Oval Office desk!
Barbara
Lack of accountability and lack of transparency make for an illegitimate court. Roberts is basically the only one who has any power to reverse those things and has done nothing. Just a bought and paid for stooge, basically, who does nothing to counter the more radical justices who came after him.
Kay
@New Deal democrat:
Absolutely- but “legal commentators” often aren’t practioners anyway. We give them the protections of tenure so they can speak up.
They don’t have to keep protecting The Institution. It has to stand or fall on its own merit. It’s failing because the far Right majority on that court are political hacks. If they weren’t, it wouldn’t be failing.
I think it is geninuinely heart wrenching for people like Lithwick- such a huge part of her identity and belief system is grounded in the validity of US law. I think it’s brave that she’s off the PR team. She’s not carrying this water anymore.
Baud
Another basis for not questioning the legitimacy of the court would be when Congress exercises its constitutionally conferred powers to expand the court. Just sayin’.
The Moar You Know
He is correct. I do not question the legitimacy of the courts (plural because I’m not speaking of just the Supremes but the entire judicial system) because of their opinions, I question them because they are stuffed with unqualified hacks who are occupying
STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS STOLEN SEATS
That is why. Fix that, Roberts. Not that you can, and not that you would.
New Deal democrat
On Trump’s response to the DoJ’s stay request, it just proved what I’ve said since the order was issued: that it provides nearly endless opportunities for disagreement, litigation of those disagreements, and delay.
Omnes Omnibus
Brought up from below about the Trump filing: Good god. Well, they did the best they could with what they had. There are an awful lot of assumptions posing as logical conclusions and the less said about eliding over relevant facts the better.
New Deal democrat
@Kay: Agreed re pundits who don’t actually practice before those courts.
Repeating, that all of this was predicted by the anti-Federalist ‘Brutus’ over 200 years ago.
The Moar You Know
No exceptions, no freebies, sorry. Start over. If I had ever left a document out on a table and not signed back into the safe, I’d have lost my job on the spot and deservedly so.
Also I very much doubt that the broom closet where all this shit was in any way qualifies as a SCIF.
Baud
One of the ways the court stays legitimate is by respecting stare decisis. Just sayin’.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I think it was you who pointed out a while back that witnessing the SCOTUS train wreck was tough for Lithwick because she was genuinely idealistic about the court (paraphrasing). I think that’s right. I’m no expert, but I’ve always thought she was a good legal commentator and a fine writer. Seeing the courts wrecked by hacks has lit a fire that makes her even better, IMO. She’s PISSED!
UncleEbeneezer
The problem isn’t the courts or the system, it is Republicans. And they will always be the problem. So long as you have people who will take an oath and then completely violate it or use the levers of a legitimate system to attack and erode that very legitimacy, you are going to have this problem. There is no reform that magically gets around this problem. The only solution is to keep Republicans out of positions of power. Reforms like court expansion and term limits for judges are great and I fully support them, but they only limit the amount of damage that Republicans can do. There is no silver bullet solution to the problem of Conservatism. Every political and judicial system on Earth struggles with it.
Anonymous At Work
@Frankensteinbeck: I started to but really, it asserts that the Presidential Records generated under a President belong to that President, in defiance of the PRA’s explicit instructions. Again, reads like horrible lawyering because the issue isn’t “Do the records belong to Trump?” but “Can the DoJ’s concessions and requests cure the infirmities that The Youthful Federalist identified?”.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer: Agreed 100%.
Barbara
@The Moar You Know: So what if he left a few in the basket beside the toilet for incidental reading? What an admission against his own interests. Well, at least his current crop of lawyers has learned that actually lying could lead to consequences of the kind they very clearly did not sign up for.
lowtechcyclist
On a completely different subject (Ukraine), I found this rather funny.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@dmsilev: No one could ever pick a lock. No one. Certainly not trained spies with unique tools issued by Q section.
Unpossible
Another Scott
I understand that Ms. Wheeler is not a lawyer, but she certainly is a careful reader and amazing at keeping track of lots of tiny threads.
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
Barbara
@Baud: Other ways: enforcing conflict of interest policies and demanding recusal, not resorting to an increasing “shadow” docket disposition, and so on. These are things that are within the control of the CJ. I mean, Roberts is an idiot if he thinks he can op-ed his way out of the problem.
And of course, as noted, the Court’s main avenue of accountability was intended to be through the appointment process, and the political subversion of that process means that avenue of accountability has been lost. Roberts might not control that, but he should be astute enough to understand it and maybe even try to do something about it through back channels. He hasn’t and he won’t and op-eds won’t change anything on that front either.
Betty Cracker
I’ve seen little if any reporting on what systems the federal government uses to keep track of classified documents. I’m thinking they must use some organized method to track who has sensitive material, even if the sitting POTUS has access to any document and an ability to declassify items.
The government must have had an idea of what kind of material Trump hoarded since they got a judge to authorize the FBI search of his Florida dump. But it’s not clear to me if they knew the stuff was there from witness testimony or if they knew XYZ documents existed and were missing. The latter seems to have come into play when NARA alerted the DOJ that records were missing, but would stuff like another country’s nuclear capabilities be among NARA records?
Does anyone know how that works?
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
I’d break it down into what can we do about it right now, and what we need to do on an ongoing basis.
It’s kinda like the student loan stuff in that way, where we can deal with what’s in front of us right now by forgiving loans, but going forward we really need to make college a lot more affordable.
