In their most recent Slate column, legal analysts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern celebrate a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that explicitly rebukes the Dobbs decision. They point out that the PA ruling is also a broader indictment of the “originalism” philosophy, which by definition perpetuates historical injustices. The whole column is worth a read, but here’s an excerpt:
The Supreme Court’s eradication of the constitutional right to abortion in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization had an immediate and devastating impact on gender equality in the United States. With a single ruling, five justices wiped out millions of women’s access to basic health care and handed control over their medical decisions to politicians and judges. It wasn’t just the court’s judgment, though, that relegated women to a lesser place in the constitutional order; it was also the court’s reasoning, which used the centuries-long oppression of women to justify an ongoing oppression of women by way of a deprivation of their rights. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion rested largely on the views of dead white men who condoned the rape, beating, and murder of women to maintain female subjugation in every realm of life. And he dismissed his ruling’s ruinous impact on gender equality in a single conclusory paragraph asserting that abortion restrictions could not possibly discriminate against women…
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision thus spurned Dobbs in two ways. First, the majority held that laws regulating a woman’s body do discriminate on the basis of sex, a truth that has been widely understood by legal scholars for decades. And second, the majority explained that rooting women’s rights in the past is, itself, a form of sex discrimination, perpetuating misogynistic beliefs about gender inequality by judicial decree. As it was leaked and then published with almost no corrections to its myriad errors, Dobbs set off a firestorm of real-time criticism within the public, the legal academy, and the media, and that criticism is now finally returning to the courts—in the form of decisions that both defy and rebuke Dobbs’ chauvinistic logic.
Lithwick and Stern note that state supreme courts are more important than ever now that conservative activist Leonard Leo’s capture of the SCOTUS is complete. They also suggest that lower court pushback against the “originalist” framework might resonate outside the legal system as judges “are discovering and explaining to laymen the inherent injustice of so-called originalist outcomes as delineating the bounds of equality and dignity for all.” Their conclusion:
The lesson to be gleaned from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s rejection of both Dobbs’ cramped methodology and tragic result is not merely that state constitutions will be more essential than ever to protect against the misogynistic and revanchist efforts to restore women to subordinate and indeed powerless vessels. That we already knew. The lesson is also that the conservative project of gluing a misshapen cutout of the past onto a blank canvas of the present is itself an exercise in perpetuating inequality. This is as it was expressly designed to be. So long as judges are capable of independent thought, they will continue to call BS on the very notion that Dobbs-style originalism holds any real utility in ordering a complex, pluralistic, multiracial modern society. If constitutional values like equality are to endure, they will do so in spite of a structurally oppressive history, and not because of it.
I’m not a lawyer, but from the first time I heard of it decades ago, “originalism” seemed less a credible legal theory and more a self-serving conservative scam to me. Fallout from the Dobbs decision seems to be raising public awareness of SCOTUS corruption to that institution’s detriment. If it calls attention the FedSoc Six’s cockamamie theory of the case too, so much the better.
Open thread.
satby
Great find, thanks for highlighting this! Now off to read the whole thing.
Sister Golden Bear
Absolutely. As illustrated by Alioto’s dissents in LGBTQ rights cases, where he explicitly argues they shouldn’t be granted because they weren’t part of America’s “historical tradition.” As might be noted, neither was the ban on slavery, nor extending the voter beyond white men with property, when the Constitution was passed.
In other words, law and society should remain frozen in amber in 1789 — except for MOAR guns and MOAR robber barons.
Alison Rose
Which is why Scalia liked it so much. How very nice of his SCOTUS buddies to carry on his memory in this way 😒
Because he also condones these things. I’m sure he would be AGHAST at someone saying so to his face, but he does. A lot of men do. Women exist for their entertainment, and whatever means they have to use to secure said entertainment are completely acceptable.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Also, too, culture. Do not forget.
TBone
Favorite quote from recent article in The Guardian:
“Recently used to remove the right to abortion and to gut voting rights, originalism now threatens, Wilentz says, to become a “petard … exploding in the [Supremacist Court] majority’s face.”
Alison Rose
On the “let’s try to fix our bullshit government” front, got a good email from Gov Gav yesterday:
I really like that he uses his network of supporters to help key races and efforts, and this is a very smart push. I’m not able to spare a dime, but if any of y’all are, please consider helping out these CA Dems so we can hopefully take the damn House back
Oh yeah, and the subject line on the email is “Trump Insurance”. LOL
jonas
Alito just might concur with you, explaining that’s why it took constitutional amendments, not interpretations of the original language, to get those things in. Passing the ERA would cut a lot more of those knots, particularly around things like health care and employment, compensation, etc., but that probably won’t happen in our lifetimes with so many state legs in the hands of frothing reactionaries.
