I think the fact that SCOTUS doesn’t think we’re in a constitutional crisis is a big part of the constitutional crisis.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) September 5, 2025 at 6:52 AM
As an elderly white woman, am I allowed to use the phrase This heffa?
Because when I see clips of Amy Cunning-Bunny smirking her way through her new book tour, that’s my first thought: This heffa.
I have not been a fan since Comey Barrett emerged from her Federalist Society cocoon and smirked her way through her rigged confirmation hearing, holding up a blank sheet of paper to indicate just how she’d handle her new job: By deciding ‘the law’ was whatever her kakistocratic masters wanted. And she’s held firm to that standard, giving the rich business elites an occasional sop as she gleefully cuts apart the networks that hold our embattled nation together.
Her new book / book tour are an open reward for her fealty; I wish I could be sure it had been rushed out now because the market might not last through the midterms next year.
Here’s the NYTimes‘ characteristically mealy-mouthed review — “Amy Coney Barrett’s Memoir Is as Careful and Disciplined as Its Author” [gift link]:
… Barrett, who was co-author of a 2016 paper calling the 14th Amendment “possibly illegitimate,” maintained that the lower courts’ efforts to uphold a constitutional right were exercises in judicial overreach. She even directed a pointed swipe at her fellow justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose blistering dissent warned that the majority was creating a “zone of lawlessness” for the president to “take or leave the law” as he wishes.
“We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument,” Barrett wrote, with icy disdain, “which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.”
I kept thinking about this spectacularly scornful line while reading Barrett’s new book, “Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.” Barrett highlights the “collegiality” of the Supreme Court, whose traditions include weekly lunches and welcome dinners for new justices. When Jackson was confirmed in 2022, it was Barrett’s turn to host; she served Jackson’s favorite dishes and asked a Broadway performer to sing selections from “Hamilton.”
It all makes for a pleasant (if surreal) scene. But if you really listen to what Barrett says in “Listening to the Law,” you’ll quickly realize that she isn’t on the Supreme Court because she wants to make friends. Barrett, a former law professor and circuit court judge, clearly knows that readers crave relatability, especially from women, so she deigns to offer a few breadcrumbs. But her book is inevitably a controlled performance, as careful and disciplined as its author. She’s not about to let her guard down, even for a reported $2 million advance…
This is from Justice Barrett’s new book. I’ll just observe that it‘s a very strange metaphor to use to describe the decision to move to Washington D.C. to become a Supreme Court Justice. www.cbsnews.com/news/book-ex…
— Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof (@evanbernick.bsky.social) September 7, 2025 at 2:18 PM
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Turning down a life of comfort in South Bend for a life of more comfort and massive power in DC. Powerful decision.
— Courtney Milan (@courtneymilan.com) September 7, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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"honey should I take my dream job, from which nobody can fire me without two thirds of the senate agreeing, which will never happen even if I join my colleagues in soliciting and accepting bribes?"
"well, dear, first let us consider the words of Pericles …"
come on. none of this happened.— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser.bsky.social) September 7, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Scott Lemiuex, at Lawyers Guns & Money, on “When you can afford to be made to look ridiculous”:
… If you’re wondering how he ended up with Bruen, a Supreme Court justice — in a book in which she was paid a $2 million advance, not off-the-cuff remarks — confusing Alexander the Great with Cortés is an illustration. But the idea about someone who has spent her professional life on the Federalist Society greasy pole was agonizing over whether to take the legal job with the highest ratio of power to effort in the world is an ever better exemplification of the nature of Republican “jurisprudence.” You know she’s lying, she knows you’re lying, she wants you to know she’s lying, because she has this power for life and wants to rub your nose in it. Balls, strikes, things of that nature.
Cf. also starting your promo tour like this:
Perhaps the most telling stop on Barrett’s tour is also the first: tonight’s Lincoln Center appearance with Bari Weiss of The Free Press, the preferred source of political commentary for investment bankers who decided to become Republicans because they can’t use the r-word at work anymore. The Free Press also got the honor of publishing the first official excerpt of Listening to the Law, and praised Barrett for understanding that the Court’s role is not to “promote justice,” as some would foolishly assume, but only to “judge what the law requires.” (The Free Press’s event page further describes the Court as “critical to the American project, as it remains largely as our Founding Fathers designed it: the final arbiter of what’s constitutional and what’s not”—an assertion which indicates that for all of Bari Weiss’s deficiencies as a thinker and writer, she might be an even worse amateur legal historian.)
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Arsonist says there is no problem with house burning down.