Same here: on an ongoing basis, we’ve got to turn Republicans into a permanent minority party. But even if we do that, we’ve got this detritus they’ve left behind, like a court system full of FedSoc true believers, that we still have to shovel out of the way.
That’s what the reforms can address, because we don’t want to have a court system dominated by those loons invalidating all the laws they disagree with for the next decade or two, even if we control the White House and Congress the whole time.
Lobo
Note: Minorities have known about the courts for years, decades, etc. Nobody would listen until the impacts rose high enough to be noticed by everyone.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Betty Cracker: That’s how it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to sign out for it or have someone sign out for you.
John Brennan on MSNBC stated he believes the national security council (keeper of the files) was corrupted and didn’t keep records on Dump’s removals.
MisterForkbeard
@The Moar You Know: Roberts could fix ONE of them. Resign now and let Democrats fill his seat. And he won’t, because he doesn’t care.
narya
@Betty Cracker: I get the sense that that’s part of what DOJ doesn’t want to disclose. Some is likely known because of some kind of tracking of who had what docs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some knowledge is because somebody saw something and reported it somehow, and that DOJ doesn’t want to reveal the somebody.
delphinium
This, all of this. I would also add it would be great if we could have at least some standards for who gets to be a Supreme Court Justice or one who fills any federal lifetime appointment bench. Hacks, liars, and political grifters deemed “unqualified’ or with very little experience should not be allowed anywhere near these seats.
Don’t even get me started with Clarence ‘Conflict of Interest’ Thomas.
delphinium
So for all of the lawyers on here, is the ABA basically useless in setting or enforcing any kind of standards, especially when there is evidence of misconduct, conflicts of interest, etc? Just wondering, what, if anything they are able to do.
UncleEbeneezer
@Another Scott: I just wish 80% of her posts weren’t patting herself on the back and reminding everyone about how she (sorta) predicted something, with a link to an old post. I realize that this is a common tendency of Twitter, and some people I really love/respect like Teri Kanefield, PropaneJane and others do it too. I think it’s part of playing the Twitter game. But Marcy is so relentless about it that it ends up making me need to take breaks from her.
Like yeah, we all recognize that you’re smart and a good journalist but FFS get over yourself and tell us something new…
eversor
@dmsilev:
This type of shit gets my blood pressure up. Golf courses & hotels, notoriously “secured, controlled, access compounds”.
The Moar You Know
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, and here’s one of the problems; it’s not centralized. It’s per originator, which means there are thousands of lists, not just one big one. Running down all the shit that TFG has could take years, and that’s assuming it was checked out properly in the first place.
New Deal democrat
@Baud: “One of the ways the court stays legitimate is by respecting stare decisis.”
This was Hamilton’s rejoinder to Brutus in the Federalist papers: that SC Justices would be little more than scribes, increasingly hemmed in by precedent.
And that is why Brutus has been proven correct.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
I heard that SFB had gotten hisself an actual lawyer.
Did he quit?
Is he tied up in a closet somewhere?
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: That’s how I see it too: do what you can now because the wheels are coming off the bus in alarming ways. It tracks with the argument that these two things can be true at the same time: 1) Republican presidents have been uniformly awful for decades, and 2) Trump represented a significant and dangerous escalation of that awfulness. It’s an emergency that will require triage.
Betty Cracker
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: & @The Moar You Know: Yikes and double-yikes!
UncleEbeneezer
@lowtechcyclist: Totally agree. What rubs me the wrong way is the frustration with Institutionalists in pieces like Lithwicks. Being dedicated to following the rules of any system is a good thing. Institutionalists get to where they are BECAUSE of their belief in whatever system they inhabit. That is a good thing. I don’t expect them to embrace or openly state desires to radically transform them. And I don’t like the way people often point to their relatively small-c conservative and careful approach and say that it means they are weak or timid or even worse, corrupt because they aren’t shouting for radical change. I WANT our Institutions to be filled with people who believe in those Institutions (the problem is the Republicans in them who DON’T). And this current trend of using “Institutionalist” as a pejorative makes me uncomfortable because it sounds awfully similar to the anti-government, anti-rules sentiments I hear from wing-nuts.
eversor
@UncleEbeneezer:
Sure there is, deChristianize America. The courts are fucked because Leonard Leo, a devout Catholic, got pissed that the culture was moving away from traditional Christian ideas around sex and gender. So he carried his cross and waved his bible and he fucking Christianized the shit out of our courts. And now he has 1.6 billion bucks to wave that bible harder and carry that cross higher.
Religious liberty is a way bigger issue now than the second ammendment. And until that is accepted, and that is the main target, and we go for the juglar of the steeple all is lost.
MisterForkbeard
@narya: That’s been one of my thoughts from the start.
Most of this wouldn’t have been hard to track down if the records and access systems were properly in place. “Oh, 300 classified records were checked out by John Barron and never returned? Well, we know who to talk to about that”. That’s why the DOJ’s statements on the classified folders were concerning – they needed to track down what was in them, as the contents were referenced on each folder. It shouldn’t be hard, and it’s only hard if the filing system and controls were corrupted.
But admitting to that is a staggering national security issue. It’s open season on classified records since we wouldn’t even know if they were gone.
ETA: And yes, I am not a lawyer. So I’m probably missing something simple, like the above assurances that the classified filing system isn’t centralized.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
Always a good idea to note when a link goes to a PDF, because some devices automatically download them without giving you the option to decline.
