Well, it turns out I am definitely glad I took all those political science Constitutional Law classes in my “interdisciplinary social sciences” Bachelor’s Degree.
This is part and parcel of the monied elites’ fear of the common man. The radical right wants everyone who is “beneath” them to be policed into submission to leave only a pool of compliant economic resources on two legs. It’s a pernicious habit of mind, born of the slavers from before the founding of the Republic, and persisting among those who think they are born to be in control.
The only hope of restoring meaningful Constitutional rights is the elimination of the filibuster in the Senate. The sensible remedies for Constitutional violations established by the Court in the 1960’s could all be carried into effect through amendments to Title 18 of the U.S. Code and to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Such amendments are impossible in a Senste where the minority controls the majority. Time is running out.
Make DC a state and get RID of the Electoral College. The Constitution is what the founders could cobble together that enough men would agree to pass. Moneyed men, for the most part. Currently, the Constitution is not holding up well. The flaws are becoming evermore apparent.
D.C. AND Puerto Rico...that is if they still want to be part of this messed up country, ruled by a minority dominated by the reactionary farts of the fascist radical right.
TC, not being a legal scholar, forgive my ignorance. In seeing his use of "prophylactic" so often, it appears to me he is cherry picking case law and just trashing any he doesn't like. If this is the case and next he goes after Congressional authority as "prophylactic" as well, is he basically saying that nothing matters except for his own interpretation of what is "original" to the Constitution? Is he dismissing case law and legislation that has occurred over the past 200 years?
Make no mistake. This court is out to HURT people, intentionally. Alito and Thomas want to take the country back to 1930. People were hurting in the Depression; families were losing farms, livelihoods, property. People were literally starving, but the wealthy did not care and neither did Congress. These men are sadistic, and the little “justices” Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and little Amy just vote how they are told. Roberts has become somewhat superfluous. They mean to hurt people by shoving their personal, religious opinions on the country. They are fine with women and girls dying. How else can the situation be construed since they knowingly gave the go ahead to states which have no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the the mother? Alito is just as monstrous as Roger B. Taney.
The difference between originalism (or “original public meaning”—a verbal legerdemain to get past the seance of calling upon the Founders to convey their intent to us), and any other means of interpreting the Constitution is that with originalism you always know what the result will be. Or as historian Joseph P. Ellis said, “The great sin of the originalists is not to harbor a political agenda but to claim they do not, and to base that claim on a level of historical understanding they demonstrably do not possess.”
So let me get this straight. Clarence and Sam go and tell John to f*ck off with “control” of “his” court and hijack control. They then proceed to fill in rest of June with some shit of their own. So their clerks explain an erroneous meaning of Bowie’s words “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am” to them and they proceed to screw over half the population of the United States all the while randomly shouting “Gilead”. They also screw gun safety advocates’ years of efforts by arming more citizens especially if they are white and crazy and in NYC. Then they send corporations on a drunken summer binge break to anticipate the end of regulation and the planet imploding. Ummm, what else. Oh yes, they are seen tickling Betty DeVos’s feet, who is busy lunching with Ginni and discussing Amway, profusely thanking her for trashing public education and getting classical education private schools ready for lots of money and the promise of un-separating church and state by making prayer the mortar between the bricks in public institutions. And then, with just a few minutes to spare they go online to “Call a Bishop” and get 6 new red robes and clan like hats for the group picture of of the InJustices to have in every courtroom in the land. And, oooo, almost forgot because no one I know except TC heard that Clarence and Sambo treated Miranda to a dutch date but ditched her after liking each other better.
Just who in the heck put them in charge? Some of that stuff sounds like a bad originalist fable that left out modern amendments.
I’ll be golly danged. Sammy and Clarence thought we were in ‘da bed sleeping. But we were woke. Time to revoke their licenses. Law, fishing, drivers, whatever. Revoke and repeal the pernicious shit out of them, do not pass by the woodshed without stopping, unpack their treason and get 5 more justices on the court. Cancel culture at work.
