Tag: SCOTUS

More SCOTUS BS

The Supreme Court has become a harbor for right wing hacks…..and most of America agrees with me…..there have been many cases (recently) that points to lapse in esprit d’corps by some of the justices….like Thomas and his goose stepping wife……

Alito has written a letter…..

The Supreme Court on Monday issued an unusually forceful and detailed rebuttal to ethics concerns raised by two Democratic lawmakers about a drive by religious conservatives to wine and dine some justices.

The court’s counterpunch came in a letter to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), after the lawmakers threatened a congressional probe if the court did not launch its own inquiry into the claims.

The two-page letter from the Supreme Court’s legal counsel, Ethan Torrey, repeats and expands on earlier denials of impropriety issued by Justice Samuel Alito, following reports in POLITICO, The New York Times and Rolling Stone about a concerted campaign by religious-right activists to encourage more conservative decisions by the justices by building connections with them in social settings.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/28/supreme-court-alito-2014-ethics-00071024

Political hacks get mad when they are called out….so SCOTUS is nothing but political hacks that have no intention doing what they are task to do.

Then there is SCOTUS and the possibility of the elections being overturned….

To hear some tell it, a Supreme Court case set for argument on Dec. 7 could spell the end of democracy in the United States. If the Republicans who brought the case, Moore v. Harper, prevail, state legislatures will effectively be free to override the votes of their citizens in presidential elections, the doomsayers predict. That might allow a future presidential candidate to undo an election, much as Donald Trump attempted, but failed, to do in 2020.

The Atlantic warned that the “Court’s right-wing supermajority is poised to let state lawmakers overturn voters’ choice in presidential elections.” The Guardian opined that a ruling in favor of the GOP would mean that “whether Republicans win or lose elections via the popular vote will not matter because they will be able to maintain power regardless.” And Slate called Moore v. Harper “the Supreme Court case that could upend democracy.”

Those fears are overblown. They ignore other legal protections that would prevent the theft of a presidential election. A state legislature can in fact choose which electors to pick, legal scholars generally agree, as those bodies routinely did in the early days of the republic. But a legislature has the power to decide to handle a vote that way only before citizens begin casting ballots in a given election.

“No matter what the Court decides” in Moore v. Harper, as New York University law professor Richard Pildes has put it, “it would still not mean state legislatures could choose simply to ignore the popular vote in their state and appoint presidential electors themselves after the election.” Federal law, for example, requires states to choose their electors on Election Day. And several federal courts have held that after-the-fact changes raise questions of due process and equal protection. A state legislature can’t simply swoop in after the voting and rewrite the rules for a completed election because it didn’t like the outcome.

https://www.salon.com/2022/11/30/republicans-bid-to-let-lawmakers-overturn-could-badly-backfire-on_partner/

We mean nothing to those task at protecting our rights….still think they are not political hacks?

The best I can hope that it will backfire on the Right….this country needs a win and we need it badly.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Docket For The New Session

The docket is being set for the new session of the Supreme Court……is there any surprises?

The Supreme Court opens its new term Monday, hearing arguments for the first time after a summer break and with new Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Already the court has said it will decide cases on a range of major issues including affirmative action, voting rights, and the rights of LGBTQ people. The justices will add more cases to their docket in the coming months, but here is a look at some of the cases the court has already agreed to hear, per the AP. The justices are expected to decide each of the cases before taking a summer break at the end of June:

  • Affirmative action: In cases from Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the court could end any consideration of race in college admissions. If this seems familiar, it’s because the high court has been asked repeatedly over the past 20 years to end affirmative action in higher education. In previous cases from Michigan and Texas, the court reaffirmed the validity of considering college applicants’ race among many factors. But this court is more conservative than those were.
  • Voting rights: The court could further reduce protections for minority voters in its third major consideration in 10 years of the landmark Voting Rights Act, which was enacted to combat enduring racial discrimination in voting. The case the justices are hearing involves Alabama, where just one of the state’s seven congressional districts has a Black majority. That’s even though 27% of the state’s residents are Black. A ruling for the state could wipe away all but the most obvious cases of intentional discrimination on the basis of race.
  • Elections: Republicans are asking the justices to embrace a novel legal concept that would limit state courts’ oversight of elections for Congress. North Carolina’s top court threw out the state’s congressional map that gave Republicans a lopsided advantage in a closely divided state and eventually came up with a map that basically evenly divided the state’s 14 congressional districts between Democrats and Republicans. The state GOP argues that state courts have no role to play in congressional elections because the US Constitution gives that power to state legislatures alone. Four conservative justices have expressed varying levels of openness to the “independent state legislature” theory.
  • Clean water: This is yet another case in which the court is being asked to discard an earlier ruling and loosen the regulation of property under the nation’s chief law to combat water pollution. The case involves an Idaho couple who won an earlier high court round in their bid to build a house on property near a lake without getting a permit under the Clean Water Act. The outcome could change the rules for millions of acres of property that contain wetlands.
  • Immigration: The Biden administration is back at the Supreme Court to argue for a change in immigration policy from the Trump administration. It’s appealing a ruling against a Biden policy prioritizing deportation of people in the country illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk. Last term, the justices by a 5-4 vote paved the way for the administration to end the Trump policy that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their court hearing. In July, also by a 5-4 vote, the high court refused to allow the administration to implement policy guidance for deportations. A Trump-era policy favored deporting people in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties.
  • LGBTQ rights: A new clash involving religion, free speech, and the rights of LGBTQ people will also be before the justices. The case involves Colorado graphic and website designer Lorie Smith, who wants to expand her business and offer wedding website services. She says her Christian beliefs would lead her to decline any request from a same-sex couple to design a wedding website, however, and that puts her in conflict with a Colorado anti-discrimination law. The case is a new chance for the justices to confront issues the court skirted five years ago in a case about a baker objected to making cakes for same-sex weddings.
  • Art world: The court’s resolution of a dispute involving pieces by artist Andy Warhol could have big consequences in the art world and beyond. If the Warhol side loses a copyright dispute involving an image Warhol made of the musician Prince, other artworks could be in peril, lawyers say. But the other side says if Warhol wins, it would be a license for other artists to blatantly copy.

A full docket and the chance for SCOTUS to continue to chip away at our rights and privileges.

Anything new here?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–27Jul22

With the recent rulings by those political hacks on SCOTUS the public is started to see just how worthless and owned the Court has become…..it has lost all respect by the majority of the people.

Many of us have been calling for term limits on judges for a long time….a lifetime job gives them way too much power.

About 2 in 3 Americans say they favor term limits or a mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices, according to a new poll that finds a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans saying they have “hardly any” confidence in the court, the AP reports. The poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans. Views are similar about a requirement that justices retire by a specific age.

The poll was conducted just weeks after the high court issued high-profile rulings including stripping away women’s constitutional protections for abortion and expanding gun rights. The poll also shows more Americans disapprove than approve of the court’s abortion decision, with just over half saying the decision made them “angry” or “sad.” In the prior poll, conducted in April before a draft of the court’s Roe v. Wade decision was leaked, 18% said they had a great deal of confidence, 54% said they had only some and 27% said they had hardly any. Now, 17% say they have a great deal of confidence, 39% only some, and 43% hardly any.

Of course being an opinionated SOB I had stuff to say about SCOTUS…..

I Have Lots To Say About SCOTUS

I see the rest of society is started seeing (finally) that SCOTUS is a rigged game and that something needs to be done…..and soon.

Right on cue the Dems after the poll came out have introduced a new bill…..

A group of House Democrats introduced a bill on Tuesday to enact term limits for Supreme Court justices, arguing that the move will “restore legitimacy and independence to the nation’s highest court.”

The legislation, titled the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act, would authorize the president to nominate Supreme Court justices every two years — in the first and third years after a presidential election. The justices who have been on the court the longest will be moved to senior status first.

If confirmed by the Senate, those individuals would serve a maximum 18 years on the bench. After their tenures are complete, the Supreme Court justices would retire from active service and assume senior status.

Justices on the bench at the time of the bill’s enactment would switch to senior status one by one as justices are confirmed to the bench in the first and third years after a presidential election.

Under senior status, justices will still hold their office on the Supreme Court, which includes official duties and pay. If the number of justices dips below nine at some point — because of a vacancy, disability or disqualification — the justice who most recently attained senior status would serve as the ninth associate justice.

(thehill.com)

Were they paying attention to the people’s wants or is it electioneering?

I am suspicious of the timing of the bill….after all the Dems are not looking good for 2022….were they trying to find a leg up for the upcoming campaigns?