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
Of course as long as humans are in charge there will be issues and problems, some of them completely shitty problems, because some humans are completely shitty. And other humans seem to think that is normal and correct. Or at least not incorrect.
oatler
Al Franken needs to shoot off his mouth now. Enough being the Reasonable Pundit on Fox Lite; do the Colbert show to death, let Fallon tousle his hair, make controversial statements on Twitter, ANYTHING to assure the public that there is a voice of reason out there.
Omnes Omnibus
@delphinium: Yes, the ABA is useless in this situation. It is a voluntary trade organization. It has no authority to sanction or compel lawyers to do anything.
gene108
If Democrats keep control of Congress in 2022, and then in 2024 win the White House and keep control of Congress, federal court reform may happen.
If Democrats expand their Senate majority this year, and keep the House, getting abortion legislation, voting rights legislation, and maybe some other things that fell due to the filibuster will be all Congress can handle.
delphinium
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you-that’s what I thought but wasn’t sure.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: I didn’t know about the automatic download issue — thanks! Link updated to note that it’s to a PDF.
Brachiator
Irony upon irony that Roberts cries crocodile tears about the legitimacy of the Court despite its insane rulings.
Meanwhile, Trump is constantly declaring that not only is he still president, but that he is the only legitimate avatar of the people, because everyone else in the executive and legislative branch have been taken down by the Deep State. Whatever the hell that is.
MisterDancer
Very much true, and I fear somewhat by “design” — it’s why, after all, they call them marginalized populations, to begin with.
MisterForkbeard
@oatler: I’d love for Franken to run for something again. I think he’d do well, and the (somewhat faux) outrage over his past is over. He’s such a well-educated, sharp person and he’d do well as a political or media figure.
But there’s not really much for him to do. The current Dem senators are pretty good and isn’t going anywhere. Being governor probably isn’t up his alley. And there isn’t anything national he can be elected to – it’s the Pete Buttigieg problem from 2020. Nothing available in his state and nothing available nationally unless he gets appointed. And Franken needs an election to validate the voters’ acceptance of his past, or the media won’t let any of it go.
catclub
@The Moar You Know:
I think putting scare quotes around “purportedly classified” will certainly enrage the DOJ lawyers. It did me.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
👍
delphinium
@lowtechcyclist:
These are great points. While we would all love for the Republicans to be kept out of power for decades, we know from the voting patterns here it is unlikely. So let us try to do what we can to overcome these issues as much as possible.
feebog
How important is improving our numbers in the Senate?
Current number of appellate vacancies- 9 out of 179 positions.
Current number of district court vacancies- 68 out of 677 positions.
That’s right, one out of every ten district court judge positions is vacant. And thats after the Biden administration putting an emphasis on nominating and confirming federal judges over the last two years. We have the ability to reshape the courts, but we need to hold the senate and the executive branch for the next six years.
Baud
@feebog:
Also, if we don’t have to rely on Manchin’s vote, Biden can be more aggressive in nominating more progressive judges.
Citizen Alan
@delphinium: I’m pretty sure the ABA just gives recommendations which the republicans have been ignoring for 20 years. If not longer, because I’m pretty sure they recommended against Bork for all that did. And honestly, there really is no system that is impossible to game. If we had someone like the ABA vet judicial nominees with any power to actually block an unacceptable nominee, the republicans would just spent the next 30 years taking over the ABA until it got to the point that only conservative and fascist nominees would get ABA approval and liberal nominees would be Is blackballed.
Brachiator
@oatler:
Franken has a podcast where he regularly talks about the issues and interviews a range of amazing guests.
Former Labor secretary Robert Reich has a great YouTube channel where he provides a clear eyed look at the economy and a useful critique of government policy. I don’t always agree with his policy prescriptions, but his short and well illustrated explanations of economic issues and trends are uniformly excellent.
He also has an informative series of lectures about economics available to view.
SiubhanDuinne
@eversor:
You look ridiculous with pie filling and cupcake frosting all over your face.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Biden has been good about getting judges confirmed. Manchin has not been much of an obstacle.
Booger
I see what you did there
Captain C
@The Moar You Know:
This. Plus, a combination of sub-hack-level opinions which reject long-standing precedent in favor of the arguments of 17th Century English witch-hunters, and outright “shadow docket” cases which amount to “because I said so and besides, Lenny Leo wants it this way.”
Regardless of what he wants for his own
public image‘legacy’, Roberts’ tenure will be (should be) known as the Dred Scott Roberts Court because of its many decisions that were Dred Scott-level bad.Baud
@Brachiator:
I know. But in selecting nominees, Biden has to think about who can get confirmed.
matt
The Court’s legitimacy I see as similar to the legitimacy of Newsweek or CNN. If you change the format and deliver a different kind of product, brand loyalty isn’t going to see you through.
UncleEbeneezer
@SiubhanDuinne: Where is that pie-filter, btw? I really need it for this commenter. I only have the link to the very old post by Cleek (I think). I thought the pie-filter used to be somewhere easily accessible right here on the front page, but I don’t see it anymore.
Another Scott
Meh. Roberts is a hack. We should expect nothing less from him.
Fight for 15!!
Meanwhile, from the KyivIndependent News Feed:
These are approaching US Civil War scale losses. Just astounding.
Slava Ukraini!