Who put them in charge? 33,000 Berners in Michigan and Wisconsin, who couldn't bring themselves to harm their "political purity" by voting for "that woman." Trump's margin of victory in Michigan and Wisconsin was less than the number of write-in votes for Bernie in those states, despite Bernie pleading with his followers not to do that. They had to "vote my conscience." "And besides," they said, "the Supreme Court doesn't matter!" Or as Susan Sarandon put it, "A Trump victory will speed the revolution."
Time to disable the “hands free steering” on the clown car, throw out right AND left extremists and vote in a massive wave to right the ship and steady the wings. We know how to do this. No wringing of hands or sitting on them. And no more dumbsh*t slogans.
I've always thought it was almost FUNNY (nah, fuck it...it IS funny in the way that somebody slipping on a banana peel, falling and giving himself a lethal head wound is funny to SOME people) that people who think of themselves in old-time "pure" Leftie terms still use that tired old (and it's every bit as old as Leninism) shtick of encouraging people to vote for the fascist and hasten the inevitable revolutionary process. it's a more-or-less decent "theory," but only for people who have no knowledge or understanding of modern history; when has it ever "worked?" it has never worked. vote for the fascist and you get fascism. vote for the assholes and you get asshole government. on that level, it's actually pretty simple. this is what asshole government looks like. this is the world in which a group of people who just might be the most isolated group in existence get to sit around pretty much in secret and decide which laws they do or do not like. what I think is becoming increasingly inevitable is that some very drastic changes need to be made, and not just in the realm of "theory." the Roberts Court is going to go down as one of the worst in our history. Roberts knows it. I have no idea what he can do about it, if anything. and let's also remember that Roberts himself was very much on board for some of the worst (and most consequential) decisions since they wrote the not-so-divinely-inspired Constitution. I probably shouldn't mention this so frequently, but it's just soooo galling.
The difference between originalism (or “original public meaning”—a verbal legerdemain to get past the seance of calling upon the Founders to convey their intent to us), and any other means of interpreting the Constitution is that with originalism you always know what the result will be. Or as historian Joseph P. Ellis said, “The great sin of the originalists is not to harbor a political agenda but to claim they do not, and to base that claim on a level of historical understanding they demonstrably do not possess.”
If you haven’t seen this speech from Sheldon Whitehouse about dark money buying the Supreme Court it’s worth watching. The disbanding of the EPA is next also
No doubt! And now our taxes will be paying for private religious schools based on their recent ruling. And public education will be circling the drain as funding is decreased and more books are banned
In your last paragraph, are you referring to the Supreme Court ruling on the non-delegation doctrine earlier this month? That is the one that could strip many government agencies of their regulations, their authority, their means of doing business.
thanks for this excellent homework, Tom. it's important because most of us don't even have the inclination to pay attention to these decisions that tend not to make it to the front page, but which are just as (if not more than) frighteningly far-reaching than the decisions that make the "front page" (or get any real attention) in what I think it's fair to call "mainstream media" (a term I've always resisted using for a variety of reasons, one of the main ones being that it means precisely--and only--what its user intends for it to mean). things like whittling away decisions like Miranda and Gideon (Henry Fonda PLAYED Gideon, for godsake) are every bit as consequential as decisions about guns or abortions (which--at least now--states can still pass laws about). the decisions you're talking about are very precisely aimed at undoing what are seen as the excesses of the Warren Court, and it's been occurring to me that, for those of us who had a chance to observe that Court's actions while they were happening, one undesirable effect might have been a tendency to take them for granted. it never felt like there was a reason to do so, since I personally never met anyone who had problems with any of those important decisions, which attempted to even the balance when individuals encountered the legal system. the problem with my last statement is undoubtedly that I've never lived for any extended period outside of New York City. now, THAT last sentence feels like a punch line. punch lines occur when you least expect them.