Baud
@jonas:
Short term: win elections and pass legislation. Medium term: fix the court. Long term: modernize the Constitution.
RaflW
Originalism is never used by the radicals on the court to reign in guns. The right to keep and bear a musket, shotgun or simple rifle would have made sense to the people of 1791.
Bump stocks, huge military style assault rifles with extended magazines and so on would not.
TBone
@Baud: hear, hear!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: Longer term, still, consider pants.
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Dead white men wore pants. I reject their culture.
Alison Rose
@RaflW: Yeah, I’ve often said I would totally support complete access to arms so long as those arms included only what was in existence at the time the second amendment was written.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: There’s been a lot of talk about the ERA, but AT THE MOMENT I think it’s mostly irrelevant. Because this fascist Supreme Court is quite happy to ignore the plain text of Amendments they don’t like to arrive at the result they want. They’d simply write the ERA out of existence.
Until SCOTUS is wrested out of the hands of the Christian fascists, neither the ERA nor any other part of the Constitution is a magic bullet. And right now, the ERA is a dead letter anyway thanks to negative polarization.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: “Whiteness” is the destruction of culture, European as much as anyone else’s
ETA: The way it handles Europeans is less aggressive, granted.
Kelly
No, no, no. Women exist to serve them. Entertainment is just one service. There’s cooking, cleaning, child rearing.
Sister Golden Bear
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
That’s a lamentable problem that the Clerical Six would like to prevent. /
@jonas:
Except that these are the same folks arguing that any amendment past the first ten — and especially the 13th and 14th Amendments (golly what a coincidence) are illegitimate. Don’t know that Alioto has expressed this explicitly, but his fellow travelers have. It’s not “original intent” it’s judicial Calvinball to justify whatever reactionary outcomes they want to achieve
If for no other reason, there’s ample evidence that the Founders explicitly expected the Constitution to change over time. So…. the original intent was that that it not be shackled by original intent.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
Agree. It’s what they did to some extent with the Civil War Amendments.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Not to mention the Second Amendment with Heller. That’s not even getting into Citizens United, where they found corporations had personhood rights out of whole cloth, despite the fact that the Founders explicitly wanted to AVOID that sort of corruption.
Until we reform the Supreme Court and make them something less akin an unelected Lord’s Council, the entire Constitution is effectively a dead letter. They’ll rewrite it at will until they are stopped.
It’s not that the ERA was a bad idea. If it wasn’t for Phyllis Schlafy, it might well have passed and I’d love to see it passed again. It’s just that the Constitution itself only has any power as long as it is enforced, like any set of laws. Right now, the fascists have their own Shadow Constitution, and they will happily rewrite the real one to suit their needs. They need to be defanged.
Alison Rose
@ArchTeryx:
Ah, the notion of a world in which she never existed…
New Deal democrat
@Baud: Also agree. Roberts’ reasoning in Shelby County manifested hostility to the entire 15th Amendment itself.
Jackie
I just read that article and was all set to post it! It’s a great article – definitely worth the time to read.
ArchTeryx
@Alison Rose: To use Margaret Atwood’s term, she was the ultimate Wife. She sold her entire gender down the river for wealth and power. Seems to be a pretty common thing through history, sadly.
Alison Rose
@ArchTeryx: Cool Girls™ before it was a thing. Gender-based Stockholm Syndrome.
Kay
Thanks for this Betty
I haven’t had time to do my Dobbs reading since I’m helping care for an infant – which is what they want for all women all the time, right? We won’t have time or energy to keep up with their bullshit?
Baud
@Kay:
Just say no. Kay. Fight the man!
Jackie
O/T but thought worth potentially celebrating 🥳
jonas
I’ll note that nowhere in the original language of the constitution, or anywhere in the legal culture of the 18th century Anglophone world, was an unborn fetus considered a person. Coke and Blackwell (cited by Alito in Dobbs, iirc) called killing an unborn child a “misprision” or misdemeanor, but certainly not homicide. And the guilty party was the party who induced the abortion, either through an act of violence or a medical concoction, not the mother.
Anti-choice folks want their originalism and to eat it too.
jonas
Don’t threaten us with a good time, Senator!
Dougboy
Originalism is in the same category as Biblical literalism; both are farcical attempts to support a conclusion that lacks a basis in fact.
Betty Cracker
@Jackie: I read an article at TPM about this that suggested if Sinema doesn’t run, that would help Gallego. Probably true because Repubs might like that Sinema shits on Dems all the time, but they’re still gonna vote for the Repub. Whereas even Dems who believe Gallego is further left than they are would probably be more inclined to vote for him than Lake. I don’t know how it will shake out, but good riddance to Sinema.
jonas
The whole point of any corporation — going back to joint stock companies of the 17th century — is to create a legal “person” distinct from the individual owners for the purpose of doing business. That’s not something SCOTUS just pulled out of its ass in Citizens United. What they found was that corporate “persons” also had free speech rights just like real persons, and that included exercising political speech through the spending of money. That’s where things went off the rails. Why not let corporations vote in elections, too?
