Though Roberts gave the perfect response to someone he doesn’t know in a public setting, I have doubts about his sincerity. Look at his refusal to enforce any sort of ethics rules or at minimum ask Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves from the presidential immunity case.
How are Supreme Court Justices with the kinds of ethical breaches like Alito & Thomas allowed to continue to sit! How? Justice has her eyes wide open and she sees these two! They are unfit to pronounce on any case before SCOTUS. They are bought and biased. It is shameful.
Or, Steve, considering her husband’s Dobbs ruling’s brazen, rebarbative disrespect for the First Amendment right of religious freedom of mainstream Jewish women to practice their religious belief, according to Judaic law, that abortion is morally justifiable at any point during pregnancy, since that religious law deems a fetus to be a human person only when ensouled at birth! A shonda, shonda, shonda on you, Samuel Alito for your devil-take-the-hindmost, Christian theocratic antisemitism.
As a Jew, I have cited our views on abortion precisely as you have stated. Any Jewish woman could bring a lawsuit against her state for violating her right to religious beliefs. Why aren’t Jewish lawmakers making this point?
Not only should Jewish lawmakers, religious authorities and academic experts also explain and defend the true meaning of the First Amendment’s meaning in theory and practice and how the Alito-driven ruling directly violates that protection, but non-Jews should do so on these grounds as well. When anyone’s freedom of religion is violated, everyone else’s ultimately is also abrogated, including the right to non-belief.
I am so utterly appalled at the politicization of justice in the US. Appointment processes, life tenures, and lack of oversight mechanisms in the US judiciary have made a mockery of the "checks and balances" that are supposed to come from the separation of the three branches of government. Add into that the utter lack of personal integrity, moral compass and civil courage of individual appointees and the whole "shining city on the hill" is turning into a house of cards before our very eyes.
Although I don't approve at all of Lauren's methods (the same level of deceit as Veritas), listening to her conversation with Madame Alito certainly showed up Madame as a nasty, vapid piece of work.
I do not understand why the justices are able to refuse to be questioned by congress. Members of the executive branch cannot refuse to, what makes them different?
“The US Supreme Court has been lit on fire by the arson of its MAGA justices. They have been radicalized into political foot soldiers who wear judicial robes, while shredding the US Constitution with a vile activism that affronts the commitments made by their testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee…..Chief Justice Roberts must act.”
All true Steve, yet after speaking to a friend who is a constitutional lawyer, he told me Robert’s has no power to act against Alito, or any other judges, except to assign them mundane opinions to write, instead of the really important cases.
Not that it really matters since Robert’s has proven himself to be almost as corrupt as Alito and Thomas.
Both Alito and Thomas have shown liberals nothing but disdain since they’ve been confirmed as justices. Both also have the dubious honor of taking millions in bribes from unscrupulous, religious billionaires with business before the court, and not disclosing those conflicts of interests on their financial disclosure filings.
Robert’s wife has made more than ten million in commissions placing SC law clerks with white collar law firms that argue cases before the court. Also, not disclosing Robert’s wife’s conflict of interests with the court, or on his financial disclosure forms.
Then there is Kavanaugh, who lied before Congress when working for Bush, and also had more than $600k in debt mysteriously wiped away after he too, was confirmed as a Justice.
When you say the this court has been lit on fire by these MAGA jurists, I think you’re just scratching the surface. These people have always had a nefarious agenda, and they’ve become emboldened by MAGA, so they don’t even hide their partisanship, disdain for the the law, constitution, liberals, or care whatsoever.
We need people to understand that presidents come and go; they’re essentially renters in DC. However, SC jurists are like a really bad case of herpes; they stay with you forever, and have a very profound effect on your life. Nothing good of course….:)
I know I have made this comment before but… Chief Justice Roberts is nothing more than a playground monitor without a whistle. He stands back and observes but fails to take charge. Unless you pack the court now… we will have at least 20 years of an illegitimate corrupt court. The alternative is to legislate term limits, age ceiling, and especially ethics criteria with fines, automatic refusals and impeachment.
I understand where you're coming from, but packing the court isn't the panacea you'd think. Biden would have to add 4 (and he has repeatedly said he won't pack it) to get a 7-6 majority. Then, hate saying this but it's possible, TFG wins in November and adds 2 more for a total of 15 justices. When the hell does that stop? We add two every time the party of the POTUS changes? Ridiculously ineffective. Slippery slopes are rarely a good idea. I'd say "never", but want to allow a little wiggle room for some instance I'm not thinking of.