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
Click on the pie image right underneath the main post.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Interesting take because arguably, Lithwick herself was/is an institutionalist in the sense that she believed in the system. Also, I think the people she’s criticizing in the piece are fellow legal analysts and/or commentators, not DOJ lawyers who are working the case. First graf:
Another Scott
@UncleEbeneezer: Click on the red fruit tart just before the start of the list of comments.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
marklar
@eversor: Just curious….is your favorite Paul Simon album “One Trick Pony”, and favorite Rodgers and Hart song “Johnny One Note?”
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: exactly. All of the Trash Trump appointments need to be dislodged and reforms instituted.
Brachiator
@lowtechcyclist:
How do you get this done in a democracy?
Also, too, the Republicans are trying to do the same thing to the Democrats.
ETA. The dream of many in the UK who want proportional representation in voting for Parliament is that this might insure that the Conservative Party never win an outright majority. Neither would Labour, but Labour hopefully would be part of any governing coalition.
SFAW
I love Al, and wish he were still a Senator, but I was disappointed/annoyed that his “takedown” amounted to “Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are hypocrites and stole NN seats on the Court.” Yes, the “legitimacy” thing had at least some of its origin in Traitor’s Turtle’s actions, but that’s more like a “process crime” (to borrow a bullshit meme from the Rethugs), relatively, and I’m guessing not a big deal to those not following the inside baseball aspects.
What I wish Al had done was to address the so-call “reasoning” behind Dobbs and others, for example ridiculing Scalito’s reliance on the (nowadays) bizarre writings of Edward Coke, and so forth.
SiubhanDuinne
@UncleEbeneezer:
Immediately after the main post and before the comments. It’s super easy to use!*
*Easy as pie, I suppose I am contractually obliged to say.
delphinium
@Citizen Alan:
Thank you for your response. While I agree that Republicans are a big issue, there is also a ton of money just floating around waiting to corrupt/bribe people (obviously not just applicable to the justice system). Also, our media’s continued willingness to ignore that many of our norms are inconsistently followed or outright ignored is a huge problem.
Redshift
And let’s not forget the insane ruling striking down mask mandates on interstate transportation, in which the Trumpist judge compared being required to wear a mask to slavery and like Cannon (if I recall correctly) did the hack lawyers’ work for them and issued the injunction even though they hadn’t asked for one.
Redshift
@SFAW: My impression was that the “takedown” that everyone loved so much was his refusal to let the GOP operative’s lie stand that blocking Supreme Court confirmations is just something that normally happens with divided government, not an outrageous violation that had never happened before. Yes, he could have done even more about the Court overall, but that wasn’t the part that made it go viral.
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: I stand by the description because Franken absolutely pantsed the right-wing hack for her baseless claim that there was precedent for the theft of those seats and called the Trump nominees out for lying during the confirmation process. Even though he’s not a lawyer, Franken probably could have vaporized the Dobbs reasoning, but he is a former senator, so senate process is his lane.
Omnes Omnibus
I will note that there have always been hack judges, stupid judges, and judges who just make stupid decisions on occasion. That is one of the reasons for appellate courts. That being said, the situation with the Supreme Court is very different, and it is burning it’s credibility at an alarming rate.
NotMax
Did anyone expect anything different?
Anyone? Bueller?
//
Paul in KY
@MisterForkbeard: Or just start justicing like William O’ Douglas.
matt
@The Moar You Know: Roberts is saying that the Court always has legitimacy regardless of what it does. Lifetime appointments are bad.
trollhattan
@matt: We’re supposed to “take it like grownups” then thank them for the beatings. Roberts is trash and his court majority is trash.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@dmsilev: There are regulations — from GSA, I think — on what constitutes legitimate secure storage for the different levels of classification. I’m not sure of the legal status of breaking those regulations, but I don’t think Mar-a-shithole even meets the legal standards for safekeeping of your kid’s elementary school report cards, let alone classified documents.
And they only put a lock on the door when NARA pleaded with them to do so. A year late.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Well, since John Brennan knew this a long time ago, why the hell did he not raise the fucking alarm about this then? When it could have prevented some of this crap?
edit: I am yelling, but I am obviously not yelling at you!
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I wasn’t disagreeing that he “pantsed” (to borrow your phrasing) the Rethug shill — he absolutely did. But when he starts out by talking about legitimacy, and then does the inside-baseball thing, I get disappointed. Yes, the Rethugs shouldn’t be allowed to get away with their bullshit, but that vid is just red meat for people like us; I don’t think it has a major effect on persons who don’t follow politics the way we do here.
FastEdD
Chief Justice Roberts is supposed to have one of the finest minds in the legal profession. What part of Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc does he not understand? Illegitimacy was caused by the appointment of improper (lying) judges first. The opinions we disagree with came later. It is not the opinions that caused those barricades, it is the fact that those seats were stolen to begin with. Stare Decisis came first and was thrown out later by justices who should not be there in the first place.
Baud
This blog is illegitimate!!!
FastEdD
I demand that you Respect The Authoritah of my pseudonym!
Another Scott
@FastEdD: +1
People should not fall for his misdirection. It’s not the critics’ fault that his court has gone nuts with the shadow docket. It’s not the critics’ fault that his court refused to strike down the obviously stupid, insane, and dangerous SB8 because it was “novel” and bypassed our system of laws.
Fight for 15!!
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
FastEdD
@Another Scott: This proud union guy says amen to Fight for 15!
Dorothy A. Winsor
When is the 11th circuit likely to take up the DoJ’s appeal?
livewyre
@FastEdD: He’s “cleverly” arguing not for the legitimacy of reason, but the legitimacy of white supremacist authority under the color of reason. Not unlike our cross-burner above.