Please say what is on your mind.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden’s Answer To SCOTUS

By now we all are aware of the decision by those political hacks we call the Supreme Court on Roe v Wade…..

What to do?  What to do?  Well the president has an idea…..

President Joe Biden said Sunday he is considering declaring a public health emergency to free up federal resources to promote abortion access even though the White House has said it doesn’t seem like “a great option.” He also offered a message to people enraged by the Supreme Court’s ruling last month that ended a constitutional right to abortion and who have been demonstrating across the country: “Keep protesting. Keep making your point. It’s critically important.” The president, in remarks to reporters during a stop on a bike ride near his family’s Delaware beach house, said he lacks the power to force the dozen-plus states with strict restrictions or outright bans on abortion to allow the procedure, the AP reports.

“I don’t have the authority to say that we’re going to reinstate Roe v. Wade as the law of the land,” he said. Biden said Congress would have to codify that right and for that to have a better chance in the future, voters would have to elect more lawmakers who support abortion access. Biden said his administration is trying to do a “lot of things to accommodate the rights of women” after the ruling, including considering declaring a public health emergency to free up federal resources. Such a move has been pushed by advocates, but White House officials have questioned both its legality and effectiveness, and noted it would almost certainly face legal challenges.

The president said he has asked officials “to look at whether I have the authority to do that and what impact that would have.” On Friday, Jen Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said it “didn’t seem like a great option.” “When we looked at the public health emergency, we learned a couple things: One is that it doesn’t free very many resources,” she told reporters. “It’s what’s in the public health emergency fund, and there’s very little money—tens of thousands of dollars in it. So that didn’t seem like a great option. And it also doesn’t release a significant amount of legal authority. And so that’s why we haven’t taken that action yet.”

Will this do any good?

NO it will not!

Sounds to me as if it is a PR ploy looking toward 2024….after all he is not all that popular right now with the American people.

Whatcha think?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Is SCOTUS The Final Word?

It is a common thought that all is lost when SCOTUS makes its decisions for they have the final word.

Is that necessarily true?

When the Supreme Court was holding oral arguments last December in the case that brought about the end of Roe v. Wade, Justice Sonia Sotomayor addressed the familiar argument that the Constitution doesn’t mention a right to privacy. That fact was a central argument in the court’s majority opinion issued last month, per NPR. But there’s a lot that’s not mentioned in the Constitution, the justice said. In fact, “there is not anything in the Constitution that says that the Court, the Supreme Court, is the last word on what the Constitution means,” Sotomayor pointed out. “And yet, she added, “what the Court did was reason from the structure of the Constitution that that’s what was intended.”

The justice might have been mostly intending to say that rights, including the one to privacy, can exist without being clearly stated in the Constitution, but Joshua Zeitz writes in an opinion piece in Politico that the power of judicial review is in the same boat. “Both exist by strong implication,” he says. Mostly, the court claimed that right for itself. Some framers did expect the Supreme Court, as well as lower federal courts, to exercise a veto on constitutional grounds over congressional and state acts, Zeitz writes. “But they did not intend this power to be unchecked or unlimited,” he says.

The Constitution is all about checks and balances, and the other branches could move to limit the judiciary just as the courts limit the activities of the others. The Constitution didn’t even design the court system, it left it to the other branches. So they can take steps to restrict the court on certain issues, Zeitz points out. Congress could pass a law denying the court authority over a new voting rights act, for example. “Ultimately, it is the responsibility and prerogative of the executive and legislative branches to encourage greater restraint and humility on the part of the judiciary,” Zeitz writes.

You can read the full piece here.

I have my doubts about this pronouncement…..why?

The US Congress is a toothless tiger.  It is so wrapped up in the mundane crap trying to find a consensus (at least one party is)….nothing will be done for SCOTUS is about political agenda and not what is best for this nation.

And of course there are opinions on how to ‘fix’ the Supreme Court….here are a few (my thoughts later)…..

The Supreme Court’s just-concluded term was a bacchanalia of reactionary indulgence. Roe v. Wade is dead. Gun laws throughout the nation are now in peril. The Court is pummeling the wall separating church and state — and it isn’t afraid to tell easily disprovable falsehoods to achieve this goal. The Court’s GOP-appointed majority curtailed the EPA’s power to fight climate change, and gave themselves an open-ended veto power over any federal regulation.