— NY Times Pitchbot (@nytpitchbot.bsky.social) September 5, 2025 at 7:47 AM
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A reminder that Justice Barrett originally made the comment about the Justices not being partisan "hacks" at the McConnell Center in Kentucky after Sen. McConnell moved heaven and earth to get Barrett confirmed before Trump left office (even as he stalled Merrick Garland out of the Scalia seat)
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen.bsky.social) September 5, 2025 at 7:37 PM
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“The court should not be imposing its own values on the American people,” Barrett remarked "
This from Amy Coney Barrett when she did exactly that! She imposed her "morals" and "beliefs" to stop women from getting healthcare and the right to choose!
#Pinks
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025…— Kelly 🦋🦋86 47🦋🦋 (@kelofchgo.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Per USAToday, “Barrett says her job is to ‘listen to the law'”:
… One of the former Notre Dame Law School professor’s main goals in writing her book was to persuade Americans that the justices don’t make their decisions based on personal preference or politics – partisan or otherwise.
That might be a tough sell.
In a 2024 USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll, many more people thought the court decided cases based on ideology, not the law. The public’s opinion of the court remains close to a three-decade low, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Sept. 3.
And sometimes that criticism is coming from within the court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of Barrett’s three liberal colleagues, recently wrote that the court seems to have a rule: “this Administration always wins.”
Barrett disagrees…
The numbers, however, might suggest Jackson has a point about Trump’s success. Among the two dozen emergency appeals the administration has made to the justices when lower courts blocked the president’s policies, nearly all have gone his way…
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During a lightning round at an event tonight, Bari Weiss asked Amy Coney Barrett to describe each of her colleagues with one word.
Answers:
Roberts: Chief
Thomas: Laugh
Alito: Grandfather
Sotomayor: Lively
Kagan: Analytical
Gorsuch: Out West
Kavanaugh: Sports
Jackson: (long pause) Actor … Broadway— Cristian Farias (@cristianfarias.com) September 4, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Lady, Justice Brown Jackson will be in the history books long after you’re remembered — by a few specialists, if at all — as yet another disposable player in the GOP’s long con.
Chetan Murthy
You just -know- what (In)Justice Coathanger wanted to say, but didn’t think she could get away with …. yet. Just -know- it.
MichiganFTW! (formerly Temp Decloaked Lurker)
These days there’s no tower more ivory than the Supreme Court.
John Revolta
Amy’s struggle to decide whether to leave South Bend for big scary Washington DC reminds me very much of Mare Daley (the REAL Mare Daley)’s decision whether to remain Chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party after he was elected Mayor
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I refuse to refer to Mrs. Barrett by the honorific she thinks she is entitled to, much as I will never refer to Mr. Roberts, Mr. Alito, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Gorsuch, or Mr. Kavanaugh by that honorific, because the term “Justice” is contaminated merely by being adjacent to any of the Sinister Six.
Justice Jackson, Justice Kagan, and Justice Sotomayor are, of course, a different matter.
bluefoot
The comment from Lemieux is very on target: that she’s lying, everyone knows she’s lying, she knows everyone knows she’s lying, and it doesn’t matter if she lies. She lies for the same reason accusations of hypocrisy by anyone in the GOP don’t matter. The lying and the hypocrisy is how they demonstrate their power – there are no consequences. The other thing most people don’t get is that it’s performative: those “in the club” do it to show each other they’re in the club. They don’t care at all about what normal people think.
i used to see this sort of thing all the time when I sat in on board meetings. They act inappropriately because it’s a sign of their status.
Ishiyama
All that these efforts by judges like ACB to consolidate power in the single head will accomplish is to put the onus on the opposition to act with alacrity and authority, if they should once again attain the office of President. When the norms are abandoned, when the rules are broken, force is the only tool left to work with. Indicting Supreme Court Justices, whether for pretextual charges, or on genuine grounds, will be one place to start. Bribery, perjury, aid and comfort to insurrection, conspiracy, tax charges, … there’s a rich field of targets. And one can always plant drugs on them.
Rusty
The idea that SCOTUS has absolutely no interest in dispensing justice is absolutely bizarre. While courts often fail at it, and it is often quite crude, the idea is that courts will have at least an approximation of justice. Maybe her comment is actually telling, because if you aren’t aiming for justice, what are you aiming for? With this court it is clearly the use of power for ultra-conservative ends, the contraction of wealth and control in the hands of a select few. This is made all more strange because it is being committed by a group of people that claim to be deeply religious. What is does Barret’s faith mean? From Micah:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
If you aren’t acting justly and acting in mercy, what are they all doing as people of faith? There is certainly no humility in the arrogance of the reactionary six.