Redshift
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
If I remember what I read correctly, the “asked them to put a padlock on the door” was another lie from the Trumpers, because they were speaking publicly about legal proceedings that DOJ (properly) wasn’t. When parts of the search warrant affidavit were unsealed at their requests, what actually happened was they were given detailed instructions about controlling overall access and limiting who entered the storage room, and they made up they lie that “they just told us to put another padlock on the door” to make it sound like they’d been told what they were doing was mostly okay.
Villago Delenda Est
The Federalist Society and its big bucks backers need to be banished, to the land of winds and ghosts.
Edmund Dantes
@gene108: the problem is the word “may”. There should be no “may”. Court reform has to happen or it is all for not.
The fact that “may” is there is a failure by people to recognize what has happened in the court system and what the federalist society spent 40+ years building to. Tinkering around the edges isn’t going to be enough.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I think Brennan knows a lot from before and during his tenure as CIA dDirector that he won’t disclose. He always seemed to have a cat-that-ate-canary smile when he would slam trump on TV. Same with ex-NSA Director Michael Hayden. I imagine their two agencies compiled a very thick but very secret file on trump starting with his first visit to Moscow in 1985.
I also remember how Republicans would bluster at Brennan about how they were going to “get him” but never followed through. That could be because they knew that he knew all the dirt but wouldn’t start leaking until he was forced to.
One can argue that the American people are entitled to these secrets but that is not how CIA and NSA directors see it. They know a lot though.
Redshift
@Another Scott: Roberts’ real complaint is that his radical cohort are saying and ruling the quiet parts out loud and making him look bad. There’s no evidence he disagrees with what they’re doing, just that they aren’t being subtle enough that he can pretend that’s not what they’re doing.
Edmund Dantes
@Captain C: Shelby county was all Roberts, and it was an atrocious piece of hackery.
I believe that’s the one where RBG pointed out Roberts would be a person in a rainstorm with an umbrella going “hey I’m not getting wet therefore I don’t need this umbrella anymore”. But I might be confusing it with one of his other atrocious rulings.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
If Canon denies DOJ’s stay request, then the 11th Circuit will have to decide whether to grant a stay, probably by next week sometime. Otherwise, unless DOJ asks for expedited treatment, the appeal could take months. DOJ may ask for that depending on what Canon does with the stay and with the special master appointment.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Thank you. What’s Cannon’s deadline for deciding whether to grant the stay?
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: DOJ said if she doesn’t decide by the 15th, they will seek a remedy from the 11th Circuit.
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
I think she is sincere, in that her almost ….despair at what has happened is sad for her.
I would agree with you if it were the “populist” shrug off – “they’re all corrupt”- that lazy thinking but I think she based a good part of her personal and professional identity on the crediblity of federal courts and she’s now honestly trying to navigate that.
Warblewarble
If the president does it is not a crime, if the court does it it is legitimate. What part do you not understand? Said with a straight face.
Kay
In case Justice – Roberts is genuinely confused about what happened to the court’s credibility perhaps someone could point to how he and the rest of the far Right justices GRABBED cases they had no business being involved in or could have decided on MUCH narrower grounds – that’s the PROCESS abuse that guts credibility.
But he knows that. Just like the Trump judge knows that she didn’t have JURISDICTION to take that case so everything that comes after that is corrupt bullshit.
But I guess we can play games for a couple more years while these people pretend.
cain
@Redshift: They got themselves a bunch of activist judges – after cawing like mad that the problem is activist judges.
The legal landscape is going to look like madness.
Soprano2
@SiubhanDuinne: However, eversor is not wrong about the “religious liberty” issue being a huge problem right now. That judge in Texas just used that argument to say that a company doesn’t have to cover AIDS prevention drugs because they are against the religious beliefs of the owner. Conservatives are going to use the “religious liberty” argument to whittle away at rights the government has granted to all people; it’s a huge issue because that’s an argument that the current Supreme Court is ready to hear and rule for.
cain
@Redshift: They got themselves a bunch of activist judges – after cawing like mad that the problem is activist judges.
The legal landscape is going to look like madness.
SFAW
@Baud:
Not true – its parents were married.
Well, not to each other, but that’s just splitting
wabbitshareshairs.cain
@Baud: National security isn’t something especially when someone is holding key information – that kind of shit shouldn’t be litigating for months. Otherwise, you might as well say there is no such thing as urgency in national security cases.
ETA 111 – please manifest!
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: eversor is a bigot. The fact that they may have correctly identified a problem with some courts’ current interpretation of religious liberty does not change that fact.
Ruckus
I have believed for my adult life that there should be no lifetime appointments and no political job without a term limit. That said I believe that the term should be reasonable. I think 2 yr terms for the house is ridiculous and should be changed to 4 yrs. Senate terms of 6 seems a bit out dated but still if we had term limitations that would be far better. So my take is that a term for the Supreme Court should be something like 24 yrs and the senate should be 24 – 4 terms. The house should be the same 24 yrs. Possibly every appointee/elected official should have a term limit, including judges. We have enough population that people should be able to run for an office and move up and on. As an old geezer in his mid 70s I don’t think people should be in political office in their 90s.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Of course, YOU are the real bigot, for pointing out eversor’s bigotry.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Their amounts may be a tad inflated. Does sound like they are putting a monumental whupping on them, though.