Anoniminous
Wonder when the originalists on the Roberts Court will overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968 since, according to Chief Justice Taney, the Founders’ words in the Declaration of Independence, “all men were created equal,” were never intended to apply to blacks. Blacks could not vote, travel, or even fall in love and marry of their own free will — rights granted, according to the Declaration, by God to all thus a black man “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Kelly
@ArchTeryx: I am not a lawyer but it seems the phrase “well regulated” that the Second Amendment starts with is a hook to hang any arms laws we want on. Also there was over 200 years of gun laws prior to Heller.
cain
@Alison Rose:
Italians weren’t considered white until the 1930s nor were the Irish. It’s not part of America’s historical past – and thus they shouldn’t be able to hold land, or even political office. Right? Originalist thinking there. You can go back and do all kinds of shit that will screw people who are now considered white.
TBone
OT oh so satisfying antidote
https://www.wonkette.com/p/there-is-no-overstating-how-frightened
Doug R
@RaflW: Canada is more originalist. Almost anyone without a criminal record can buy a rifle or a shotgun, but handguns require a license related to work or legitimate collector.
trollhattan
Guessing nobody much cares who replaces Kevin McCarthy, with Mike Johnson doing such a fine jerb in his old speaker’s role, but here’s a piece on the miscreants vying for it.
The March 5 regular California primary lists the House seat for the usual biennial election, and has one set of candidates. A second, special election for completing the present term is March 19, with a somewhat different list of candidates. Meanwhile, the seat remains vacant much like its former occupant.
Do not expect a Dem miracle: this is an R+ infinity district. Root for injuries and that no nazi takes the seat.
TBone
“If only my uterus could fire bullets,” women mutter under their breath. Mine is firing cannonballs (round shot) today. Lock and load!
jonas
Wut? There are people arguing the Reconstruction amendments are illegitimate? Why? Because they were introduced during the Civil War and the Confederacy didn’t have buy-in or something? Yeah, they had *seceded*!
Doug R
@Kelly:
Yup
trollhattan
@Jackie: Isn’t it on brand for Sinema to play coy and thus, generate a bunch of “will she/won’t she?” media attention? “Here’s a camera, Kyrsten.” “Yay!”
Looming deadline does seem like a decent firewall for an actual run and it’s not like we can put any value on what she says in the meantime.
Fake Irishman
@Baud:
really short term, keep appointing lower court judges (two more on tap today. More are starting to get confirmed in red states too. They’re probably not going to be as liberal as some of the ones Biden can get confirmed in states with two Dem senators, but they generally look professional and solid and not like Reed O’Connor or Kasmyrk, or Tipton in the US districts in Texas or James Ho or any of the other idiots on the fifth circuit (or eighth circuit)
jonas
@TBone: I’d like to see a woman bring a case that if she isn’t allowed to terminate an unviable or dangerous pregnancy, she could be disabled for life and unable to effectively bear arms in the future (she may have trouble lifting or aiming that .50-cal sniper rifle, e.g.), thereby inhibiting vital constitutional rights.
TBone
@jonas: God bless you and I say that in the most vengeful spirit I can MUSTER.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@jonas:
One of my favorite protest signs over the years was
“I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”
jonas
@Kelly: Yep. If you had told an 18th or 19th century jurist that the 2A made it illegal to regulate firearms ownership in any way, they would have stared at you like you had just sprouted a tree out of your head. Because they knew perfectly well it referred to the right of states to maintain citizen militias (in lieu of a standing army run by the federal government, which people were wary of), not forbid states or localities from, say, stopping people from open-carrying in public places or requiring them to register firearms they kept at home.
terraformer
Republicans and their enablers just want society to return to the time when men were men, women knew their place, and white people in America ruled all
Everything they do, don’t do, say, and/or espouse is tied to this singular desire
Villago Delenda Est
The Federalist Society must be annihilated.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: remember the Freeway Blogger?
http://www.freewayblogger.com/index.htm
Beware link, I’m getting a red dot indicator so use your privacy shields.
Here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Eb5XU3_uGvY
PAM Dirac
@TBone: I love this.
They so desperately want their delusion to be true and and are so outraged when anyone calls them delusions. Reminds of the the Black Knight in Holy Grail saying “Im invincible!” The sensible response is not to debate the facts but just to point out “You’re a looney”.