Baud
@Rusty:
They dispense plenty of justice to the people they like.
This is one of those ideas that’s meant to apply only to some people. Like “we have to make tough decisions” and “we have to tighten our belts”.
NotMax
@Baud
“You have a belt? Lucky devil.”
//
Ten Bears
Catholic scum …
Nukular Biskits
Good (early) mornin’, y’all.
I love AL’s writing!
And, this reminds me of the immortal words of the great philosopher George Carlin:
lowtechcyclist
@bluefoot:
As George Carlin said, “it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
ETA: DAMN! Beaten to it by Nukular Biskits!
I bow to you, sir!
Nukular Biskits
@lowtechcyclist:
You bow to no one.
lowtechcyclist
@Nukular Biskits:
There’s a bow of respect, and a bow of servitude. I will cheerfully engage in the former, but I’ll have nothing to do with the latter.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
@lowtechcyclist:
Wait, you guys aren’t in the club?
What am I doing here?
lowtechcyclist
@Ten Bears:
In my fifty-five year (as of tonight!) faith journey, I have known Catholics that I’ve had great respect and affection for, though I would never consider becoming a Roman Catholic. It is not their Catholicism that makes them abhorrent, it’s what is in their hearts and would be there anyway regardless of religious affiliation.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
A question we all ask ourselves in various contexts! And we all must come up with our own answers. Though I’m sure you could get some volunteers to help you with that!
Betty Cracker
In my SCOTUS reform fantasy league, I make it illegal for sitting justices to peddle books, which is just another way of accepting bribes that doesn’t involve world travel on billionaire yachts or RV gifts. You want to write a book about your life on the Supreme Court? Retire and have at it.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
When she says “listen to the law” I hear that old Smothers Brothers “I Talk to the Trees” bit. To paraphrase Tommy, she sounds like a nut.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah, in fairness, books are bipartisan and have not been considered off limits, but it may be time to rethink that, and a lot of other lines in the sand.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I read Sotomayor’s memoir some years back. I don’t think she wrote it to advance a partisan agenda or whatever. But yeah, I agree we need to rethink a lot of norms to corrupt-idiot-proof the system.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Yes. I don’t question her good faith, but there’s no way to have a rule that’s based on what’s in someone’s heart.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I also think it’s impossible to completely protect the system against all corruption and idiocy, especially where there is an absence of societal consensus about what that would entail.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: True. I’d settle for removing profits from the equation. If they can’t scrape by on $300K a year with gold-plated benefits, they shouldn’t take the job.
Baud
Via Reddit, a rare bright spot for the left.
satby
@Ten Bears: it’s been more than half a century since I was a practicing Catholic, but let me assure you that Coathanger Bullshitter and the heretical sect she belongs to are not Catholic no matter what they claim.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The conservative ones, of course, think they’re poor because they compare themselves to the people the socialize with.
MagdaInBlack
@satby: Don’t know if it would interest you or no, but John Fugelsang has a book coming out, or it is out, called “Separation of Church and Hate” which sounds interesting and is certainly relevant.
satby
I wonder if her book has a sappy section about how they claim to have adopted their
restavekschildren from Haiti.The tell all book one of them will write in the future should be interesting, if the kid ever gets away from that cult.
satby
@MagdaInBlack: thanks, I already ordered it. Fugelsang, like James Talarico, is brilliant at rebutting the frauds from a position of faith.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
[Betty Cracker @24]
This. A ban on any new outside income, no gifts above whatever the limit is for Federal bureaucrats (currently $10, which could honestly use an inflation adjustment, it hasn’t been raised since 1998 or earlier), and any wealth that they already had when they came onto the Court should be invested in broad-based index funds, so that the fortunes of a particular stock (and ideally a particular industry) don’t have much effect on their wealth.
@Baud:
All too true, and there’s not really much that can be done about this. You can’t pass laws saying they can’t associate with rich people, but of course if you hang out with rich people, it’s going to be hard not to want the things they’ve got, and feel deprived if you don’t have them. And also people tend to eventually adopt the world view of those they hang out with, and we’d really rather not have the Supremes see the world through the eyes of the wealthy. One may be able to make it illegal for someone to buy a Justice a fancy restaurant meal, but you can’t exactly ban them from being a guest at a rich person’s dinner table or country ‘cottage.’