Baud
@SFAW: So what are you for pointing out Omnes’s real bigotry. A bigot squared or a reverse bigot?
narya
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: @Redshift: I think, if i understand Marcy Wheeler correctly, it was sorta even better than that. That is, DOJ flagged the insecure methods, lining them up to be able to add another crime to the roster: we told you it wasn’t secure, and you didn’t PROPERLY secure the documents, but you DID put a lock on, which means you agreed they were sufficiently classified that they needed security. Which means you acknowledge possession of classified docs that you shouldn’t have.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: I can live with that.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Oh right, how did I miss that? This is what happens when you scroll down too fast!! Thanks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: SFAW is an asshole. Just ask him.
Geminid
@Soprano2: The commenter may have a basis for his diagnoses, but his prescription is faulty for many reasons including practicality.
I am somewhat sympathetic because he has an obsession and I’ve been there. In retrospect I could undertand that I was just displacing depression and that may well be what this commenter is doing.
SFAW
@Baud:
A) Yes
or
B) I leave that as an exercise for the advanced student
Your choice
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Stipulated, Yer Honor.
ETA: Hey, I just noticed! I got the coveted 123rd spot! Woo-hoo!
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
I believe that this country has been since it’s inception, generally against institutions and institutionalists, because that is sort of what they fought against when this country was founded. I’m not sure we ever actually got over that. The thing is that we will always have institutions of government but they should reflect the concepts of the country. Republicans do not want actual freedom, they do not want people to be able to dislike them and their crap. They actually want what they think the UK is like, government by and for the wealthy/privileged and everybody else suck it. We do have some problems because we often do not actually respect the majority, especially when the majority does not have all the money and therefore power. But this is supposed to be a democracy even though we do need a representative government because all of us voting on each separate thing is way, way too unwieldy to work at all. So it should be that, a representative democracy. It often actually isn’t.
fancycwabs
I’m not a lawyer, but isn’t is really weird for a legal filing to contain a confession to committing a felony?
Because Trump’s legal filing totally does that.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: bigot isn’t exactly the right term here historically and yes, we do have a big problem with Rt wing Christianist thugs, but Eversor’s argument founders and loses in a country as religious as the US…
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
Works just as well.
lowtechcyclist
@eversor:
What are we going to do, kill all the Christians? Deport them to Russia? Crowd them all into Gitmo? Just asking.
SFAW
@Ksmiami:
Eversor’s bigotry is not confined to RW Christianist thugs; I would dare say its focus is on the established churches, especially the Catholic church. Of course, he’s* just as fanatical as the people he hates — it’s just his focus is the converse/obverse/reverse of theirs.
* I’ve been assuming eversor is a “he.” This may not be accurate, but I’m not going to lose sleep if I’m worng.
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
Eversor finds your proposal acceptable
WaterGirl
@Ksmiami: Bigot is EXACTLY the right term.
lowtechcyclist
@SFAW: Probably, but given the numbers of Christians and non-Christians, it’s a bit of a challenge. Especially given that very few non-Christians would be on board with that, even taking into account how horrible so many people who call themselves Christians are.
Jerszy
Even *aside* from the actual shitty and crooked rulings themselves that stem from the corrupt appointments to the stolen SC seats and the benches on down the line, there’s huge peril in two *residual* effects of this situation – which will be with us for a minimum of */-35 years, due to the youth of the appointments, unless the benches are expanded:
1) Under the current scenario, IN ALL LEGAL DISPUTES, there will be one ‘side’ that, essentially, knows with certitude that the courts will side with them, even if that means that they have to appeal all the way to the SC. They will KNOW this. It’s predictable and gamed. So the consequence will be that bad actors (polluters, scammers, political ratf!ckers, vice, quack ‘medicines’, the food industry, big pharma, etc etc etc) will just factor the potential legal defense costs into their budgets of production, and crank the level of bad activity WAY UP, knowing that even if a regulator speaks up, they will ultimately be toothless. And, of course, the market will consequently dictate that even the “good”, honest, well-intentioned companies will have to cut corners to be able to compete – or they will perish. And;
2) The generation-and-a-half that will grow up thinking that *that* situation is/should be/is what they know to be “the norm”.
JoyceH
There is a way, using the laws and norms we currently have, to at least partially correct the defects in our judiciary created by the influx of Trump judges. The thing to remember about the Trump judges is that (follow closely because this gets complicated) they were nominated during the Trump administration. That means they received NO vetting, none. If they were young and ultra-conservative (and pretty for the women), they got the nomination.
Okay, so vet them now. Put together a group of journalists and lawyers and give their backgrounds the scrutiny they should have received in the first place. You’re going to find stuff that’s impeachable and stuff that’s indictable. Take out a few of them. Let it be known, if you’ve done these things we’ll find them. But if you’ve done them and you go quietly before we find them, we won’t come after you. The smart ones who know they did the same thing that other guy just got indicted for will feel a sudden yearning for private practice.
Geminid
@SFAW: From what he says he’s a guy, with an interesting (to me) work history and some health challenges.
Matt McIrvin
Right-wing asshole atheists convinced me that Christianity is not, inherently, the problem; mostly, racism, sexism and toxic masculinity are the problems, and Christianity is a problem only to the extent that it promotes those, which it often does. Your actual metaphysics seems to matter little, though. Said asshole atheists often insist that belief in God and belief in an afterlife are the root problems, but then they themselves go off on feminists or haul out the skull calipers when talking about race. It’s all highly “scientific” when they do it, though…
lowtechcyclist
@The Moar You Know:
That’s scary. You’d think that each of our intel agencies, and every other agency that produces classified docs, would have a master list for that agency. That would at least narrow it down to a few dozen lists. The way it is now sounds like a (non-)system with a built-in lack of accountability.
trollhattan
@SFAW:
123 4 U.
gene108
@SFAW:
To stretch the inside baseball analogy a bit, if someone’s watching CNN, they are already “baseball fans”. They follow news and politics to some extent.
