Supremely Arrogant
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is still great.
It’s the greatest gathering of grievances we’ve ever seen on the high court. The woe-is-me bloc of conservative male justices is obsessed with who has wronged them.
It might be an opportune time to hire a Supreme shrink so these resentful men can get some much-needed therapy and stop working out their issues from the bench.
Neil Gorsuch is settling a score for his mother.
In her memoir, Anne Gorsuch Burford wrote that when she was forced out as Ronald Reagan’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator in 1983, her 15-year-old son, Neil, “was really upset.” He told her: “You should never have resigned. You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president ordered. You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?”
The scar from that trauma flared as he prepared a moot court brief with classmates at Harvard Law School and “tried to add material concerning the E.P.A. that did not fit,” according to a classmate who talked to The New York Times.
Burford was attacked during her tempestuous tenure as an enemy of the environment who slashed rules and spending to gut the E.P.A. The last straw, even for Republican lawmakers and Reagan officials, was when she rejected calls to turn over documents about a toxic-waste cleanup program that her agency had corrupted. She received a contempt citation from Congress.
The Times wrote in an editorial back then: “On becoming the head of the E.P.A., Anne Gorsuch inherited one of the most efficient and capable agencies of government. She has turned it into an Augean stable, reeking of cynicism, mismanagement and decay.”
Last year, her son moved to complete her toxic mission. He enthusiastically joined the 6-to-3 vote to severely curtail the E.P.A.’s ability to regulate power plant emissions. The activists who pushed for Gorsuch to be nominated to the court are finally getting to their real goal: the dismantling of their despised administrative state.
On Monday, the court agreed to review its unanimous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council from 1984. As Charlie Savage wrote in The Times: “If the court overturns or sharply limits the Chevron precedent, it would become easier for business owners to challenge regulations across the economy. Those include rules aimed at ensuring that the air and water are clean; that food, drugs, cars and consumer products are safe; and that financial firms do not take on too much risk.”
The Chevron ruling arose from a challenge to a decision by Gorsuch’s mother to lower automobile emissions standards. He can now vindicate her stance.
Last month Alito told The Wall Street Journal that he did not like the way the court’s legitimacy was being questioned. “We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us.”
Funny. That’s how many women feel about this Supreme Court.
Clarence Thomas, who is still bitter over being outed as a porn-loving harasser of women who worked for him — even though Joe Biden did his best to sweep the corroborating evidence under the Senate rug — was slapped with more revelations of ethics derelictions this past week.
ProPublica broke the news that Thomas’s billionaire benefactor for luxury trips and family property, Harlan Crow, had also secretly paid the private school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew.
The Washington Post revealed that Leonard Leo, an executive vice president at the Federalist Society — the cult that has transformed the courts in its own right-wing image — surreptitiously funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Thomas’s wife, Ginni, for “consulting work” a decade ago.
“The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case,” the paper said.
John Roberts cannot accept that these justices are incapable of policing themselves. Despite all the slime around him, he refused to testify before Congress about a court that blithely disdains ethics.
One reason may be, as The Times reported , that the chief justice’s own wife, Jane, has made millions of dollars as a legal recruiter, placing lawyers at firms with business before the Supreme Court.
Even though I’ve been writing since Bush v. Gore that the court is full of hacks and the bloom is off the robes, it is still disorienting to see the murk of this Supreme Court.
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It appears America's political/judicial infrastructure is in need of as much overhauling as is its physical infrastructure.
The supremes are now just another far right wing fascist outlet.
That is an extremely ignorant post.
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The partisan left wing campaign to undermine and delegitimize the Supreme Court continues full steam ahead.
Actual elected Democrats in Congress, not the fringe Daily Kos lunatics, are advocating the President ignore Supreme Court rulings.
And then they criticize Trump. Just shameless people.
Until you came along, Trump was never mentioned. As to Daily Kos, in my 10+ years on both NV and NT I have never seeded an article by them nor have I ever commented on any articles coming from them. Either address the article or take your misplaced whining to a fitting partisan seed.
Thanx!
BTW ... how's the partisan campaign going to delegitimize the DoJ, DoD and FBI going?
g, Trump was never mentioned
Are you not aware that the people pushing to delegitimize the court are the exact same people who claim Trump was a threat to Democracy?
s, in my 10+ years on both NV and NT I have never seeded an article by them nor have I ever commented on any articles coming from t
Cool. That really has nothing to do with my point, which I thought was pretty clear. Arguing to ignore Supreme Court rulings is the sort of batshit crazy screeds one would expect to see at the Dailykos, not from members of Congress. And with no pushback from the supposedly non partisan media to boot.
ng to a fitting partisan seed.