you always quote Hofstadter to superb effect. increasingly, it feels like his writings in "The Paranoid Style..." volume need to engraved in granite wherever there's space. would it be so terrible if every potential voter was required to read "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life?" of course nothing should but done before they bring back those Civics courses. during the time I worked in a Junior High School, I'd keep telling kids to ignore most of the bullshit they were fed by the Hucksters and spend a few days learning stuff like "How a Bill Becomes Law" because JHS was going to be the last time they have time to get some kind of handle on how "checks and balances" were INTENDED to work and maybe try to make a dent in this "divine inspiration" theory of What the Constitutional Convention Was All About. people outta know how and why it's so fucking pathetic to compare Roe with Plessy in the increasingly large realm of Vile Supreme Court Decisions. time to stop....I got too worked up.
I follow The Daily Maverick of South Africa, where ''STATE CAPTURE' is on every other headline. Seems it could be an appropriate term for what's happening in the US as well.
This is part and parcel of the monied elites’ fear of the common man. The radical right wants everyone who is “beneath” them to be policed into submission to leave only a pool of compliant economic resources on two legs. It’s a pernicious habit of mind, born of the slavers from before the founding of the Republic, and persisting among those who think they are born to be in control.
The only hope of restoring meaningful Constitutional rights is the elimination of the filibuster in the Senate. The sensible remedies for Constitutional violations established by the Court in the 1960’s could all be carried into effect through amendments to Title 18 of the U.S. Code and to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Such amendments are impossible in a Senste where the minority controls the majority. Time is running out.
Please make DC a state as well and reform the Electoral College.
Make DC a state and get RID of the Electoral College. The Constitution is what the founders could cobble together that enough men would agree to pass. Moneyed men, for the most part. Currently, the Constitution is not holding up well. The flaws are becoming evermore apparent.
D.C. AND Puerto Rico...that is if they still want to be part of this messed up country, ruled by a minority dominated by the reactionary farts of the fascist radical right.
Given that their membership might "tilt the playing field" back to level, they might be interested.
TC, not being a legal scholar, forgive my ignorance. In seeing his use of "prophylactic" so often, it appears to me he is cherry picking case law and just trashing any he doesn't like. If this is the case and next he goes after Congressional authority as "prophylactic" as well, is he basically saying that nothing matters except for his own interpretation of what is "original" to the Constitution? Is he dismissing case law and legislation that has occurred over the past 200 years?
You just "passed the bar." He "cherrypicked" the way he "cherrypicked" history for Abortion and the way Thomas "Cherrypicked" for abortion and guns.
Apropos of your point:
https://apple.news/ATFpdzbGJQayCesB06mtzOw
Thanks for this - solid material for research on the issue of "cherrypicking history" I am working on.
Make no mistake. This court is out to HURT people, intentionally. Alito and Thomas want to take the country back to 1930. People were hurting in the Depression; families were losing farms, livelihoods, property. People were literally starving, but the wealthy did not care and neither did Congress. These men are sadistic, and the little “justices” Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and little Amy just vote how they are told. Roberts has become somewhat superfluous. They mean to hurt people by shoving their personal, religious opinions on the country. They are fine with women and girls dying. How else can the situation be construed since they knowingly gave the go ahead to states which have no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the the mother? Alito is just as monstrous as Roger B. Taney.
The difference between originalism (or “original public meaning”—a verbal legerdemain to get past the seance of calling upon the Founders to convey their intent to us), and any other means of interpreting the Constitution is that with originalism you always know what the result will be. Or as historian Joseph P. Ellis said, “The great sin of the originalists is not to harbor a political agenda but to claim they do not, and to base that claim on a level of historical understanding they demonstrably do not possess.”
I just heard about this today.
WTF?
Jan 6 hearings paused until July.