It’s likely that the worst is yet to come. Three “shadow docket” decisions this past term suggest that the Court is about to slash safeguards against racial gerrymandering. Another case looming in the next term, involving North Carolina’s gerrymandered congressional maps, is likely to give Republican state legislatures the power to defy their state constitution when writing election laws. And that’s after the Court has spent the last decade dismantling the Voting Rights Act and stripping the federal courts of any authority to fight partisan gerrymanders.

The Court’s Republican majority isn’t simply handing down bold conservative policy decrees, it is undermining democracy itself.

…

But just because court reform isn’t currently politically viable doesn’t mean it’s not worth considering, especially if Democrats somehow manage to pick up larger majorities in a future Congress. There are several options to deal with an increasingly partisan Supreme Court. Here are 10 of them.

https://www.vox.com/23186373/supreme-court-packing-roe-wade-voting-rights-jurisdiction-stripping

My thoughts on these ‘solutions’…..

Court packing is not viable….not in this political climate.

The Supreme Court lottery….now I can get behind this ‘solution’….

The most talked about ‘solution’ is term limits….another one that I agree with….as long as the Congress limits are included.

Omnibus legislation to overrule the court decisions…..again a good idea but the political climate these days will prevent anything like this idea to see the light of day.

SCOTUS needs reforming and some ideas are good……but as long as the court is run by political hacks all we can do is wish and hope and witness the death of the republic.

Any ideas you would like to share?

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS–Only The Beginning

The recent rulings by our political hacks on the Supreme Court have ripped into the very foundation of our beloved nation….and sadly this session is only the beginning of the dismantling.

Disastrous rulings are crippling the process we call democracy….

No single day has better captured the current state of the Supreme Court than Thursday. At 10 a.m., the court issued a devastating assault on the Biden administration’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases in a 6–3 ruling joined by all of the court’s reactionary block. Ten minutes later, it issued a 5–4 opinion that just barely confirmed that the president, rather than a rogue judge in Texas, has authority over border policy, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh lending the lone votes preventing an absolutely insane outcome. Shortly thereafter, the court issued a bombshell orders list that tees up, for next term, one of the most important and dangerous democracy cases in American history, which asks whether state legislatures have near-unlimited authority over election laws.

The court’s most immediately lethal decision remains Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade. But do not let Dobbs distract from the onslaught that followed it. If anyone still doubted that the Supreme Court served as the nation’s chief policymaking institution after Dobbs, Thursday should put that to rest. The court is ruthlessly efficient, putting our gridlocked Congress to shame with its speedy and definitive resolution of the most pressing issues facing the country today. It does not require hourslong hearings or endless negotiations to operate. The six-justice conservative majority chooses which conflicts to prioritize, takes up cases that present them, then picks a winner, nearly always for the benefit of the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

Consider the issues that SCOTUS has resolved this term—the first full term with a 6–3 conservative supermajority. The constitutional right to abortion: gone. States’ ability to limit guns in public: gone. Tribal sovereignty against state intrusion: gone. Effective constraints around separation of church and state: gone. The bar on prayer in public schools: gone. Effective enforcement of Miranda warnings: gone. The ability to sue violent border agents: gone. The Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases at power plants: gone. Vast areas of the law, established over the course of decades, washed away by a court over a few months.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/climate-change-epa-supreme-court-revolution.html

A friend of my granddaughter asked the other day just how it came to this…..40 years of dark money is the best answer.

Over the past several decades, corporate lawyers, right-wing activists, Republican officials, and dark money groups with deep pockets have been laying the groundwork for a far-reaching legal assault on the federal government’s ability to regulate U.S. industry—including the oil and gas sector threatening the planet.

On Thursday, their investments bore major fruit.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, a Supreme Court packed with right-wing judges handpicked and boosted by some of the same forces leading the yearslong crusade against the power of regulatory agencies—which conservatives often dub the “administrative state”—dramatically restricted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to rein in greenhouse gas pollution from power plants.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/01/payoff-40-years-dark-money-supreme-court-delivers-corporate-america

All this abuses are standard fare these days….history is being crapped on by the very people that are suppose to guard our rights……

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts is the most reactionary ever in American history.  Its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision taking away abortion rights from American women is the first time the Court has ever overturned a constitutional precedent to take away rights.  But let us not forget that this Court has also killed the Voting Rights Act by declaring most of it unconstitutional in  Shelby County v. Holder and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee.  It has also killed union rights and unleashed corporate political money in Citizens United.  And it has consistently chipped away at the separation of Church and State as evidenced in the recent Carson v. Makin.  For a Chief Justice so worried about his legacy and the reputation of the Court, history will not be kind to him.