Lol. Did you read your own seed? Just a litany of complaints about conservative justices , with nary a criticism of her team.
You do know who Maureen Dowd is, right? Dying on the hill that she's not partisan is a strange one to choose.
By all means, find a an article of her criticizing a liberal justice for their forays into ethical gray areas. There's plenty to chose from. One could write a book on Ginsburg's.
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It is deeply disappointing to see what has been happening in SCOTUS. Will it change, I don't know but it sure is best to head in that direction before it becomes less relevent.
We have Jackson recusing herself from the Chevron case so we know they are going to gut or severely restrict in order to make it basically non existent.
Hell, Thomas wouldn't recuse himself when his sugar daddy had cases before the court...
Surely you can name those cases, some idiots are making that claim but can’t name a single case that appeared before the court.
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Are you sure his "sugar daddy" had cases before the court?
Do the research.
Of course you won't. Far right wingers never do the research.
Yeah, accountability is a bummer, eh?
As the reputation and approval rating of this overwhelmingly conservative court craters , we hear bleats about how "Maureen Dowd" is partisan.
That is all they have. I dont think it is unfair to say that the failings of the Supreme Court could help get Democrats elected in 2024. Is that partisan enough for you?
Maureen Dowd is not responsible for the reputation of the Supreme Court tanking. Its a little odd that you think she, or people like her, is.
Good thing I didn't claim she is.
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The Supreme Court needs to be moderate. That is the only way it can work. The current right wing court is predicated on the idea of "originalism" , which is a highly disputed ideology that is prejudiced toward conservative decisions. (Adherence to the past is the very meaning of conservatism and originalism.) I read that Thomas Jefferson believed the constitution should be updated to fit the times every 20 years or so. Yet we have a right wing court that still thinks it is the year 1800.
Will We Ever Amend the Constitution Again? - New York Times
Web Aug 4, 2021 · Thomas Jefferson went further, proposing that the nation adopt an entirely new charter every two decades . A constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 …
Why would you advocate for something that an obvious racist proposed?
Then our country probably would have lasted twenty years or so.
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Are you representatives advocating for a Constitutional Convention?
Than Democratic Presidents shouldn't ever nominate a justice. It's the Republican nominees who aren't just partisan votes who always vote exactly as a partisan would.
It's not an ideology. It's a method of interpretation that holds laws mean what they say.
What method is better than that? What
Yet we have a right wing court that still thinks it is the year 1800.
No, they don't. They think that laws mean what Congress wrote.
The second amendment says "militia", yet Scalia interpreted it to mean every able bodied male.
These people can make words mean whatever they want them to mean, and the idea that there is a clear cut meaning in the words of the constitution , with some exceptions, is silly.
If the majority in the Heller decision wanted to ban individual ownership of guns they would have found the meaning.
We now have a court where the major decisions are predetermined by ideology.
Women were second class citizens when the constitution was written. Had they been viewed as equals maybe we would have seen an amendment in the Bill Of Rights that guaranteed a right to "choice".
Have you read it? The scholarship is impeccable.
d the idea that there is a clear cut meaning in the words of the constitution , with some exceptions, is silly
you never provide an alternative option. So you don't like objectivity. What subjective standard should justices use to decide cases that will result in non partisan decisions?
You said decisions should follow the WORDS of the constitution. Are there words in the second amendment that clearly state that everyone can own a gun? No.
So it is not just the words to you, it is the originalist "interpretation" that you approve of.
People will accept every "interpretation" that gives them what they want.
Do you really think this multicultural society will accept every right wing decision handed down by the Court over the next decades? We need something different.
Yes, that's the point. Of course's its interpreting the words to effectuate their meaning. They are bound by the fair meaning of the words at issue. That's why Scalia wrote a book called "A matter of interpretation." That's what judges do. .
The Court's rulings are incredibly deferential to Congress/States, giving them tons of room to operate. All it takes is wining elections.
We need something different.
What then? You object to laws meaning what they say. So why have judges at all, since you oppose what they do? Just have a super legislature that can do whatever it wants.
You seem to by implying that men can't get pregnant, which is pretty much a hate crime in your circles.
You should be glad we have originalists on the Court so the First Amendment isn't twisted to allow you to be prosecuted for such blasphemy.
How did the dissent in the Heller case interpret the words? Why were they wrong and your side right? They both interpreted. It was a 5-4 partisan decision , so we can assume that if the "liberals" had the majority at that time we wouldnt have a right to individually own guns today.