So let me get this straight. Clarence and Sam go and tell John to f*ck off with “control” of “his” court and hijack control. They then proceed to fill in rest of June with some shit of their own. So their clerks explain an erroneous meaning of Bowie’s words “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am” to them and they proceed to screw over half the population of the United States all the while randomly shouting “Gilead”. They also screw gun safety advocates’ years of efforts by arming more citizens especially if they are white and crazy and in NYC. Then they send corporations on a drunken summer binge break to anticipate the end of regulation and the planet imploding. Ummm, what else. Oh yes, they are seen tickling Betty DeVos’s feet, who is busy lunching with Ginni and discussing Amway, profusely thanking her for trashing public education and getting classical education private schools ready for lots of money and the promise of un-separating church and state by making prayer the mortar between the bricks in public institutions. And then, with just a few minutes to spare they go online to “Call a Bishop” and get 6 new red robes and clan like hats for the group picture of of the InJustices to have in every courtroom in the land. And, oooo, almost forgot because no one I know except TC heard that Clarence and Sambo treated Miranda to a dutch date but ditched her after liking each other better.
Just who in the heck put them in charge? Some of that stuff sounds like a bad originalist fable that left out modern amendments.
I’ll be golly danged. Sammy and Clarence thought we were in ‘da bed sleeping. But we were woke. Time to revoke their licenses. Law, fishing, drivers, whatever. Revoke and repeal the pernicious shit out of them, do not pass by the woodshed without stopping, unpack their treason and get 5 more justices on the court. Cancel culture at work.
Salud! 🙋🏻🙋🏼🙋🏽🙋🏾🙋🏿🙅🏻♂️🙅🏼♂️🙅🏽♂️🙅🏾♂️🙅🏿♂️
Who put them in charge? 33,000 Berners in Michigan and Wisconsin, who couldn't bring themselves to harm their "political purity" by voting for "that woman." Trump's margin of victory in Michigan and Wisconsin was less than the number of write-in votes for Bernie in those states, despite Bernie pleading with his followers not to do that. They had to "vote my conscience." "And besides," they said, "the Supreme Court doesn't matter!" Or as Susan Sarandon put it, "A Trump victory will speed the revolution."
Fucking lefty morons.
Time to disable the “hands free steering” on the clown car, throw out right AND left extremists and vote in a massive wave to right the ship and steady the wings. We know how to do this. No wringing of hands or sitting on them. And no more dumbsh*t slogans.
Salud, TC. Keep sizzlin’. We need you.
I've always thought it was almost FUNNY (nah, fuck it...it IS funny in the way that somebody slipping on a banana peel, falling and giving himself a lethal head wound is funny to SOME people) that people who think of themselves in old-time "pure" Leftie terms still use that tired old (and it's every bit as old as Leninism) shtick of encouraging people to vote for the fascist and hasten the inevitable revolutionary process. it's a more-or-less decent "theory," but only for people who have no knowledge or understanding of modern history; when has it ever "worked?" it has never worked. vote for the fascist and you get fascism. vote for the assholes and you get asshole government. on that level, it's actually pretty simple. this is what asshole government looks like. this is the world in which a group of people who just might be the most isolated group in existence get to sit around pretty much in secret and decide which laws they do or do not like. what I think is becoming increasingly inevitable is that some very drastic changes need to be made, and not just in the realm of "theory." the Roberts Court is going to go down as one of the worst in our history. Roberts knows it. I have no idea what he can do about it, if anything. and let's also remember that Roberts himself was very much on board for some of the worst (and most consequential) decisions since they wrote the not-so-divinely-inspired Constitution. I probably shouldn't mention this so frequently, but it's just soooo galling.
I love you Christine! Salude!
Unita!
The difference between originalism (or “original public meaning”—a verbal legerdemain to get past the seance of calling upon the Founders to convey their intent to us), and any other means of interpreting the Constitution is that with originalism you always know what the result will be. Or as historian Joseph P. Ellis said, “The great sin of the originalists is not to harbor a political agenda but to claim they do not, and to base that claim on a level of historical understanding they demonstrably do not possess.”
