I am in complete sympathy with Justice Alito so I am going to recommend to him to retire so he can un- shoulder the heavy burdens of office as a result of his wild ass imbecile moronic decisions and briefs.
Of course, there are so many serious issues to work on, it's always difficult to tell which is "most" important at any given time! But I have to mention one that is falling through the cracks. We need to raise our voices in support of Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who has been silenced and banned from the chamber for saying Republicans will have "blood on their hands" if they vote for proposed anti-trans legislation. Her situation deserves as much attention and outrage as the Tennessee Three!
Constitution Article III: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."
Looks like it is time to impeach Chief Injustice Roberts. No wonder he didn't want to go before the Congressional Committee! And, perhaps Injustice Alito can be persuaded to retire. Injustices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas should be investigated. The FBI was not allowed to do a thorough investigation of Kavanaugh. If at least two of them leave the court, then President Biden would nominate replacements and the Court would not have to be enlarged. Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There should be some sort of limit on how long one could stay on the court -- say 20 years on the court or until 80 years of age. Good Behavior needs to be defined. Texas has a State Commission on Judicial Conduct, the independent Texas state agency responsible for investigating allegations of judicial misconduct and judicial disability. This includes investigating Texas Supreme Court Judges. We need such a Commission at the Federal level. Maybe we won't have to wait until January, 2025, to start fixing SCOTUS! Yeah!
Happy Birthday, Robert, and glad you got to see Tulare Lake in its glory. California is now fortunately out of a drought. Well, at least, in Northern California.
SCOTUS is truly sliding off its axis. Chief Roberts has exposed himself to be totally useless, especially after he refused to be questioned about ethics. Alito makes me ill. What am I saying? All of the Repub Justices suck!
Several years ago I read First:Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas. Two things from that book keep coming to mind given current events.
First, the justices live in a very, very small bubble.
Second, O’Connor’s husband had been a very successful, high-powered lawyer prior to her confirmation. Once she was on the SC, his career changed dramatically because they didn’t want there to be even a hint of appearance of a conflict of interest. Such a quaint notion!
Expanding the court is one idea ... but there are other good proposals. One of my favorites is to enact term limits so that each president would appoint 2 judges during his/her term. This would eliminate the shenanigans we saw from McConnell.
Last week Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman on their Now and Then podcast highlighted not-so-pleasant stories of the Supreme Court in our history.
I completely agree with Robert’s characterization of Alito’s whiney diatribe. This appeared to me to be the product of years of pampered, self-aggrandizing isolation. The message was detached from the realities of the impact of his rulings on millions of ordinary people not cloistered away in a marble “mausoleum” that
Has previously been the home of justices respecting the majesty of the law. It now has become a house of insular corruption inhabited by
Some who view themselves above the law and immune from any self-reflection or humility. Hubris without bounds!
Its all about local politics. I live in North Carolina and this is what happened when the Republicans took control of the state Supreme Court.
We’ve talked about the North Carolina gerrymandering case, also called the independent state legislature theory case, that the Supreme Court is considering this term and how the Court’s continued jurisdiction was compromised when the North Carolina Supreme Court suddenly reopened proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear only final decisions from lower courts in a case like this. So after the North Carolina Supreme Court decided to rehear the case, they asked the parties to brief whether they could still decide it. No ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court yet, but today the North Carolina court entered a decision in its reopened proceedings.
This shameful, delegitimizing decision to allow the unjust, blatant manipulation of North Carolina’s voting districts was not a function of legal principle, it was a function of political personnel and partisan opportunism. Neither the map nor the law have changed since last year’s landmark rulings—only the makeup of the majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court has changed.
I read the Alito interview. I wish I hadn't. For reasons too numerous to articulate. The most shocking confession to me is how Alito self-identifies as one of the five conservative justices. That puts the lie to Robert's consistent claim that "There are no Republican or Democratic justices. Only justices." Not only are there. But Alito puts the count at 5 vs 4 (I'm sure he doesn't count Thomas because Thomas stood in the way of things like abolishing Obamacare) and happily self-identifies as one. The other thing that really burns me is his total disgust at someone with a gun found outside of Robert's house. With. A. Gun. It's disgraceful in his opinion. Yet he's all for open carry and concealed weapons being on the NYC subways or protesting BLM protests. He's all for Kyle Rittenhouse or armed MAGAs assembling in the Michigan state house. I guess it's easy to be for no gun regulation when the one regulation that is in place is that they can't be within 100 yards of YOU!
Clearly, we must remember and resist. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is past time to expand the SCOTUS and insert staggered term limits.
I am in complete sympathy with Justice Alito so I am going to recommend to him to retire so he can un- shoulder the heavy burdens of office as a result of his wild ass imbecile moronic decisions and briefs.