Ironically, history is central to the Roberts Court assault on rights.   Better yet it is the abuse of history in its method of legal analysis and reasoning.

Starting back with Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Ed Meese conservative jurists, including Justice Antonin Scalia and the members of the Federalist Society, argued that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of the intent of the framers.  Such an approach, asking us what a bunch of slaveholders, bankers, and land speculators who were White and Christian thought about the rights of average people such as women, the poor, and people of color most certainly would doom their rights.  That is why Justices such as  Earl Warren, William Brennan, and others argued that rights need to be looked at in terms of the evolving standards of decency that mark the maturing of society.  We need to read our Constitution with an evolving political morality that reflects political sensibilities reflective of today, not fixed in stone in 1787.

The Supreme Court and the Abuse of History: Rights Will Always Lose

Thanx to radical right wingers like the Federalist Society have worked for decades to undermine the Constitution….basically it is a power grab by the Neo-fascists of this country….and they are succeeding….

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/01/radical-power-grab-new-case-could-allow-right-wingers-to-ignore-voting-right-laws_partner/

As the republic is dying and the people that pretend to love this country are by-standers….unless that changes all is lost.

There are ways to fight back…..impeachment (the magical word)……

There is a movement afoot to impeach Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Per Newsweek, the petition on MoveOn.org was created earlier this year after revelations that Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, pressured lawmakers and White House aides to overturn the 2020 election results. Meanwhile, Justice Thomas was the lone dissenting vote early this year when the Supreme Court rejected former President Trump’s attempt to withhold presidential records from Jan. 6 Capitol riot investigators. “Thomas’ failure to recuse himself warrants immediate investigation and heightened alarm,” the petition states, “and it’s only the latest in a long history of conflicts of interest … and mixing his powerful role with his conservative political activism.”

The petition was appended and gained considerable attention after the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In denouncing Thomas and the majority for overturning 50 years of precedent, the petition adds that—in the same ruling—the justice suggested reconsidering decisions that established the right to contraception and same-sex marriage, according to the Hill, which notes that Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes also called for impeaching other justices for misleading testimony during their Senate confirmation hearings. “If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath … and then issue—without basis, if you read these opinions—rulings that deeply undermine the human civil rights of the majority of Americans, we must see [impeachment] through,” Ocasio-Cortes said on Meet the Press.

According to Salon, Ocasio-Cortes also raised Justice Thomas’ past failure to disclose nearly $700,000 in income his wife took from the conservative Heritage Foundation. “I believe that violating federal law in not disclosing income from political organizations, as Clarence Thomas did years ago, is … potentially an impeachable offense,” Ocasio-Cortes said. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar backed up her colleague in a tweet, saying, “We need an impeachment investigation into Clarence Thomas’s role in the January 6th coup, as well as into Gorsuch, Alito, Barrett, and Kavanaugh’s testimony on Roe during their confirmation hearings.”

This will probably go nowhere….but at least it is a start.

Enough Said!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More SCOTUS Thoughts

Our political hacks that we call SCOTUS are rolling our country down the road to ruin because of a political agenda not what is right.

A few thoughts for you to consider.

We now know what the courts think about the right to choice…..but there is more than just abortions that could be the problem…..

More than 73,000 babies were born in the U.S. by means of in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques in 2020, slightly more than 2 percent of all births that year. About 85 percent of children born as a result of IVF procedures in this country are born from thawed embryos. Since 1987, more than 1 million Americans started their lives as embryos created outside of their mother’s bodies. By one estimate, as many as 1.4 million embryos remain frozen at U.S. fertility clinics.

It is not clear what effect the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will have on would-be parents seeking to use IVF as a way to have children. The majority opinion states that abortion destroys “potential life” and what the Mississippi statute at issue in the case calls an “unborn human being.” It does not, however, mention IVF or other assisted reproduction techniques.

Infertility advocates and practitioners of fertility medicine are, nevertheless, concerned about the long-term implications of the Dobbs decision. In an article in Contemporary OB/GYN, Jared Robins and Sean Tipton, respectively the executive director and the chief policy and advocacy officer of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, argue that the Dobbs decision puts fertility care at “significant risk.” Under current practice, patients of IVF clinics generally choose to create numerous embryos for possible implantation. As fertility treatments proceed, embryos are often discarded when pre-implantation genetic diagnosis indicates significant inheritable maladies or after patients have completed their families.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs Decision Threatens Assisted Reproduction

Another ruling that could change everything and for a long time…..gerrymandering.