Ramalama
@satby: I’m still wondering about the black son Speaker Johnson adopted. Has anyone heard about this (now grown) man?
satby
@Ramalama: yeah, that’s suspicious as hell. Supposedly now an adult who “values his privacy”.
Kayla Rudbek
@satby: I would bet my entire year’s craft budget that at least one of her children has been molested by a priest from that heretical cult, and/or a family member, and she has actively covered it up.
At least my parents told me to stay away from Fr. Burtchell…
satby
@Kayla Rudbek: and you’d probably win that bet, because there’s been a hushed up scandal in that cult about child abuse, both sexual and physical.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: I would be very happy to make them live by the same rules that the patent examiners have to follow (lots of annual financial reporting, mandatory recusal from any case where they own over a certain dollar amount in the company).
Since the patent examiners are all specialists, there’s a risk of insider trading by buying stock in a company on an individual examiner’s docket (apparently the guy who issued the patent on Airborne quit the day after he allowed the patent and then bought company stock; only got away with it because he quit before he bought the stock rather than after)
randy khan
The boat burning story is really impressive from someone who knew she was on the list of potential nominees, and probably actually was a bit ticked that she hadn’t been chosen before Trump’s other nominees.
Kayla Rudbek
@satby: yeah, authoritarian theology/personality and child abuse go hand in hand, and it doesn’t matter what label the religion flies under (I think I could probably find that connection in any religion).
My main quarrels with the Catholic Church are about the treatment of women and LGBTQIA people, as well as the coverup of the molestations. Although the Southern Baptists are even worse on all counts (at least Catholics have monastic life for people who don’t want to marry, and defrocking and excommunication as punishment for bad priests). I refuse to worship any deity that regards me as a second class citizen, and separate but equal is not true in practice.
geg6
Amy Taney Barrett. Fuck that bitch.
Betty
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: An easy decision when she and Bari seem to agree that the Court’s role isn’t about justice. My head hurts!
Betty
@Betty Cracker: Exactly!
Shalimar
@Baud: 3-4 generations now without a world war seems to have caused young men to forget who dies when we elect psycho fascist governments. At least they weren’t the difference in Norway.
Matt
The key to understanding statements like this is that she knows it’s a lie, and she knows that you know it’s a lie. Saying an obvious lie like it’s the truth is a way to demonstrate power and authority in her cult.
We aren’t going to make any progress in this country until we start calling religious folks out for loving lies.
waspuppet
If you look around the table and you don’t see the constitutional crisis, you are the constitutional crisis.
Paul in KY
@satby: Agree! Pope Paul VI and Pope Francis and Pope John XXIII embodied Catholicism (for me).
Paul in KY
@geg6: Amy Boney Carrot.
Citizen Alan
@satby: to be fair, adopting 2 kids from Haiti. It’s probably a lot cheaper. Then paying four, a couple of au pairs/live-in maids.
MinuteMan
The Roberts Republican Calvinball Court shows that the original concept of the Supreme Court is fatally flawed. It’s demonstrably susceptible to political cooption and puts too much power into too few hands and let’s them maintain it for decades.
A solution would be to create a pool of 20 to 30 justices drawn at random from the appellate courts and serving 3-year staggered terms. After their term expires they go back to their appellate court. Panels of 7-9 justices would hear most cases with the option for appealing to the en banc in rare cases. This scheme would be harder to politically manipulate than the current system and would limit the duration of the damage that a few corrupt individuals could inflict on the whole nation.
satby
@Citizen Alan: They were “adopting kids” from a country that has a traditional practice of slavery disguised as “taking in poor children to feed and educate in exchange for chores”, aka the restavek system. Considered by experts worldwide as slavery, and cut rate slavery at that.
satby
@Citizen Alan: and I’m especially incensed about it because as a white volunteer in Haiti after the earthquake and the arrest of a bunch of “missionaries” trying to remove children from Haiti, our work was made much harder, and circumstances were already appalling.
HopefullyNotcassandra
“Murdering women one ruling at a time” would be an appropriate sub-title for this book. This “Justice” can get back to us after someone close to her bleeds out following denial of a wholly safe and effective D&C simply because this “justice”, and her fellow travellers, decided there was insufficient suffering happening during pregnancy.
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: That’s probably how they gamed it out. Her and Jesse…
Ironcity
@lowtechcyclist: Why not?
The rules for all other officers of the United States allows items of trivial intrinsic value but the conflict of interest rules prohibit conflicts of intrest or the appearance of conflict of interest. Dinners and parties with the rich and famous certainly appear to be conflict of interest.