If you haven’t seen this speech from Sheldon Whitehouse about dark money buying the Supreme Court it’s worth watching. The disbanding of the EPA is next also
https://youtu.be/GssrgNfuZwU
Yup. Then Public Education, health care, SEC, and so on
No doubt! And now our taxes will be paying for private religious schools based on their recent ruling. And public education will be circling the drain as funding is decreased and more books are banned
I Liked this but hate what you revealed to us.
I know *exactly* what you mean.
Holy crap!
I would like to know who is clerking for Clarence Thomas. ..........
These are his clerks for this session…beginning October 2021.
Justice Clarence Thomas:
Christopher Goodnow
Steven Lindsay
Michael Proctor
Jose Valle
Glad no young women are clerking for the old pervert.
Thank you, Christine.
Nice. They need to be ostracized, ridiculed. Kharma’s coming for them.
I'm glad you took those Constitutional Law classes too! And that you remember what was taught. Thanks.
In your last paragraph, are you referring to the Supreme Court ruling on the non-delegation doctrine earlier this month? That is the one that could strip many government agencies of their regulations, their authority, their means of doing business.
A WaPo article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/29/supreme-court-just-took-case-epas-authority-its-decision-could-undo-most-major-federal-laws/#:~:text=The%20nondelegation%20doctrine%20was%20an,about%20what%20actions%20to%20take.
Blue states ignore supreme rulings while red states take full advantage. Will that be a union divided?
Is divided. “And a house divided….
thanks for this excellent homework, Tom. it's important because most of us don't even have the inclination to pay attention to these decisions that tend not to make it to the front page, but which are just as (if not more than) frighteningly far-reaching than the decisions that make the "front page" (or get any real attention) in what I think it's fair to call "mainstream media" (a term I've always resisted using for a variety of reasons, one of the main ones being that it means precisely--and only--what its user intends for it to mean). things like whittling away decisions like Miranda and Gideon (Henry Fonda PLAYED Gideon, for godsake) are every bit as consequential as decisions about guns or abortions (which--at least now--states can still pass laws about). the decisions you're talking about are very precisely aimed at undoing what are seen as the excesses of the Warren Court, and it's been occurring to me that, for those of us who had a chance to observe that Court's actions while they were happening, one undesirable effect might have been a tendency to take them for granted. it never felt like there was a reason to do so, since I personally never met anyone who had problems with any of those important decisions, which attempted to even the balance when individuals encountered the legal system. the problem with my last statement is undoubtedly that I've never lived for any extended period outside of New York City. now, THAT last sentence feels like a punch line. punch lines occur when you least expect them.
you always quote Hofstadter to superb effect. increasingly, it feels like his writings in "The Paranoid Style..." volume need to engraved in granite wherever there's space. would it be so terrible if every potential voter was required to read "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life?" of course nothing should but done before they bring back those Civics courses. during the time I worked in a Junior High School, I'd keep telling kids to ignore most of the bullshit they were fed by the Hucksters and spend a few days learning stuff like "How a Bill Becomes Law" because JHS was going to be the last time they have time to get some kind of handle on how "checks and balances" were INTENDED to work and maybe try to make a dent in this "divine inspiration" theory of What the Constitutional Convention Was All About. people outta know how and why it's so fucking pathetic to compare Roe with Plessy in the increasingly large realm of Vile Supreme Court Decisions. time to stop....I got too worked up.
I just fell out. You have to listen to this. It’s Leigh McGowan, Politics Girl.
She closes with best line ever. It’s one of her 2-3 min rants.
https://youtu.be/nZ5fZq2Rvw8
I follow The Daily Maverick of South Africa, where ''STATE CAPTURE' is on every other headline. Seems it could be an appropriate term for what's happening in the US as well.