You are absolutely right under normal circumstances but we are on the brink of losing our democracy. Currently the court makeup accelerates that problem. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Packing the court now gives us time to hold back the tide of authoritarianism till that tide recedes. Then you ca legislate against further packing . At that point legislate term limit, age ceiling, impeachment for corruption and so on.
I agree these are desperate times. I just don't agree that packing the court solves the problem. It will permanently politicize the court. And how do you seriously propose "packing the court"? That requires Congress, not an executive order. Do you honestly believe that would happen in today's Congress? And if you want to guarantee people exiting from voting for Biden or just not voting, packing the court will do that. You achieve nothing but likely handing the election to TFG, ruining the court for generations (certainly beyond our lifetimes), and making the current situation worse. Term limits will require a change to the Constitution, so good luck getting 2/3s of the states to ratify that. Yes, all of these things are desirable and from a certain perspective, necessary. I just don't believe it achieves what you think it will, so it then becomes a distraction and a waste of time. Focus on supporting anti-MAGA candidates up and down the ballot, starting at the top of the ticket.
Trying to do the proper thing has not helped Biden either. A majority of even democrats don’t really want Biden again. The DNC again created this scenario like with Hillary. Trump should be easy to beat but one of the weakest perceived candidates is running against him. A younger , moderate would be killing Trump as the polls. DNC doesn’t even have a plan B. This is a savage fight for democracy and being polite won’t work any more. People want to see Biden fight back.
Again, we agree on where we ultimately need to be. I've been complaining about Biden pulling an RBG on the entire democratic party and voters. No way TFG should be close for reasons that would run off the page that honestly, you and I as well as all readers here are aware of. Fighting back is 100% necessary, but a focus on SCOTUS now would be a Sisyphean task that won't work right now. That's all I'm trying to say. Thanks again for the dialogue and your insight. I appreciate you.
They aren’t achievable now. Certainly if Trump wins, it won’t matter. Doing nothing will not help Biden either. The current court will ratify the roll purges coming and the decertification of election results at the state level and the use of goons at the polling places and prevent the federal trials from occurring. Gee, no decision on the total immunity case? No accountability for Judge Cannon’s nonsense?
Thank you for your response, Eric. We agree on what needs to be done and I agree on the issues you've cited as examples. To me, now is not the time because none of this will happen before the election, even though I wish the hell it could.
Edited to add: Even if everything proposed was done today, the cases from the current SCOTUS term have been heard. The decision to the ridiculous immunity claims by TFG will likely be announced the last day of the current term, and then no new cases until October. That's why changes now mean nothing. And finally, there is no mechanism in place that could allow Roberts to force Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. Even if they did, it would still be a 4 - 3 conservative majority. With the exception of packing the court, I want all of these things you suggest - as well as suggestions from other commentors. It won't change anything to affect the November elections and the litigation we know will follow if TFG loses.
Not positive this is wholly accurate, so take it with a huge grain of salt. But one poster on bluesky mentioned he dug into Martha-Ann Alito's family background. Her family doesn't come from Germany at all, according to his research. She was born there to an American family, then returned to live in America when a toddler--much too young to remember anything.
So, if that proves true, why does she so actively identify with Germany? I begin to wonder if she has links to hard right Nazi sympathizers now...we'll see if any other shoes drop. Something smells to high heaven about this couple. I hope the journalists don't stop digging.
Martha-Ann Alito's contempt for homosexuals has no measure against my contempt for people like Martha-Ann. Her husband and Thomas want to reverse the ruling on same-sex marriage, just as they reversed Dobbs. Therein lies the real shame. As a man who "came out" in May 1968, I have become damned sick and tired of certain members of the heterosexist society seeking to impose their "morals" on gays. The fact is, if it were not for all those nosey heteros sticking their collective noses into the business of gays, we would not have to "announce". Oh! How come you are not married (to a woman, of course)?
Alito-style Catholics are cafeteria Catholics, just as evangelicals are cafeteria Christians. Pick and choose the parts of Scripture that one likes and ignore all the rest. Gays should not feel compelled or be compelled to "declare" any more than straights would feel the need to "declare". When a subset of the hetero culture wants to declare us as "not so threatening", we are only 3% of the population. When those heteros want to paint us as threatening, we are suddenly 10% of the population. I have watched this game of chess (or, is that checkers?) play out for many, many years. Let's face it, all that angst comes from people who are insecure about their own sexuality.
The Judicial Conference is headed by the Chief Justice Roberts.