Like there are different levels of fan engagement in a sport, there are different levels political engagement. We’re the political equivalent of the advanced metric crowd, who knows up and coming prospects in our teams AA and AAA minor league teams.
I think Franken referencing the hypocrisy of denying Garland because it’s an election year, while confirming Barrett just weeks before the 2020 election is easy to understand.
It’s like launch angles to the casual baseball fan. I don’t really understand why it’s such a big deal all of a sudden. I do understand from throwing sports balls that there’s a relationship between the angle a ball’s thrown and the distance it travels.
I think the average person with a casual interest in politics understands the hypocrisy involved in denying Garland a seat, while rushing to confirm Barrett.
FelonyGovt
@delphinium: The ABA is basically a trade organization for lawyers. They have no enforcement authority. They can, and do, promulgate ethics standards, and opine on whether prospective judges are “qualified”, but don’t (and can’t) do much else.
catclub
I liked Franken’s approach to the GOP hack because he kept hammering the facts. She said that ( stealing of seats as the GOP did when there was an opening in an election year) was what always happened and he hammered on her to tell when it had happened before. And since there was no other time it had happened, she just kept blustering and he kept hammering.
he said they were hypoctires because they said that they would NEVER seat someone during an election year but wait for the election, and then 2020 came around and they seated Barrett in three weeks. They (graham and mcConnell) said to keep the tape saying they promised, and he did.
Betty Cracker
@Jerszy: Good points. We all know Trump appointed a third of the SCOTUS justices, and we’re reaping what he sowed there. I recently read he appointed 30% of sitting federal judges too, and his appointees tend to be hard-right whack-jobs, even compared to GWB appointees. Just as Trump is both a continuation of shitty GOP presidents AND an escalation of that category, it looks like his judicial appointments are too.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t say that it does, I only said that this is a valid concern.
Cameron
@eversor: I’m assuming you agree with me that all Muslims are members of ISIS?
delphinium
@FelonyGovt: Thank you.
SFAW
@gene108:
I doubt that. I’m sure there are a significant number who follow politics, to some extent, but even those are nowhere near to the median jackal, for the most part. So let’s agree to disagree, since I doubt either of us will convince the other.
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
Somebody else says that each originator has a list. my guess would be that each department(say) has a list and a custodian.
You cannot have a single master list because nobody is cleared for everything, but you should have a custodian for every single highly classified document. And they should know who they checked out that document to, or if they returned it. This SHOULD mean that since Jan 2021 these people have been screaming ( but always inside SCIFs, so you have not heard it, neither have the Russians) for the return of documents checked out to the White House.
Soprano2
@Geminid: I have problems with most religions because, as much as the liberal versions try to put lipstick on the pig, they all have holy books that say women are second class citizens who should be underneath men. You can twist yourself into a pretzel as much as you want, but if you want to use the totality of the Bible then you have to accept that it has that in it. Same way with Judaism and Islam. This has been the view of women for most of recorded history, so of course all of these books have it! I cannot subscribe to any religion that says I, as a woman, am a second class citizen who is subservient to men. I don’t actually believe in God anymore either, but I started out rejecting Christianity because I’m not going to be secondary to anyone just because some holy book says I am.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: My suggestion is to quit believing that “Christian morals” when it comes to things like marriage and sexuality should dominate our culture. That’s one of the things they are so panicked about. I think the main driver of a lot of this is that conservatives just aren’t comfortable in the modern world anymore. They don’t like seeing openly gay people, or even knowing that there are trans people or other ambiguous ways of being. They don’t like the higher visibility of non-white people in the culture and business, and they don’t like women being more powerful. It all makes them extremely uncomfortable. They want to force the world back to the way it was before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or even before Brown vs. Board. That is a world where conservative Christian values were predominant in the culture.
delphinium
@Jerszy:
This is all very true. And I am sure the people cheering on the corruption and crooked rulings fail to see that this will eventually impact them, whether it be the demise of environmental regulations, food industry standards, or healthcare availability. And for many, their money or status will not save them. People really need to understand how important voting is and decide what type of standards they are willing to live with because we are running out of time to preserve our ‘norms’.
Gravenstone
@MisterForkbeard: Maybe fill two seats, because I would envision Alito and Thomas getting into a straight up brawl over who would ascend to Chief Justice. That would be all kinds of bloody. Please proceed “gentlemen”.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I always figured the patriarchy was there before formal religions codified it. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t call out and fight impositions of these religious values on our civic life. But if I could wave a magic wand and make religions vanish tomorrow, patriarchy would still permeate our culture and our social institutions.
The sexism and misogyny we can see are the tip of of an iceberg. It will be a couple generations at least, I think, before people understand just how much and how long patriarchy has held back the human race. And that could be too optimistic a view.
Gravenstone
Duly nominated.
JoyceH
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Boy-howdy, ARE there! To cut to the chase, if it’s not in a ‘GSA-approved security container’, it’s not securely stored. TS and above, the GSA-approved security container needs to be in a GSA-approved security facility. NONE of those things were at Mar A Lago. A room with a padlock on the door SO doesn’t count!