TBone
@PAM Dirac: when OG guy said yesterday he was having a hard time with one of the bullet points in the fighting Tyranny advice link I posted (Believe In Truth), I wanted to say “it’s not our job to persuade anyone. It is our job to firmly believe in the truth and mock them with it.” But I wanted him to come to that conclusion on his own.
lgerard
I wonder when “originalism” is going to be applied to immigration law.
Our Founding Fathers were very much in favor of immigration and did not conceive of any barrier to it.
Harrison Wesley
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Justice Alito: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my precedent.”
rikyrah
Thank you for finding this article :)
PAM Dirac
@TBone:
Brilliant summary. It seems the Biden campaign is looking to make extensive use of mocking and I think that is very important (and necessary) compliment to providing facts.
Baud
@TBone:
@PAM Dirac:
Agreed.
TBone
@PAM Dirac:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughtivism
karen marie
@Alison Rose: There’s always another one to take their place. Rufo fits that slot.
PAM Dirac
@Baud: I’ll also point out that their whole notion of “white superiority” is thoroughly delusional. I think the term “white superiority” should be junked and everyone should use “white delusions” instead.
Chetan Murthy
@jonas: And when a corporate “person” commits a felony, throw them in prison. Which means no further operations outside the prison. Which means effectively the corp goes into suspended animation until the end of the sentence. Kind of like a death penalty. Huh, gosh, wonder why that never happens.
TBone
Another of my heroes (frequently platformed by shero Susie Madrak, Suburban Guerilla) is Panhandle Slim.
https://www.309punkproject.org/store/p25/%22Art_for_Folk%22_by_Panhandle_Slim%2C_with_foreword_by_Ava_DuVernay.html
https://www.connectsavannah.com/arts-and-entertainment/5-questions-with-panhandle-slim-13179489
Anoniminous
This is from 2015 but the trend has continued to now. Also, too, according to Pew Research “28% of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religion.” Meanwhile PRRI released a report in 2019 stating White Evangelical Protestants have fallen to 15.2% of the population and is declining faster than the percentage of white population. This is due to nearly 75% of Christian young people fall away from the faith and leave the church after high school according to studies conducted by the Barna Group and USA Today.
They are losing. They are losing ever more as time slips by. They know it. They can’t deal with it.
Alison Rose
@karen marie: UGH Rufo is so awful. The only good thing about his existence is that we got the following description of him from John Oliver:
eversor
@terraformer:
Their religion including it’s savior actually demands men are men and women are women and women do as they are told and submit. It’s not negotiable at all under Christianity.
Attacking them over this is being anti Christian bigot for realizes. And saying it’s evil is calling Christianity evil.
I think they are horrible for it. But they are also entirely correct. And unlike those who claim it’s not part of Christianity at least they have the honesty and guts to admit the parts of Christianity you can’t say at a brunch with a bunch of educated professionals.
You want to keep Christianity, well then prepare to get Christianied good and hard!
TBone
Give us bread! But also GIVE US ROSES.
https://susiemadrak.com/
I had no idea she had Panhandle Slim up today till just now!
scav
@Chetan Murthy: Or, if a corporate person kills someone intentionally, the law doesn’t execute them and wipe them off the face of the earth permanently.
TBone
@PAM Dirac: spot on!
Betty Cracker
@Anoniminous: When white evangelicals kicked Jesus out in favor of Trump, they accelerated the trend. I’ve never had any use for Tim Alberta, but his belated realization of this truth has some entertainment value.
Baud
@PAM Dirac:
People who claim to be superior always demand rules to enforce the superiority because they believe inferior peoples cheat to compensate for their inferiority.
rikyrah
@TBone:
That was wonderful :)
rikyrah
The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) posted at 10:08 AM on Wed, Jan 31, 2024:
![]()
House Republicans Employing Procedural Strategy, Turning House Into Senate
In a strategic shift within the U.S. House, Republicans are using a procedural tactic that heightens the legislative threshold, requiring a supermajority to pass bills.
https://t.co/j4FFkmnj9j
(https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1752725598558921046?t=11A6wQNb_zNMiGx9WmTf8A&s=03)
Barry
@Harrison Wesley: he reaches for bullshit, pure and simple.
The Red Pen
[Since I can’t post a picture, you’ll have to imagine Milton Waddams sitting at his desk muttering in a confused way.]
“I was told… I was told that Roe was settle law.”
TBone
@rikyrah: ❤️
TBone
@The Red Pen: bwahahahaha!
Betty Cracker
@eversor: Remember that time you showed us who you are? I believed you the first time.
catclub
…. and those ‘citizen militias’ were often slave patrols.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: I told him he was shallow regarding Fetterman’s attire. ONCE. I was new here. Ok, maybe twice before I figured it out.