28 USC Sec 341-68 discusses Article III branch judges and the process to investigate complaints within the article III branch.
My belief it is high time to lodge an official complaint and kick off formal USC binding investigations within the true meaning of intent of 28 USC sec 341 with regard to "the administration of the courts" and the bribery (gifts ~$4M) and the ideological impurity to the laws of the Constitution which Alito is undignified against.
No person, incl. SCOTUS, is above the law. Our Constitutional framework requires us to act in holding accountable those that act with self-regard only and with arbitrary, capricious impunity to our laws.
Lauren Windsor deserves a Person of the Year Award for her courageous and brilliant unmasking and disrobing of Samuel Alito and his partner in Christian theocratic crusading crime against democratic freedom, the Nazi German-prideful wife Martha-Ann. By dint of explaining her expose on national television and social media, Lauren risks her own personal safety and demonstrates exponentially more cojones than all the gun-fetishizing MAGA nut-jobs who secretly spend their scant intellect and energy as keyboard warriors and vigilante stormtroopers cleaning, polishing and practicing to intimidate, and possibly murder, their fellow Americans when cult Fuhrer Trump dogwhistles the order.
Disagree 100% with her methods. If this was the way the other side was performing "gotcha" moments, and they have over the years, many on our side would be losing their shit. And when it's happened before, we did.
This article made me physically ill. My parents survived Auschwitz and were eternally grateful for the privilege of finding a safe harbor in America. While they were convinced that human nature could not change and were therefore, unable to trust their fellow man . . . they fervently believed in the US Constitution. Without a functional and philosophical commitment to our founding documents . . . our country is now lost. What does one do when the Supreme Court has descended to the laws of the jungle?
Though Roberts gave the perfect response to someone he doesn’t know in a public setting, I have doubts about his sincerity. Look at his refusal to enforce any sort of ethics rules or at minimum ask Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves from the presidential immunity case.
Americans should be saying Vergogna to trumpians.
Yes, Roberts is savvy enough to know what not to say publicly when such questions are proffered. His sincerity is another matter entirely.
Exactly
Playing to one's audience comes to mind.
How are Supreme Court Justices with the kinds of ethical breaches like Alito & Thomas allowed to continue to sit! How? Justice has her eyes wide open and she sees these two! They are unfit to pronounce on any case before SCOTUS. They are bought and biased. It is shameful.
They have no shame and are deep in the pockets of The Federalist Society.
Or, Steve, considering her husband’s Dobbs ruling’s brazen, rebarbative disrespect for the First Amendment right of religious freedom of mainstream Jewish women to practice their religious belief, according to Judaic law, that abortion is morally justifiable at any point during pregnancy, since that religious law deems a fetus to be a human person only when ensouled at birth! A shonda, shonda, shonda on you, Samuel Alito for your devil-take-the-hindmost, Christian theocratic antisemitism.
As a Jew, I have cited our views on abortion precisely as you have stated. Any Jewish woman could bring a lawsuit against her state for violating her right to religious beliefs. Why aren’t Jewish lawmakers making this point?
Not only should Jewish lawmakers, religious authorities and academic experts also explain and defend the true meaning of the First Amendment’s meaning in theory and practice and how the Alito-driven ruling directly violates that protection, but non-Jews should do so on these grounds as well. When anyone’s freedom of religion is violated, everyone else’s ultimately is also abrogated, including the right to non-belief.
"A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
--- MLK Jr.
I know some of the Jewish women who brought this lawsuit in Kentucky. Unfortunately, the district court is taking it's time to hear the case.
Our justice system, in some states, is broken. Kentucky seems to be one of them.
I am so utterly appalled at the politicization of justice in the US. Appointment processes, life tenures, and lack of oversight mechanisms in the US judiciary have made a mockery of the "checks and balances" that are supposed to come from the separation of the three branches of government. Add into that the utter lack of personal integrity, moral compass and civil courage of individual appointees and the whole "shining city on the hill" is turning into a house of cards before our very eyes.
Although I don't approve at all of Lauren's methods (the same level of deceit as Veritas), listening to her conversation with Madame Alito certainly showed up Madame as a nasty, vapid piece of work.
But, she taped me without my permission, so you can't use it, even if it's true.
There's something wrong when most of the conservative scouts lied to get their appointment.
DC is a "one-party consent" jurisdiction!
Thank you. I did not know that.
I do not understand why the justices are able to refuse to be questioned by congress. Members of the executive branch cannot refuse to, what makes them different?
