Activist Judges!

A CNN article on “the inside story of how John Roberts failed to save abortion rights” contains no real surprises. GOP political operative/Chief Justice John Roberts allegedly worked on Kavanaugh all spring to soften the majority opinion, hoping the court would gut Roe but leave a fig leaf in place — as the wingnut majority had previously done to the VRA — to mitigate potential backlash to the Republican Party.

As previously surmised, when the Alito draft leaked in May, the players were basically frozen in place:

Roberts and his colleagues spent a few anxious days quietly awaiting publication of the document, stretching through the afternoon of May 2, when all nine were together for a live-streamed memorial at the court for the late Justice John Paul Stevens. Politico first published its story about the draft that night at 8:32 p.m.

Roberts launched an investigation into who might be behind “this betrayal of the confidences of the Court.” He vowed that court’s work “will not be affected in any way.”

But, of course, it was, most notably in diminishing whatever chance he had to dislodge the five-justice bloc set to overturn Roe. The aggressive leak investigation worsened the existing strains among the justices, their law clerks and other employees in the nine chambers… Friction among all intensified as protests began, fencing and barricades were erected around the court, and some usual end-of-session lunches and parties were dropped.

Not the usual lunches and parties!

I have lots of sympathy for Justices Sotomayor and Kagan and retired Justice Breyer (what a shitty way to go out), plus incoming Justice Jackson. But maybe it’s best that the artificial comity was stripped away as their Republican operative colleagues exercised raw political power.

Everyone else knows the “balls and strikes” model Roberts tried to sell us as he prepared to rig future games is complete bullshit.  So the justices needn’t pretend to be opera buddies anymore.

As for the leak, ask yourselves who it served. A couple of days ago, the AP published a piece on the status of the investigation:

The Supreme Court won’t say whether it’s still investigating.

The court also won’t say whether the leaker has been identified or whether anyone has been disciplined.

Or whether an outside law firm or the FBI has been called in.

Or whether the court will ever offer an accounting of what transpired.

Or whether it has taken steps to try to prevent a repeat.

To these and other emailed questions, Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said by email: “The Court has no comment.”

The AP piece also says “the public might never know.”

My guess is former and current cult member Mrs. Justice Thomas is the leaker. She already tried to overthrow the government, so what’s a draft opinion leak to the likes of her? Since the unaccountable star chamber doesn’t feel we’re owed an explanation, we’ll have to draw our own conclusions.

Open thread.

ETA: Paul Campos at LGM theorizes that Alito leaked his own draft. I think that’s a better theory than my Ginni Thomas guess.

Star Chamber (Open Thread)Post + Comments (153)

First up, if y’all haven’t read Isaac Chotiner’s interview with Alan Dershowitz in The New Yorker, I urge you to do so with all possible speed. An arch analogy here, an editorial insertion there — while economical in terms of word count, Chotiner’s masterful filleting of the pompous ass Dershowitz truly elevates the craft.

Here’s a snippet, but first I’ll set the scene: Dershowitz, who has a lot of  time on his hands these days, has been crying all over wingnut media outlets like Newsmax about being “canceled” by neighbors at his Martha’s Vineyard vacation home. Chotiner calls him to discuss that:

Dershowitz: Every year, they [the Chilmark Library] would have an overflow crowd to hear me speak about whatever book I was writing, or whatever I was doing. But suddenly, after I represented the Constitution on behalf of President Trump, the library found excuses for never having me. Their first excuse was that my crowds were too big. So I said, “Well, why don’t you limit the crowds?” They said, “Oh, we hadn’t thought of that.”

Chotiner: Can you imagine if Ed Sullivan had done that with the Beatles? It’s a ridiculous excuse.

Dershowitz: Yeah, of course. So I’ve been cancelled, basically, by the Chilmark Library. That has resulted in lots of people in Chilmark calling me and calling the library and saying, “We’re being deprived of Alan’s annual speech.” [Ebba Hierta, the Chilmark’s director, disputed Dershowitz’s characterization, and said, “Not one single person has contacted me to complain that they haven’t had a chance to hear Alan speak.”]

Dershowitz also tells Chotiner he was snubbed by the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, The Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival and Larry David. Chotiner says this is all “fairly terrifying.” A pantsing for the ages.

In the unlikely event that I ever see the name “Isaac Chotiner” pop up on my phone after I publicly air a grievance, I plan to smash my phone to bits with the nearest heavy object and go into hiding under an assumed name.

Speaking of pompous assholes with fancy law degrees, the scale of the destruction the radical clerics on the U.S. Supreme Court have wrought on their institution comes into view:

Truly remarkable numbers. In just under two years public approval of the US Supreme Court has fallen from 66% to 38%. Simply unprecedented in rapidity. This is what fatal loss of institutional legitimacy looks like. https://t.co/HJU0x0GtPp pic.twitter.com/PHWh8aw0k0

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 20, 2022

Marshall also noted that SCOTUS approval among Democrats fell from 52% to 15%, and then he gave as accurate a description of the whiny, entitled behavior of figures like Alito, Thomas and Bony Carrot as I’ve ever read:

They want the public respect and deference of an institution which the public believes is fair-mindedly and consistently interpreting the constitution while acting like a third rate mob boss running a bust out of a mid-tier retailer. The two don’t go together.

So true. Now, it’s also true that meaningfully reforming the court is a very heavy lift given our broken senate and fractured politics. But demanding deference while behaving like third-rate mob bosses is how you manufacture consent for such an endeavor.

Open thread.

Shade That Blots Out The SunPost + Comments (166)