Anoniminous
@The Red Pen:
“Settled Law” is a lie. The fact is US law is whatever 5 Supreme Court Justices say it is. As we have recently seen.
TBone
@Anoniminous: that’s the Waddams reference.
Spanky
@Anoniminous: I see we’ve reached the Crazification Level with those folks. Wonder if it can even get below that.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: fucking word salad hurts my brain.
Marmot
@Alison Rose:
This is very very clever phrasing. Thanks for that all by itself!
TBone
@Baud: I just saw a Robert Benchley short on TCM yesterday evidencing that very fact. Wish I could find it. This’ll have to do.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq1k3CaX3l8
Roberto el oso
Re Sinema. I suspect she’s somewhat unique in that there’s probably zero overlap between those who supported her when she first ran for Senate and those who support her now. I’m trying to think of any other politician who has put themselves in this position so quickly and decisively and can’t really come up with anyone.
Geminid
There used to be a reactionary judicial philosophy called “Strict Constructionism.” It got a bad name in the 1960s because its proponents tried to use it to protect racial segregation. The reactionaries saw they needed new branding, so some wise guy came up with “Originalism.”
Betty Cracker
@Roberto el oso: It really is remarkable. I’m assuming (perhaps wrongly!) that she’s not stupid and has some serious political skills because rising up through the ranks like she did isn’t easy. Anyway, I look forward to hearing far less about her in the future. Same with her co-saboteur Manchin.
piratedan
@Roberto el oso: to be fair, not many Dems have found a way to self-immolate like she has….. originally thought she would be a progressive voice with her Green Party roots, obviously upon contact with actual legislating those ideals were found to be…. “malleable”. I won’t shed a tear as she Gucci’s her fandango into the sunset.
Marcopolo
@Anoniminous: so from what I’ve read one of the prime signifiers of magat Rs is “used to regularly attend church on Sunday but no longer goes” with the understanding that they have substituted immersing themselves in right wing conspiracy theories and other forms of performative christo-fascism in lieu of church attendance.
for example, i heard today that this “truck convoy to the border thing” has been calling itself “god’s army.” as far as i know, any group calling itself god’s this or the lord’s that is a clear sign they are bad people operating under bad pretenses to do bad acts. crusades, anyone?
TBone
@Marcopolo: good rule of thumb. Evidence: Mastriano.
Peke Daddy
@jonas: Or allowing corporations to compel employees to vote for corporation preferred candidates, reflecting a “super person’s” choice.
rikyrah
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) posted at 9:38 AM on Wed, Jan 31, 2024:
Wow. Footage just surfaced of President Biden giving a private phone call to the family of a soldier killed last weekend.
He told them that he is promoting their daughter posthumously to sergeant. The family broke down in tears. https://t.co/IcJpSADjin
(https://x.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1752718018788938236?t=w0UZDtgj0vFlMjecKraGAA&s=03)
docNC
@Alison Rose: As an old white guy who has been aware of abortion as an issue since the early 70’s, I have never and will never aspire to tell anybody how to make personal, medical decisions. Keep me off the list when I’m dead too.
Baud
@Peke Daddy:
Free market.
Jackie
@trollhattan: I’m leaning “she won’t run.”
rikyrah
Which is why I don’t buy these layoffs. They are getting profits, but, suddenly, you have to do all these layoffs? They are trying to cause a recession. They completely resent Joe Biden and his economic philosophy. They want Dolt45 back. They’ve been hoping for a recession, but, it hasn’t happened, so they are putting their thumbs on the scale, hoping that it materializes in time for November.
Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) posted at 10:07 AM on Wed, Jan 31, 2024:
“The United States economy grew faster than any other large advanced economy last year — by a wide margin — and is on track to do so again in 2024.”
CC: @axios https://t.co/9hcixFYtz3
(https://x.com/SteveRattner/status/1752725366274240652?t=aFOPElkve1K-v85Yu93axA&s=03)
TBone
@rikyrah: and I thought I couldn’t admire him more than I already do.
Marcopolo
@Roberto el oso: I’m not at all sure that Sinema hasn’t wound up exactly where she wants to be. My take on her is that she was never about pushing progressive policies and always about taking whatever path moved her to having more power & influence. I wouldn’t be surprised if she is okay with leaving the Senate (as a Senator—she’ll retain the ability to go and hang out & lobby) and pulling down decent money as a lobbyist for somebody(ies) pushing less than savory stuff. Maybe someone from AZ can clue me in but I have no idea what she ever considered her most important issues (other than getting attention from the political press).
gvg
@Sister Golden Bear: They wrote into the constitution, the process to change it. They intended change and knew it had to happen. How much more explicit does any honest thinker need it to be? Only the self blinded or dishonest could miss that. Originalism is both.
Alison Rose
@rikyrah: OMG CRYING. Jeez. My heart.