“The US Supreme Court has been lit on fire by the arson of its MAGA justices. They have been radicalized into political foot soldiers who wear judicial robes, while shredding the US Constitution with a vile activism that affronts the commitments made by their testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee…..Chief Justice Roberts must act.”
All true Steve, yet after speaking to a friend who is a constitutional lawyer, he told me Robert’s has no power to act against Alito, or any other judges, except to assign them mundane opinions to write, instead of the really important cases.
Not that it really matters since Robert’s has proven himself to be almost as corrupt as Alito and Thomas.
Both Alito and Thomas have shown liberals nothing but disdain since they’ve been confirmed as justices. Both also have the dubious honor of taking millions in bribes from unscrupulous, religious billionaires with business before the court, and not disclosing those conflicts of interests on their financial disclosure filings.
Robert’s wife has made more than ten million in commissions placing SC law clerks with white collar law firms that argue cases before the court. Also, not disclosing Robert’s wife’s conflict of interests with the court, or on his financial disclosure forms.
Then there is Kavanaugh, who lied before Congress when working for Bush, and also had more than $600k in debt mysteriously wiped away after he too, was confirmed as a Justice.
When you say the this court has been lit on fire by these MAGA jurists, I think you’re just scratching the surface. These people have always had a nefarious agenda, and they’ve become emboldened by MAGA, so they don’t even hide their partisanship, disdain for the the law, constitution, liberals, or care whatsoever.
We need people to understand that presidents come and go; they’re essentially renters in DC. However, SC jurists are like a really bad case of herpes; they stay with you forever, and have a very profound effect on your life. Nothing good of course….:)
I know I have made this comment before but… Chief Justice Roberts is nothing more than a playground monitor without a whistle. He stands back and observes but fails to take charge. Unless you pack the court now… we will have at least 20 years of an illegitimate corrupt court. The alternative is to legislate term limits, age ceiling, and especially ethics criteria with fines, automatic refusals and impeachment.
Automatic recusals
I understand where you're coming from, but packing the court isn't the panacea you'd think. Biden would have to add 4 (and he has repeatedly said he won't pack it) to get a 7-6 majority. Then, hate saying this but it's possible, TFG wins in November and adds 2 more for a total of 15 justices. When the hell does that stop? We add two every time the party of the POTUS changes? Ridiculously ineffective. Slippery slopes are rarely a good idea. I'd say "never", but want to allow a little wiggle room for some instance I'm not thinking of.
You are absolutely right under normal circumstances but we are on the brink of losing our democracy. Currently the court makeup accelerates that problem. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Packing the court now gives us time to hold back the tide of authoritarianism till that tide recedes. Then you ca legislate against further packing . At that point legislate term limit, age ceiling, impeachment for corruption and so on.
I agree these are desperate times. I just don't agree that packing the court solves the problem. It will permanently politicize the court. And how do you seriously propose "packing the court"? That requires Congress, not an executive order. Do you honestly believe that would happen in today's Congress? And if you want to guarantee people exiting from voting for Biden or just not voting, packing the court will do that. You achieve nothing but likely handing the election to TFG, ruining the court for generations (certainly beyond our lifetimes), and making the current situation worse. Term limits will require a change to the Constitution, so good luck getting 2/3s of the states to ratify that. Yes, all of these things are desirable and from a certain perspective, necessary. I just don't believe it achieves what you think it will, so it then becomes a distraction and a waste of time. Focus on supporting anti-MAGA candidates up and down the ballot, starting at the top of the ticket.
Trying to do the proper thing has not helped Biden either. A majority of even democrats don’t really want Biden again. The DNC again created this scenario like with Hillary. Trump should be easy to beat but one of the weakest perceived candidates is running against him. A younger , moderate would be killing Trump as the polls. DNC doesn’t even have a plan B. This is a savage fight for democracy and being polite won’t work any more. People want to see Biden fight back.
Again, we agree on where we ultimately need to be. I've been complaining about Biden pulling an RBG on the entire democratic party and voters. No way TFG should be close for reasons that would run off the page that honestly, you and I as well as all readers here are aware of. Fighting back is 100% necessary, but a focus on SCOTUS now would be a Sisyphean task that won't work right now. That's all I'm trying to say. Thanks again for the dialogue and your insight. I appreciate you.
They aren’t achievable now. Certainly if Trump wins, it won’t matter. Doing nothing will not help Biden either. The current court will ratify the roll purges coming and the decertification of election results at the state level and the use of goons at the polling places and prevent the federal trials from occurring. Gee, no decision on the total immunity case? No accountability for Judge Cannon’s nonsense?