That is from the dissenting opinion in Heller. It interprets the words of the second amendment differently than Scalia did. Why is Scalia right and Stevens wrong, other than that Scalia had the extra vote?
If you read the case, you'd see Scalia's logic and scholarship are pretty much irrefutable.
e can assume that if the "liberals" had the majority at that time we wouldnt have a right to individually own guns today.
Right, because liberal justices simply impose their morals and don't worry about anything else.
It's how the Supreme Court can rule, (with a straight face) that a law saying that it shall be illegal to discriminate against, any individual because of his race really means it's perfectly okay to discriminate on the basis of race. If you think judges have no duty to follow the law as voted upon by the people, than maybe democracy isn't for you.
To you and those who agree with you.
Interpretations are never irrefutable.
Not always, but often enough when judges operate in good faith, which they are supposed to do. If you read Court decisions, one side usually has the better of the argument.
But sure, you a re correct, if a judge takes the Ginsburg approach and just says "I don't like guns", so I'm going to "interpret" the words to get the ruling I want than they aren't really judges. They are just legislators. No point in even writing a decision longer than "gun's bad, or abortion good"
You complain about "originalism" and want moderation but originalist justices are actually the least partisan judges. They are the one's whose ruling can't simply be predicted by their supposed partisanship.
So again, what system will produce "moderation" while claiming judges have no duty to follow the law/constitution as written? It may not be perfect, but judges who feel bound to give effect to the meaning of laws is by far the best way to avoid the pure partisanship that your support while claiming to oppose it.
You mean an activist progressive cort?
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Many friends have told me that there are Russian bots on this site.
Were these friends named Boris and Natasha, by chance?
What names do they go by?
I consider them more as sympathizers.
After decades of demonization of the Supreme Court by right wing propagandists, with all of their blathering about so-called "liberal activist judges" and "legislating from the bench", now that it is actually happening with hard right ideologues imposing their political agenda, the complaints by a super-reactionary like Alito ring absolutely hollow.
decades of demonization of the Supreme Court by right wing
What Republican Congressmen have advocated the President ignore a Supreme Court ruling during these decades? And if that happened, what was the reaction?
now that it is actually happening with hard right ideologues imposing their political agenda,
I don't think you understand what's happening. Telling States, or Congress, it's up to you to set the rules or laws is the opposite of "imposing their political agenda." Taking matter of public debate off the table by inventing a Constiitional "right" is the quintessential case of imposing one's moral agenda on the country.
y a super-reactionary like Alito ring absolutely hollow.
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The SCOTUS should be an elective body with 8 year terms. And a 16 year limit of service. Aspirants for the position must publicly campaign, explaining their visons and positions on day to day issues that are important to the American people.
In other words, allow the American electorate to determine the court that rules them, thereby removing the effect of PAC's and money.
I can agree with a limit of service. The average age when nominated is something like 53 so a 20 year term of service would IMO a good point.
But I completely disagree with SCOTUS being an elective body. Appointing the justices has always been a perk of the Presidents Office, why would you want to take that away? To quote a past president, "Elections have consequences".
The "Elections have consequences," quote was from Senator Graham.
Presidents don't need perks. The court belongs to the American people not a politician who happened to get elected.
Prove it.
The bold is mine to emphasis the point. If you can prove that what I can find via Google is wrong please post your evidence.
And I disagree. The ability for a president to appoint Justices to SCOTUS has always been a presidential power or perk if you will. The justices are approved by the Senate, but I'm sure you already know that. The court does not belong to the American people as you are proposing, but is a separate body of the Federal government to balance the other two. The primary function of SCOTUS is :
To do so they must be above the people and cannot be beholden to the people. The last thing we need is forcing judges to go out on a campaign trail in order to get elected.
Check out the quote yourself. Hell.
NO! America needs judges to campaign and allow the American people to know who they are, what they are, what they believe and what they hope to bring to the Judicial system that would be beneficial.
BULLSHIT!!!! Stop dodging and running away. You made a statement, I provided evidence to show you were wrong and instead of showing any fucking evidence you double-down. A simple search would show you just how wrong you are.
Obama said that phrase in 2010 after he won the election.
Senator Graham said it in 2017.
So it shows that Obama said it first. Hell, a lot of people have said that since then including several members of this board. BFD.
So provide your proof that you are right or admit you don't know what you are talking about.
And no, America does not need judges to go out on the campaign trail and become politicians. I want them to be judges and uphold the law, not your political dreams.
Far right wing religious fascism should never have a place on the highest court.
Even a hint of corruption should be nipped in the bud.
Thomas and his corrupt fascist wife should be gone yesterday!
That is an ignorant post.