Jackie
@Roberto el oso: TIFG? He hasn’t grown his base since 2022.
TBone
The narrator is really funny. Wish I’d known about this sooner. Bonehead Truckers Livestream.
https://youtu.be/SsNze-ygRug
HumboldtBlue
Joe Biden is a damn decent man.
SW
Have you noticed all the interracial couples in commercials lately? Cue the outrage from the right but the job of Madison Ave is to accurately reflect the culture not change it. Mixed race folks are thriving today like never before. From athletes to entertainers and professionals of all kinds the stigma is evaporating. I take particular delight in this turn of events since as a student of history I know that “race mixing” was the ultimate horror cited by the white supremacists in opposition to emancipation. It is heartwarming and wonderful to me that 160 years later those fucking goobers worst nightmares are coming true.
Roberto el oso
@Jackie: the difference is that a lot (most) of his early supporters are still all in on backing him. Sinema has pretty much betrayed everyone who initially supported her.
wizend_guy
“Originalism,” so called, has never been anything more than an attempt to put an intellectual gloss on a rank exercise of a-historic, result-driven judicial “reasoning.” Its absurdity is evident from the fact that the “originators” of the Constitution did not agree among themselves on what was meant by many of its clauses. The first congress, which included many of the participants in the Constitutional Convention quickly fell to squabbling over its meaning. There is no, and never was, a true or undisputed “original” meaning to discover.
Scout211
This news on CNN just now:
What?
More from NBC:
Disney responds:
TBone
@TBone: “Conboy” 😆 so many opportunities for mockery.
TBone
@Scout211: they will not prevail against The Mouse. No how, no fuckin way! Aaaaarrggghhh long haul.
rikyrah
He explains why, if Texas leaves The Union, it immediately becomes a third world country 😂😂😂
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8WRThDD/
Roberto el oso
@Marcopolo: oh, I agree. Her political “career” is simply odd, with its mix of transactional ruthlessness and narcissistic self-destruction … it’s as though she burned her bridges before she’d reached the other side.
TBone
@rikyrah: Texit! Abbottbucks! 😆
Brachiator
Super busy today, but trying to skim this thread. Apologies if point has already been made.
I read some commentary on the Supreme Court decision saying that the conservative justices noted the lack of a lot of rulings on abortion or discussion about abortion in the past. It always struck me as obvious that this might be the case since there were no women judges or very many women doing legal analysis and commentary. It was also obvious that this was crappy reasoning.
And although I would not claim that all women would have the same opinion about reproductive rights, it also seems ridiculous to hold for “originalism” knowing that half or more of citizens were prohibited from having their opinions registered at all.
TBone
@Brachiator: or were burned at the stake.
karen marie
@Roberto el oso: It’s hard for me to see what she brings to the table as a one-term senator with few friends other than a willingness to rubberstamp whatever someone with a bag full of cash wants to do.
Roberto el oso
@rikyrah: interesting, but a few quibbles. I don’t think pro-secession Texans are quite as naive about their gun-arsenals as he thinks they are (of course, some are, as any group of fantasists will always have a nice base of drooling morons), but by and large there is probably more awareness here that guns are distributed across the political spectrum and that progressives/liberals are not as disarmed as they might be in other states. The prospect of US military bases shutting down, as well as NASA, and the huge amounts of government grants to research universities drying up … all of this sounds realistic. I would be interested to know how he thinks the oil industry will react, given that there’s a ton of personnel and infrastructure here. The fact that it’s a multinational industry makes it a little messier than just a pack-up-and-leave scenario.
But, in the end, it’s a fantasy, and the use of it (secession/civil war) as a threat is a massive bluff that needs to be called.
TBone
@wizend_guy: that’s why I support the CAC. “Lesson #2 Pick an institution and support it.”
https://www.theusconstitution.org/counsel/
https://scholars.org/contribution/twenty-lessons-fighting-tyranny-twentieth-century
TriassicSands
@Roberto el oso:
Narcissism is rarely¹ the source of good judgment. Sinema’s career is a fine example of opportunistic inconsistency. Since she has no solid principles (I don’t consider greed or ambition to be principles), she relies on what is best for her personally. That has prevented more than one person to following a coherent path.
¹Understatement.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
The last site update wiped out the pie filter and we had to start over. I had one individual in the pie filter and then I didn’t, but now he’s back.
I like pie!
TriassicSands
@Scout211:
Judge Allen Winsor appointed by Donald Trump.
Brit in Chicago
@jonas: Yes, it’s only with the USSC decision in 2008 (Heller, written by Scalia) that the 2A was interpreted as guaranteeing the right to bear arms to each individual (as opposed to state-regulated militias). Just as the conservatives spent 50 years working towards getting a USSC which would read the Constitution differently and overturn Roe, so we need to have a similar long-term focused effort to overturn Heller. Unfortunately, the right seems to be better than the left at doing that kind of thing. (Please please give me evidence that I’m wrong!)
