I guess it wasn’t “settled law” after all

[jclay]

Roe.

Big surprise; is there no mechanism by which a sitting SCOTUS judge may be removed for lying, deception (aka lying), obfuscation (aka lying under the circs framing the confirmation process)?

And as a bonus, more firearms in the streets!

A wet dream for those who think they're the Marlboro Man or mourn that they missed the Dodge City daze of Marshal Dillon.

[72gmc]

Impeachment, yes? Although that is its own barrel of monkeys.

"Justices may remain in office until they resign, pass away, or are impeached and convicted by Congress."

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the...dicial-branch/

[Bob Ross]

My wife was furious this morning when she read the news about SCOTUS striking down the New York law restricting carrying handguns in public; she's gonna be absolutely apoplectic when she checks her news feed this afternoon!

And I'm gonna be right there with her. This angers me like no other political issue I can recall, because this more than anything has been a simple litmus test for my personal moral compass: Do individuals have autonomy over their own bodies? If not, we do not live in a democracy...and it's a stretch to even suggest that we live in a civilized society. I am livid. This is not America.

:::angryface:::

[jclay]

And the whole Schmieg, rejecting Roe, liberalizing (irony) our already promiscuous interpretation of 2A (innocent blood as the ante, thoughts and prayers as the salve), that Trump and the rest of the insurrectionists were not immediately stuck in prison, bail denied, while the adults sorted through the legal aspect, a pandemic with all the associated disruption sucked into its wake, war on Ukraine and innumerable other examples of avarice and fuck up, all of human genesis, are framed by an accelerating trajectory into irreversible climate and ecological disaster.

About seven years ago I figured a 30 year planning horizon was both genetically reasonable and practically useful as an aid to navigating the balance of my life; I ruminated on what my mental and physical reality might allow me to do for each of those three decades; and that afforded me some planning focus. Ignoring the fun recreational activities I’d imagined, implicit was the notion that our world, or at least our country, would remain pretty much functionally as it was then. It was not lost on me that thirty years would be a long time in today’s world but I figured....”surely we can manage that before the wheels come off”. Both of my older brothers laughed. I’m six or seven years into that planning budget and if I was now in a galactic poker game, somewhere on a planet far, far away, and the bet was whether or not the Earth would be essentially as functional and livable (for US) as it is today (thermometer on our deck, in the shade, in the woods, reading 98°, and for Tally Town at the worst of summer (August) that is seriously fucking hot) I’d fold and walk away from the table.

We have folks, so-called Christians, who have been working diligently for over half a century to maintain their social/cultural and economic primacy (imagined or otherwise), pushing us back into a modern dark age; and if that weren’t dismal enough, which it surely ought to be, we are demolishing this planet’s ability to sustain the sorts of life and environment that make our lives possible.

That has got to be the definition of complete and utter insanity.


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

[jimcav]

my wife is angry
I'm sad. The last several years make me question my decision to wear a uniform for 28 years.

I'm hoping the 20-25% of us that don't bother to/can't vote are now motivated about this, and the future of many other rights that exist under the due process/privacy umbrella, to now vote. That is assuming they can get the requisite voter ID cards and can spend hours in line to vote...

[bcm119]

Getting up for work this morning, I felt like one of those clowns in the memes. I live in this country? If only the bullhorns on the left had focused on defeating Trump instead of the DNC in 2016.

[j44ke]

Here comes the evangelical theocracy.

[echappist]

Here comes the evangelical theocracy.

Evangelical, oligarchic, theocracy

Though shrouded from view in certain parts of the country, that religious fundamentalist streak has always been present in this nation, tracing its roots back to the Pilgrims and the likes of Jonathan Edwards. The ascension of the religious fundamentalist set in the past few decades is largely aided by the alliance with those who chafe at regulation and taxation (e.g. people like Thiel and the Kochs). The latter throw a few bones to the former in the form of "greater religious latitude", and the former are all too happy to absolve and champion the latter.

A venal and cynical alliance it may be, but one that has exploited the drawbacks of the Constitution to full advantage.

[beeatnik]

How do you reconcile that view with the religious and academic influence of American Conservative Catholicism on the Court. This movement is the intellectual manifestation of the Other American Establishment. Affluent, powerful, “silent” and in control of influential mainstream institutions with more quotidian importance than the parish church. Go Zags! “God, Country, Notre Dame”

[Bob Ross]

𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄 𝐛𝐲 𝐍𝐢𝐤𝐢𝐭𝐚 𝐆𝐢𝐥𝐥

𝑅𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑜
𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢,
𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘
𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠,
𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠
𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑒.

𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛
𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛,
𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑙𝑓,
𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟
𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢
𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚
𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒
𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑘𝑖𝑛
𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛.

[j44ke]

How do you reconcile that view with the religious and academic influence of American Conservative Catholicism on the Court. This movement is the intellectual manifestation of the Other American Establishment. Affluent, powerful, “silent” and in control of influential mainstream institutions with more quotidian importance than the parish church. Go Zags! “God, Country, Notre Dame”

Good point.

They are mostly split between Yale and Harvard except for the one Notre Dame alum.

Believers in an angry god.

[echappist]

Also, if anything, the optics of this is a lot worse. The leaked draft was at 5-4. This is 6-3, with a mealy-mouthed chiding meted out by Roberts.

Should remove all doubt as to whether Roberts is a “moderate”, and I have to say that he isn’t as much the institutionist that I expected.

Looks like @j44ke’s take on the leak was the most prescient.

[Chik]

Interesting times. A bit difficult to wrap my head around all this.

I'm not an American and don't live in the US any more, but whether the US thrives or not as a society is not a small concern to me when it is still the largest economy in the world.

[robin3mj]

Interesting times. A bit difficult to wrap my head around all this.

I'm not an American and don't live in the US any more, but whether the US thrives or not as a society is not a small concern to me when it is still the largest economy in the world.

Great point. I have two young daughters and live in a blue (for now state), and the number of places I’d be comfortable them going to college is about to shrink drastically. We have international options (UK and Ireland) that have been on the table, but the US as a semi functioning democracy is a big backstop of our retirement and college savings, so it’s not as simple as peacing out.

[Mark Kelly]

Well at least we'll have a chance to find out whether Levitt and Donohue were right: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abo...ime-revisited/

[Chik]

Great point. I have two young daughters and live in a blue (for now state), and the number of places I’d be comfortable them going to college is about to shrink drastically. We have international options (UK and Ireland) that have been on the table, but the US as a semi functioning democracy is a big backstop of our retirement and college savings, so it’s not as simple as peacing out.

The UK is imploding, and I don't think we've seen the worst yet. Therefore, I think you'll have to narrow down your alternative options to just Eire, unless, of course, the island is consumed by secular violence, which isn't entirely inconceivable, thanks to what BoJo's crew seems to be contemplating. Hopefully, you won't have to seriously consider exiting the US.

[j44ke]

The thing that strikes me every time I read some of the majority's decision is the anger. Not only are they "correcting" what they considered a bad decision overstepping the demarcation between the judiciary and the legislative branches, but the tone is remonstrative to those who disagree - as if everyone needed a good dressing down for gorging on individual rights-based decisions. Very curious. I keep coming back to that Franco quote about the law needing to obey god's will and not man's desire to be free. But perhaps that's beeatnik's

religious and academic influence of American Conservative Catholicism on the Court. This movement is the intellectual manifestation of the Other American Establishment. Affluent, powerful, “silent” and in control of influential mainstream institutions with more quotidian importance than the parish church.

I just have the feeling that this is a bad direction for the Supreme Court to go and will not end well for the image of the court as a stalwart presence in the government. It has been redirected away from being a guardian angel for justice and reduced to a civil servant whose answer to demands on what many would view as the elemental aspects of its role will now be "not my job."

[monadnocky]

Susan Collins is VERY concerned.

[jclay]

How the Christian right took over the judiciary and changed America.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-right-america

[jimcav]

there is no apparent consequence to mendacity.

I've only seen excerpts of the opinion, but, it reminds me of some attempts at serious debates with classmates in hyper-conservative Indiana as a teen. It shouldn't really be inherent to being religious, but I often found the most disconcerting thing about those of severe faith was they had concomitant severe righteousness, and no sense of shame about the harm they did others.

This was in the setting of subtle racism and not-at-all subtle anti-gay harassment of some fellow HS students, and something I tried to talk to them about from the perspective of kindness and inclusion. At best some of my discussions were calm, if not truly respectful, but sadly in every case, they were unreceptive and dismissive because their fallback was an interpretation of gospel that allowed them to view others as lesser and without the 'right' to decide how to be/act, because, well it simply wasn't "right".