The Supreme Court handed down a brief order Tuesday evening that effectively reinstates racially gerrymandered congressional maps in the state of Louisiana, at least for the 2022 election.

Under these maps, Black voters will control just one of Louisiana’s six congressional seats, despite the fact that African Americans make up nearly a third of the state’s population. Thus, the Court’s decision in Ardoin v. Robinson means that Black people will have half as much congressional representation as they would enjoy under maps where Black voters have as much opportunity to elect their own preferred candidate as white people in Louisiana.

A federal trial court, applying longstanding Supreme Court precedents holding that the Voting Rights Act does not permit such racial gerrymanders, issued a preliminary injunction temporarily striking down the Louisiana maps and ordering the state legislature to draw new ones that include two Black-majority districts. Notably, a very conservative panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied the state’s request to stay the trial court’s decision — a sign that Louisiana’s maps were such a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act that even one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country could not find a good reason to disturb the trial court’s decision.

https://www.vox.com/23187117/supreme-court-louisiana-racial-gerrymander-ardoin-robinson-congressional-maps

Gerrymandering is not good for the country….at least with competitive districts makes our nation stronger….we are losing that capability…..

Competitive congressional districts have been steadily disappearing for decades. In the current redistricting cycle, six highly competitive districts in the House of Representatives were drawn out of existence. The Cook Political Report estimates that less than 8 percent of congressional districts will be competitive come November.

This is a problem. It’s not because competitive districts are a powerfully moderating force on our democracy — instead, the decline of competitive districts is a problem that reflects deeper causes of partisan polarization and leaves the overwhelming majority of Americans in places where their votes don’t matter, and where parties and candidates don’t need to work for anybody’s votes.

Governing in America requires compromise. But when over 90 percent of congressional districts lean toward one of the two major parties, that means most representatives have little incentive to compromise. In fact, representatives increasingly face strong pressures to be very partisan, which has made governing very difficult.

But perhaps more importantly, when there isn’t competition, citizens and parties have little reason to show up and vote. Instead it becomes the highly organized donors and activists who are engaged, while the rest of the district is ignored. It’s true that competitive districts might not produce especially moderate candidates, but they are important when it comes to engaging and informing citizens. And this participation has valuable spillover effects for communities, well beyond our elections. 

What We Lose When We Lose Competitive Congressional Districts

Gerrymandering is just politicians choosing their voters not the other way around.

Any opinions?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Thomas Makes My Case

I have written many times about how the SCOTUS has crapped on the spirit of their position……and Thomas is making it more likely something needs done.

Him and his wife have got politically involved on several occasions…..involved in stuff that he has had a hand in crafting law. And now he proves my point….the next attack is on ‘marriage equality’ and gay rights.

Here is Thomas’ latest….

Attached to the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in overturning Roe v. Wade on Friday was a solo concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested he’d like to also reconsider cases involving contraception, same-sex marriage, and other private sexual conduct. The pundit consensus has since deemed the chances of the majority of the high court ruling against birth control and gay rights as pretty low, but in her latest op-ed for the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus puts out a red flag over dismissing that possibility. The rights protected in those other mentioned cases are said to fall—just as abortion was, until last week—under a privacy umbrella within the “substantive due process” protections of the 14th Amendment. Marcus concedes that no other justice joined Thomas in taking aim at those other cases, so she poses the question on everyone’s mind: “Should everyone calm down?”

Her answer: “Yes—and no.” She notes it’s true that contraception and same-sex marriage just doesn’t touch the same nerve as abortion does. But she also points out the majority opinion highlighted that, when the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, there was no right to abortion recognized—and the same applies to those other cases, meaning the rights they protect could also be threatened in the future. “Thomas may be alone now, but who knows who will be willing to join him down the road?” Marcus writes, noting that what “starts as an extreme, outlier view can migrate into the conservative mainstream.” “When you pull on a thread, an entire garment can unravel,” she adds. “Thomas would like to see that happen, and he is tugging, hard, at the fabric of constitutional law. Who knows what will be left when he is done.”