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
ShitForBrains has gone even farther off the deep end. He has aged out of adulthood. (OK he really never was an adult, just an old turd.) But the simpletons of the right want him back. OK maybe not all of the right wants him back, but seemingly he’s the only choice they have, the only one far out enough from humanity to tickle them.
Geminid
@karen marie: Generally speaking, “ex-Senator” is a prestigious title. People here certainly despise Kyrsten Sinema, but I think they project this contempt on to other people who don’t share it. And that would be a lot of people.
All this is to say that Sinema will have plenty of opportunities in business and non-profit sectors. I’ve never seen a retired Senator who wanted to make good money not make it. Kyrsten Sinema will be no exception.
Bill Arnold
@jonas:
That could/would go very quickly wrong. State representation in the House of Representatives is min(1, proportion of national population of persons/something),. Congress would be controlled by the state with the largest number of corporate-persons. That number could be very very very large; math is fun.
Local elections, too. “Company towns”.
Ruckus
@SW:
It is heartwarming and wonderful to me that 160 years later those fucking goobers worst nightmares are coming true.
You’d have loved my sister, gay, her partner was a black woman. Both gone now. Cancer and sickle cell.
Matt McIrvin
@Brit in Chicago: You’ll have to wait 50 years for the evidence. The right’s long-term project was itself a response to the Warren Court which was in some cases belatedly enforcing stuff from the Bill of Rights. So that took a while too.
wjca
Their nightmare on that came true long since.
It would be more accurate to say it’s come out of the closet. To the point where they can’t ignore it. Worse, far far worse, they can’t insist to their kids that “it’s just not done!” (Because, manifestly, it is.) And that opens up the real possibility that their kids will go the same way.
Geminid
@Brit in Chicago: In my miew, the Heller decision’s restrictions on gun control legislation are much exaggerated. In his majority opinion, Scalia emphasize that the individual right to possess firearms can still be limited by reasonable regulation by governments, and he referred to longstanding restrictions that he believed should not be affected by Heller.
This is why gun safety measures passed since Heller have not been overturned. I worry some that the courts may further erode authority to pass and maintain gun safety laws, but right now the limiting factor in this area is not Heller, it’s state legislatures and Congress.
wjca
Does the third world get a say? Can they just say no? A group should have some minimal standards for admission, after all.
TriassicSands
I agree, but that’s just the long way of saying: It’s bullshit.
Amazingly, or not, despite the certainty of originalists like Scalia and Thomas, they were or are frequently hypocritical, abandoning originalism when it can’t help them arrive at their desired decision.
Scalia, in further acts of hypocrisy, would argue that we can’t base decisions on what we think the authors of legislation (or constitutional text) meant. Rather, we have take the words simply as written (textualism).
From SCOTUSblog:
Except when it isn’t what he wanted the law to be.
Text of the 2nd Amendment:
What Scalia wrote in his D.C. v. Heller opinion:
I guess the author of the 2nd Amendment was just kidding.
Mike in NC
We just have to live our lives like people did in the 1780s, right?
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: The layoffs are tech investors believing they’ll be able to replace most of their staff with AI… or with AI developers. It doesn’t matter whether they actually can or not, the belief means that layoffs are what you have to do.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
It really grinds my gears that Manchin has been making the rounds on various news shows pitching himself as a moderate who uniquely knows how to work with both political parties.
wjca
And the state with the most Congressmen is now . . . Delaware! Definitely a first for them.
wjca
Expect them to be looking at major capital losses, when the companies implode as a result. To be replaced by companies started and staffed by the folks they laid off.
dirge
I think a good faith originalist reading would hone in on the contemporary meaning of “keep and bear arms.” That phrase would be crystal clear to people at the time, especially contextualized by “well organized militia.” It’s definitely talking about military weapons, but you only “bear arms” as a member of a military unit, with a legitimate chain of command, while that unit is active. You might “keep arms” individually, but more usually they’re in the big armory building downtown. That understanding of the phrase “keep and bear arms” is consistent from pre-classical antiquity, right up until District of Columbia v. Heller (2008).
There’s also a reason it’s phrased “the right of the people” and not “the right of each person.” There is no individual right to own or carry any weapon in an originalist reading of the Constitution. That’s an “emanations and penumbras” kind of thing, if it’s a thing at all.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
Everything to do with that district has to do with Disney..
HOW COULD THEY NOT HAVE STANDING?