As for the stuff that was in Trump’s desk in his office, I only recently realized just HOW bad that was. The office, it seems, isn’t in the main building, or in the building where his quarters are – it’s in that annex with the ballroom, right next to the ballroom where the weddings and parties are held. As for the office, it is sometimes used as a bridal dressing room. So basically, you have this HIGHLY classified material just sculling about in drawers in a room that is frequently handed over without supervision to Bridezilla, Mother Of Bridezilla, and a horde of bridesmaids. Swell.
NotMax
@SFAW
Yowzah. Eschewing zealotry in any arena is always best practice.
No problem when encountering the commenter’s nym, once his/her colors were flown, to merrily scroll on by.
;)
WaterGirl
@JoyceH:
You forgot to add, who may or may not be actual people who are getting married, who may or may not be agents from russia, or china, or saudi arabia…
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Can’t speak for other religions, but let’s face it, the Bible contradicts itself hundreds and hundreds of times. So if, like me, you are Christian, how do you resolve the contradictions?
For me, it’s simple: Jesus said to love God, and love your neighbor as yourself – and that this summed up the Law and the Prophets.
Well okay then: there is wisdom in those Scriptures that are consistent with loving your neighbor as yourself. If it seems to you that passages of Scripture you know of aren’t consistent with that, then don’t try to find wisdom and guidance there.
That doesn’t seem to involve any pretzeling. It does involve setting aside a great deal of Scripture and admitting, “I can’t do anything with this.”
But Scripture wasn’t meant to be a book of rules that we follow whether they make sense to us or not. It was meant to be one of the principal means by which God speaks to our hearts. Some passages don’t speak to my heart, and probably will never do so in this life. But many, many other passages do, so it works out.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Agreed. It’s one thing for me to indulge in a particular belief system, but it’s a very different thing for me to require that you abide by its rules, whether or not it’s your belief system too.
No question about that. They’re no longer the boss of right and wrong for everyone else, and needless to say, that has them all worked up. What we’re seeing right now is what is hopefully a last-gasp attempt on their part to retake control before it’s out of reach for them forever.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: I made a comment last night to the effect that I don’t think the Patriarchy can ever be done away with because there are too many women who benefit from it and prefer it. Mainly because they know they can’t compete with intelligent, independent, self-motivated women on any playing field other than “I can persuade men who find me desirable to give me things” where “things” can refer to hard cash like Stormy Daniels would demand or a prestigious, multimillion dollar job sitting in front of a camera like Megyn Kelly got or a seat in the House of Representatives like Lauren Boebert got. A sizeable percentage of women are happy to condemn most of their sisters to life as Offred because they are perfectly content living as Serena Joy.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist:
Or as I like to put it, even a hardcore atheist would probably agree that “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is a pretty good and ethical way to live your life, regardless of whether the guy who said it could turn water into wine.
AnonPhenom
@Baud:
Exactly.
A half empty strawman. It’s not just the opinions but the disregard for precedent/stare decisis/settled law (especially after blatantly lying about respecting those concepts during confirmation hearings). Political hacks are undeserving of respect and have lit fire to their own legitimacy.
Damien
Dead thread, but honestly I think the single most effective thing we could do re: the deChristianing (I’d say de-religion across the board) is just…mockery. Stop letting people get away with saying their opinions are Biblical with no pushback, just outright laugh at them for having no ability to think things through.
I have in real life had a couple of conversations where when people tell me such and such thing goes against the Bible I say that I think schools not having second breakfast goes against the Lord of the Rings. It’s literally the same fucking thing: a made up story that a lot of people really like and some people like way too much.
Stop treating religion in general as anything more than extremely long-running book clubs and maybe people will quit taking it so goddamn seriously
Soprano2
@Citizen Alan: I agree, but you don’t need religious belief to do this. I object to the idea, that many conservatives believe, that you cannot be a moral person without religion. I would assert that many immoral things have been done in the name of religion, or by religious people within their religion (the Catholic priest scandal, for example, or the current horror that is the Agape boarding school). My husband says that whenever a merchant makes a big show of being religious he grabs his wallet
I don’t object to people being religious – you do you. What I object to is religious people trying to cram their religious beliefs down my throat or make me adhere to them through the law.
eversor
@lowtechcyclist:
And yet, he didn’t do it because he was white. He did it because he was CHRISTIAN. I take the man at his word, also since his focus is on religious power. You fail here. They keep saying they are doing it for CHRISTIANITY and you keep saying they can’t be doing it for the very thing they are angrily screaming they are doing it for!
Were you born blind deaf and dumb or did you work to get there? When someone tells you why they are doing what they are doing, holds conferences for it, raises billions for it, believe them!
PaulB
Personally, I’d go with a mandatory retirement age before I’d back term limits. All federal officials, including the President, members of Congress, and the federal judiciary, must retire at the age of [fill-in-the-blank, (72?)].
And yes, I know this would throw out Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and some other good people, but it also gets rid of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, as well as people like Dianne Feinstein and a few others who are past their sell-by date.
Alas, this would require a Constitutional Amendment, so will never happen, but I can dream.
eversor
@Geminid:
I am a he, have had an odd life, have had a few bouts of cancer due to that. Rescue feral cats as a hobby and house them. We kept one and she’s a gem.
eversor
Barr I did for the Jesus. Alito I did it for the Jesus. And yet all pretending they made it up.