Read her piece in its entirety here.

Thomas needs to recuse himself from any and all rulings that involve gay rights….he is biased and cannot not make a unbiased ruling.

If he cannot bring himself to recuse then I say impeach him and anyone else that shows a hatred for the Constitution.

But how could we impeach a sitting SCOTUS judge?

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who explains to Molly and listeners what it would take to impeach a Supreme Court Justice, why she believes the conservative justices lied under oath, and what states can do ASAP to protect women.

“It’s so strange because we all knew this was coming and it still feels like just being punched in the gut. It’s devastating. It’s outrageous. I am personally outraged for the fact that the Supreme Court is no longer seeing American women as full people,” Griswold tells Molly Jong-Fast. “I support looking into the impeachment of several of these justices.”

“This is a fabulous notion, but I mean, how would that even work?” asks Molly.

“Basically Congress can impeach and there has to be a basis to do so. They have to have committed some type of legal offense,” explains Griswold, noting that she believes there have been offenses committed by some of the conservative judges to warrant said impeachment.

She points to Clarence Thomas as the first example: “Justice Thomas, who is now saying that marriage equality, that birth control, that all these rights suddenly are at risk, should be impeached for his involvement in election-related cases. He has breached the public’s trust. His wife literally was involved in the attempted violent overthrow of the U.S. government.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-how-to-impeach-a-supreme-court-justice

I say impeach the bastards!

Then impose terms limits ion judges….no body should have a job for life.

I love the idea to hold the judges accountable for their words and deeds…..but I see a problem…the Congress does not work for the people of this country they are picked and employed by political hacks and any action against a judge would go through the Congress they will do nothing to protect the people only their asses.

Thomas and his 5 cohorts are nothing more than political hacks and none deserve the title ‘your honor’….

Any opinions on this this?

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

SCOTUS Does Guns (Again)

It is that time when the Supreme Court hands down its judgements again…this is the latest to be handed down….

The Supreme Court handed advocates for gun rights a major victory on Thursday with a ruling expected to make it easier for people to carry concealed handguns:

  • Decision: The court struck down a New York law requiring that people who want to carry concealed weapons must show a “proper cause” for doing so, reports the New York Times. The 6-3 decision split along the court’s conservative and liberal lines.
  • Majority: The court’s conservative justices declared that New York’s law was so restrictive that it violated the Constitution. “The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,” wrote Clarence Thomas, per the Washington Post. His opinion declared that the state’s law violated that principle.
  • Dissent: “Many States have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds,” wrote Stephen Breyer. “The Court today severely burdens States’ efforts to do so.”
  • Precedent: The ruling will have consequences beyond New York, notes the AP. For example, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have “proper cause” laws similar to New York’s, and those will likely be challenged, too. The AP estimates that a quarter of the US population currently lives in states expected to be affected by the ruling.
  • Background: New York’s law has been on the books for more than a century, notes the Post. Two men, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, sued, saying it made it “virtually impossible for the ordinary law-abiding citizen to obtain a license,” per the Times. The court agreed.

Ain’t it grand?

I am sorry but this has nothing to do with personal safety, in my mind, this is just another masculine thing….letting some to feel like a ‘big man’ because that are a tottin’.

There comes a time for sanity but when it comes to the sacred gun sanity leaves the room for paranoia and silliness……since the Court is not positive in the eyes of the population.

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Americans’ confidence in the country’s top court has fallen to a record law, according to the latest Gallup poll. The pollsters say just 25% of Americans have “quite a lot” or a “great deal” of confidence in the court, down 11 points from a year ago. It’s the lowest number in polling going back to 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, when confidence was at 45%. The previous low was in 2014, when confidence in the court was at 30%. The highest figure over the last 49 years was 56%, recorded in 1985 and 1988.

Gallup says the poll was carried out from June 1 to 20, weeks after the leak of the draft decision on abortion rights. With a conservative supermajority in place, pollsters say only 13% of Democrats have high confidence in the top court, CNN reports. Confidence among independent voters has dived from 40% to 25% year-on-year, according to Gallup, while among Republicans, it has edged up from 37% to 39%. In a poll taken in 2020, before Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as then-President Donald Trump’s third SCOTUS pick, the figure for Republicans was 53%. Gallup says confidence in the court among Republicans hit a record low of 26% in 2010.

Biden signs ‘landmark’ gun deal…..