Lips so pursed
FelonyGovt
@Roberto el oso: The previous Los Angeles County Sheriff, who ran as a Democrat in 2018 (I voted for him, my Dem club endorsed him) but gradually turned into a right wing wacko once elected. Dems lined up to defeat him in 2022 (I think it was) and we did.
Roberto el oso
@FelonyGovt: thanks! I hadn’t heard about that one … and now that I think about it I suppose anyone who switches party affiliation shortly after election would be in the same category of betrayal as Sinema.
Lyrebird
@RaflW: Even my pro-Bork very conservative US History teacher acknowledged that the only reasonable and suitably conservative reading of the 2nd Amendment he could believe was that it justifies letting the National Guard have weapons. (well-organized militia and all that)
@dirge types much faster! Go @dirge!
Brachiator
@dirge:
RE: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I disagree with you here, even though I would like to eliminate most guns.
The Founders presumed that many citizens would develop and maintain the skills for handling weapons and be available to form citizen militias. They also presumed that some people would live on farms and near the frontier and have their weapons with them.
Despite the success of the army during the Revolutionary War, there was still a distrust of standing armies, formal military units and the chain of command. The idea was that men would bring their arms and their skills to the militias.
When the new American government put down the Whiskey Rebellion, George Washington had at hand 13,000 Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania militia and 10 regular army troops.
Manyakitty
@TBone: I knew it would be great as soon as I saw that Evan wrote it. He RULES 😀🤣🤣
cain
@Anoniminous: You can bet that if they did overturn it – states like Mississippi will try to make voting only work for white men. After all, black men were only 3/4th human, and the constitution didn’t say ‘women’.
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: yeah, the whole thing is a game to them. Human lives don’t factor into it.
cain
@Matt McIrvin:
There are going to be a rude awakening at that point. Let them – because it’s going to be a shit show.
Scout211
Oh no!
This really saddens me. That site was a go-to site for me in the past year. :(
cain
@Scout211: Expect a lot of Disney money to be filing Democratic coffers.
Also, wtf is with that Judge. It’s definitely a 1st amendment issue.
Scout211
Didn’t you know that the first amendment is only valid for Republicans as a defense in a court of law? Just ask Trump.
Brachiator
@TBone:
Great piece about the pathetic and desperate Swift haters. I loved this bit…
Did Trump sell his plane to raise the money to pay Ms Carroll?
jimmiraybob
The idea that the US Constitution of 1789 is dead to all future considerations is turned upside down by the contemporary writings of the authors and proponents, the spirit of the times, the fact that it calls for future amendment, the fact that they immediately added 10 amendments, the fact that one of those, the 9th, specifically addresses the very fact that it was not all inclusive of all possible considerations as highlighted by “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” to name a few.
The 1789 constitution itself is a tribute to change from old and established ways of thinking and governing (Old Europe) to a form of governance in which the voice of the people and serving the people was central to governance. As Abigail Adams wrote to John Adams (1776), “– and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.” The Enlightenment ideals embedded in the Constitution and the new laws of the land were, in fact, the tools for future liberation.
They authors and ratifiers and the constitution itself embrace the future and change – that’s what experiments are all about.
FelonyGovt
@Roberto el oso: Oh, he never actually switched party affiliation since the position is nominally non-partisan, and it would be difficult if not impossible for a Republican to win in a countywide election. But the shift was dramatic.
cain
@Brachiator: Even dumber the ‘advice’ that Taylor Swift meted out was ‘register to vote’ and ‘vote’.
That they want to turn this into another culture war – against a rising in political power demographic vs a dwindling power demographic has got to be some stupid shit.
Brit in Chicago
@TBone: “Give us bread! But also GIVE US ROSES.”
What happened to circuses? (And gladiatorial contests….)
Brit in Chicago
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. But we’ve waited nearly sixteen years and no great signs of progress so far. Moreover I don’t get the sense that anyone is thinking about it in this way, whereas by the 1980’s it was clear that there were a lot of people on the right thinking about Roe, an how to overturn it.
Timill
@Brit in Chicago: Cake and circuses!
jonas
@catclub: …and defend frontier settlements against Indian attacks. The British authorities often hadn’t done that before the Revolution (usually because colonists were settling in places they weren’t supposed to, per treaty agreements) and the newly independent states wanted the ability to fuck around with the natives as they saw fit.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Roberto el oso: Not sure if anyone will see this, but I would point to former Congressman Mike Forbes. He switched from R to D in 1999, earning the enmity of republicans ranging from the head of the NRCC, who declared that beating Forbes was his top priority for the 2000 election, to his own staff, who he neglected to tell his plan ahead of time
Pink Tie
@TriassicSands: yes, this is exactly what I remember being brought up during Amy Barrett’s confirmation hearing. Of *course* she would never allow her own personal/political biases to influence her judgments. She’ll just find judgments that happen to support her biases.