Thank you for your response, Eric. We agree on what needs to be done and I agree on the issues you've cited as examples. To me, now is not the time because none of this will happen before the election, even though I wish the hell it could.
Edited to add: Even if everything proposed was done today, the cases from the current SCOTUS term have been heard. The decision to the ridiculous immunity claims by TFG will likely be announced the last day of the current term, and then no new cases until October. That's why changes now mean nothing. And finally, there is no mechanism in place that could allow Roberts to force Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves. Even if they did, it would still be a 4 - 3 conservative majority. With the exception of packing the court, I want all of these things you suggest - as well as suggestions from other commentors. It won't change anything to affect the November elections and the litigation we know will follow if TFG loses.
Alito is naked in the public square. And he has a small penis.
Rude? Yes, but personally I have had enough of his hubris.
No wonder that he, like Trump, fancies himself carrying a big stick -- or fasces sticks -- fashioned from Jesus’s cross!
Not positive this is wholly accurate, so take it with a huge grain of salt. But one poster on bluesky mentioned he dug into Martha-Ann Alito's family background. Her family doesn't come from Germany at all, according to his research. She was born there to an American family, then returned to live in America when a toddler--much too young to remember anything.
So, if that proves true, why does she so actively identify with Germany? I begin to wonder if she has links to hard right Nazi sympathizers now...we'll see if any other shoes drop. Something smells to high heaven about this couple. I hope the journalists don't stop digging.
Martha-Ann Alito's contempt for homosexuals has no measure against my contempt for people like Martha-Ann. Her husband and Thomas want to reverse the ruling on same-sex marriage, just as they reversed Dobbs. Therein lies the real shame. As a man who "came out" in May 1968, I have become damned sick and tired of certain members of the heterosexist society seeking to impose their "morals" on gays. The fact is, if it were not for all those nosey heteros sticking their collective noses into the business of gays, we would not have to "announce". Oh! How come you are not married (to a woman, of course)?
Alito-style Catholics are cafeteria Catholics, just as evangelicals are cafeteria Christians. Pick and choose the parts of Scripture that one likes and ignore all the rest. Gays should not feel compelled or be compelled to "declare" any more than straights would feel the need to "declare". When a subset of the hetero culture wants to declare us as "not so threatening", we are only 3% of the population. When those heteros want to paint us as threatening, we are suddenly 10% of the population. I have watched this game of chess (or, is that checkers?) play out for many, many years. Let's face it, all that angst comes from people who are insecure about their own sexuality.
SCOTUS needs a code of conduct now! Where’s John Roberts?
He’s MIA. What a weak choice for Chief Justice.
The Judicial Conference is headed by the Chief Justice Roberts.
28 USC Sec 341-68 discusses Article III branch judges and the process to investigate complaints within the article III branch.
My belief it is high time to lodge an official complaint and kick off formal USC binding investigations within the true meaning of intent of 28 USC sec 341 with regard to "the administration of the courts" and the bribery (gifts ~$4M) and the ideological impurity to the laws of the Constitution which Alito is undignified against.
No person, incl. SCOTUS, is above the law. Our Constitutional framework requires us to act in holding accountable those that act with self-regard only and with arbitrary, capricious impunity to our laws.
Lauren Windsor deserves a Person of the Year Award for her courageous and brilliant unmasking and disrobing of Samuel Alito and his partner in Christian theocratic crusading crime against democratic freedom, the Nazi German-prideful wife Martha-Ann. By dint of explaining her expose on national television and social media, Lauren risks her own personal safety and demonstrates exponentially more cojones than all the gun-fetishizing MAGA nut-jobs who secretly spend their scant intellect and energy as keyboard warriors and vigilante stormtroopers cleaning, polishing and practicing to intimidate, and possibly murder, their fellow Americans when cult Fuhrer Trump dogwhistles the order.
Really, she is too brave! I worry for her!
Disagree 100% with her methods. If this was the way the other side was performing "gotcha" moments, and they have over the years, many on our side would be losing their shit. And when it's happened before, we did.
This article made me physically ill. My parents survived Auschwitz and were eternally grateful for the privilege of finding a safe harbor in America. While they were convinced that human nature could not change and were therefore, unable to trust their fellow man . . . they fervently believed in the US Constitution. Without a functional and philosophical commitment to our founding documents . . . our country is now lost. What does one do when the Supreme Court has descended to the laws of the jungle?