Jennifer Rubin: What we have learned about the Supreme Court's right-wingers

[Celerity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/01/supreme-court-justices-decisions-ethics/

https://archive.is/V8O9n



Supreme Court observers frequently refer to its right-wing majority of six as a single bloc. However, differences among those six have become more apparent over time. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas’s extreme judicial activism, partisan screeds and ethics controversies put them in a category unto themselves. Meanwhile, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has demonstrated surprising independence.

Watch Justice Barrett.

Not all Republican-appointed judges are the same. In Trump v. Anderson (concerning disqualification under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of four-time indicted and former president Donald Trump), for example, Barrett along with Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor criticized the maximalist majority opinion, which held that not only could state courts not determine disqualification but that Congress had to act before any candidate could be disqualified from federal office. Like the so-called liberal justices, Barrett was disinclined to address “the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced.” The court decided too much, she agreed. Her complaint with the so-called liberal justices was primarily tonal. (“This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency.”)

Likewise in United States v. Texas (considering the stay on enforcement of Texas’s S.B. 4 immigration law), Barrett along with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh offered the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit an opening to take up the case promptly, which it did, rather than wade into a procedural fight over a stay in a case concerning Texas’s constitutionally suspect law. As Supreme Court expert Steve Vladeck put it, “the Barrett/Kavanaugh concurrence went out of its way to nudge the Fifth Circuit — noting not only that the Fifth Circuit should be able to rule on the stay pending appeal ‘promptly,’ but that, ‘If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this Court.’” In essence, Barrett said the Supreme Court would not meddle in a circuit’s administrative business. But if the 5th Circuit actually allowed this constitutional monstrosity to proceed, she would have a different view.

And in Moore v. Harper (the independent state legislature doctrine), Barrett joined in the chief justice’s majority opinion along with the three Democratic-appointed justices in batting down the radical notion that state courts had no role in determining alleged violations of state election laws (provided they did “not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review”). Beyond her opinions in high profile cases, Barrett also sought to repair the court’s reputation damaged by right-wing partisanship. She has started appearing alongside Sotomayor publicly to insist that the court’s ideological combatants are more collegial than they might appear. Perhaps she is. Barrett is no Sandra Day O’Connor (a true swing justice). Barrett’s stance on Roe v. Wade was just as extreme as the other right-wingers. Nevertheless, her efforts to carve an independent niche on the court should not be ignored.

On the other hand, there is no limit to what Justices Alito and Thomas will do..................

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[maxrandb]

1. Here's all I need to know about the Supreme Court

Last edited Mon Apr 1, 2024, 02:39 PM - Edit history (1)

One-third of the entire Supreme Court was appointed by the most corrupt, evil, criminal, mentally damaged, disgusting, vapid piece of amphibian shit to ever walk the face of the earth.

One-third of the entire Supreme Court was appointed by someone that lost the popular vote by 3 MILLION votes, and then lost the popular vote again by 8 MILLION votes.

Additionally, Presidents that won the popular vote once in the past 34 years, appointed two-thirds of the entire Supreme Court.

Any article, or opinion piece about the Supreme Court, that does not discuss how in the fuck it got to a 6-3 majority the American voters NEVER wanted, is meaningless!

Ms. Rubin, PLEASE STOP TRYING TO NORMALIZE THIS SHIT!

[Celerity]

2. this is incorrect:

Additionally, Presidents that won the popular vote once in the past 44 years, appointed two-thirds of the entire Supreme Court.

Trump was the only POTUS to appoint Justices (3, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett) who are currently sitting on SCOTUS after losing the popular vote for POTUS in the term in which the appointments happened.

G. H. W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas in 1991, after winning 1988 in a massive landslide, both EC and popular vote.

G. W. Bush appointed Roberts (2005) and Alito (2006) after winning the 2004 election in both the EC and the popular vote (over 3 million more votes than Kerry)

Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor (2009) and Elena Kagan (2010) after winning the EC and the popular vote in a landslide in 2008.

Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson (2022) after winning bother the EC and the popular vote (by over 7 million, not 8, 81,283,501 to 74,223,975) in 2020.

In addition, all the Justices the current Justices replaced were appointed by POTUS's who won the popular vote except for John Paul Stevens (a great liberal, as it turned out, and he was replaced by Kagan), who was nominated by Ford, who as VP won the 1972 election in a massive landslide with Nixon, before becoming POTUS after Nixon resigned.

[maxrandb]

3. Right, it's 34 years, I fixed it

Since 1990, a Retrumplican presidential candidate has won the popular vote precisely ONCE, GWB in 2004.

Thomas was already there.

I guess I am "correct" in stating that one-third of the entire Supreme Court was appointed by the most corrupt, evil, criminal, mentally damaged, disgusting, vapid piece of amphibian shit to ever walk the face of the earth.?

Those 3 enabled the courts to establish a 2/3rd Wingnut Court majority, ruled by 6 justices of the Confederacy.

That makes it sooooo much better, doesn't it?

It still does not change the fact that any discussion of this court, without detailing how it got to that skewed majority, is meaningless.

[Celerity]

5. Trump's 3 appointments were, are, and will be disastrous. The SCOTUS should be 6 3 liberal. Agree on that.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. It will take a generation or more to clean up the damage done by this Subversive Court.