  • The bill would make the local juvenile records of people age 18 to 20 available during required federal background checks when they attempt to buy guns. Those examinations, currently limited to three days, would last up to a maximum of 10 days to give federal and local officials time to search records.
  • People convicted of domestic abuse who are current or former romantic partners of the victim would be prohibited from acquiring firearms, closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”
  • There would be money to help states enforce red flag laws.
  • The measure expands the use of background checks by rewriting the definition of the federally licensed gun dealers required to conduct them. Penalties for gun trafficking are strengthened, billions of dollars are provided for behavioral health clinics and school mental health programs, and there’s money for school safety initiatives, though not for personnel to use a “dangerous weapon.”

The big tagline for this bill is “it will save lives”……tell me where.

Your thoughts will be appreciated.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Farewell Roe v Wade

It is 1130 at night and the temp is 109…..it is as miserable as the most recent SCOTUS decision.

The media now has new fodder for their angst…..the shooting in Uvalde has run its course and now the Supreme Court has given them lots of ammo for the next few weeks.

The old farts on the Court have made it mandatory that women become mothers……that women have NO control over their lives unless men say they can……Roe v Wade is now a thing of the past to be taught in history books if the GOP allows it.

Roe v. Wade is no more. The Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 ruling that protected abortion rights nationwide in a decision released Friday, reports the AP. The ruling is in sync with a draft opinion that was leaked in May. It’s now up to individual states to decide whether abortions can be provided, and under what restrictions. The New York Times expects the ruling to lead to “all but total” abortion bans in about half the states. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts filed a separate opinion, per SCOTUSblog, in which he agreed with the decision to uphold Mississippi’s abortion law (the case in question) but said he would have preferred “a more measured course” that stopped short of overturning Roe.

  • Majority: “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” wrote Alito, referring also to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 case that affirmed the Roe decision. “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.”
  • And more: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” wrote Alito, per the Washington Post. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
  • Dissent: “With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” wrote justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in a joint dissent.

The case out of Mississippi is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392

Here is the statement issued by “Tater Twat” the governor of Mississippi……

RESS RELEASE) – “Mississippi has led the nation to overcome one of the greatest injustices in the history of our country. Our state’s historic case before the United States Supreme Court was the catalyst for overturning Roe v. Wade and has made the nation safer for children than it was just a few short hours ago.

Let’s be clear: this decision will directly result in more hearts beating, more strollers pushed, more report cards given, more little league games played, and more lives well lived. It is a joyous day! Tomorrow, we will wake to a new world, enthusiastically prepared to take on the challenges ahead and to take every step necessary to support mothers and children.

We must remember that our work is not yet over. The pro-life movement must dedicate itself to ensuring mothers and their babies receive the support they both need during pregnancy and after.

Despite what some may claim, Mississippi’s objective was never simply to win a court case – it’s been to create a culture of life across the country.

Our state seeks to be pro-life in every sense of the word – supporting mothers and children through policies of compassion and working to ensure that every baby has a forever family that loves them.

Mississippi will work relentlessly to accomplish these goals and will continue to build a culture that supports mothers and children, valuing the inherent dignity of every individual. This is our new pro-life agenda.

I applaud the Supreme Court Justices for their courage in issuing this well-reasoned decision. It took bravery to stick to the courage of their convictions, especially amidst an unprecedented leak that was aimed at threatening the integrity of the Court, an assassination attempt, riot threats, and attacks on churches and pregnancy centers. No matter one’s party or ideology, we should all be able to condemn these acts.

I pray that Americans will come together, listen to one another, and debate this issue peacefully. Only by moving beyond our divisions and having respectful conversations can we begin to heal this nation’s wounds.

We stand on the shoulders of giants. This win has been achieved thanks to the tireless efforts of so many over decades. Thank you to the lawyers who argued this case for us, passionate citizens who pushed this issue for years, and those who prayed for this day for many decades. I urge my fellow Mississippians to rejoice today and keep praying as the work is not done.

God bless!”

BULLSHIT!

It was always about winning a court case!

The lives of Mississippians will NOT improve as Reeves predicts….but that is okay for he is a Repub and that is all that matters (sarcasm)

Women need to let this go and formulate a new plan of action….bitching about the ruling will change NOTHING.

There is work to be done…..get to it!

But do not take your eyes off the issues for the GOP is not finished removing our rights as citizens….they will be coming and we need to be ready!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”