Of course, there are so many serious issues to work on, it's always difficult to tell which is "most" important at any given time! But I have to mention one that is falling through the cracks. We need to raise our voices in support of Montana State Rep. Zooey Zephyr, who has been silenced and banned from the chamber for saying Republicans will have "blood on their hands" if they vote for proposed anti-trans legislation. Her situation deserves as much attention and outrage as the Tennessee Three!
Thanks for the shout out, Robert! The Vote Riders talk should be great.
Oh, and you forgot to mention the Guardian’s new reporting on Kavanaugh and the sad joke that was his “investigation.” Our court is broken, indeed.
Constitution Article III: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."
Looks like it is time to impeach Chief Injustice Roberts. No wonder he didn't want to go before the Congressional Committee! And, perhaps Injustice Alito can be persuaded to retire. Injustices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas should be investigated. The FBI was not allowed to do a thorough investigation of Kavanaugh. If at least two of them leave the court, then President Biden would nominate replacements and the Court would not have to be enlarged. Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There should be some sort of limit on how long one could stay on the court -- say 20 years on the court or until 80 years of age. Good Behavior needs to be defined. Texas has a State Commission on Judicial Conduct, the independent Texas state agency responsible for investigating allegations of judicial misconduct and judicial disability. This includes investigating Texas Supreme Court Judges. We need such a Commission at the Federal level. Maybe we won't have to wait until January, 2025, to start fixing SCOTUS! Yeah!
Happy Birthday Rob!!
Happy Birthday, Robert, and glad you got to see Tulare Lake in its glory. California is now fortunately out of a drought. Well, at least, in Northern California.
SCOTUS is truly sliding off its axis. Chief Roberts has exposed himself to be totally useless, especially after he refused to be questioned about ethics. Alito makes me ill. What am I saying? All of the Repub Justices suck!
At least now we know why Justice Roberts didn’t want to look into the Thomas and Gorsuch ethical issues.
Several years ago I read First:Sandra Day O’Connor by Evan Thomas. Two things from that book keep coming to mind given current events.
First, the justices live in a very, very small bubble.
Second, O’Connor’s husband had been a very successful, high-powered lawyer prior to her confirmation. Once she was on the SC, his career changed dramatically because they didn’t want there to be even a hint of appearance of a conflict of interest. Such a quaint notion!
Expanding the court is one idea ... but there are other good proposals. One of my favorites is to enact term limits so that each president would appoint 2 judges during his/her term. This would eliminate the shenanigans we saw from McConnell.
Last week Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman on their Now and Then podcast highlighted not-so-pleasant stories of the Supreme Court in our history.
https://cafe.com/now-and-then/supreme-court-scandals-a-story-of-justice/
Robert Hubble —We share a birthday.on April 26 . Wishing you a wonderful belated birthday and good health for the coming year
I completely agree with Robert’s characterization of Alito’s whiney diatribe. This appeared to me to be the product of years of pampered, self-aggrandizing isolation. The message was detached from the realities of the impact of his rulings on millions of ordinary people not cloistered away in a marble “mausoleum” that
Has previously been the home of justices respecting the majesty of the law. It now has become a house of insular corruption inhabited by
Some who view themselves above the law and immune from any self-reflection or humility. Hubris without bounds!
Its all about local politics. I live in North Carolina and this is what happened when the Republicans took control of the state Supreme Court.
We’ve talked about the North Carolina gerrymandering case, also called the independent state legislature theory case, that the Supreme Court is considering this term and how the Court’s continued jurisdiction was compromised when the North Carolina Supreme Court suddenly reopened proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear only final decisions from lower courts in a case like this. So after the North Carolina Supreme Court decided to rehear the case, they asked the parties to brief whether they could still decide it. No ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court yet, but today the North Carolina court entered a decision in its reopened proceedings.
This shameful, delegitimizing decision to allow the unjust, blatant manipulation of North Carolina’s voting districts was not a function of legal principle, it was a function of political personnel and partisan opportunism. Neither the map nor the law have changed since last year’s landmark rulings—only the makeup of the majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court has changed.
This is what we need to protect against.
I read the Alito interview. I wish I hadn't. For reasons too numerous to articulate. The most shocking confession to me is how Alito self-identifies as one of the five conservative justices. That puts the lie to Robert's consistent claim that "There are no Republican or Democratic justices. Only justices." Not only are there. But Alito puts the count at 5 vs 4 (I'm sure he doesn't count Thomas because Thomas stood in the way of things like abolishing Obamacare) and happily self-identifies as one. The other thing that really burns me is his total disgust at someone with a gun found outside of Robert's house. With. A. Gun. It's disgraceful in his opinion. Yet he's all for open carry and concealed weapons being on the NYC subways or protesting BLM protests. He's all for Kyle Rittenhouse or armed MAGAs assembling in the Michigan state house. I guess it's easy to be for no gun regulation when the one regulation that is in place is that they can't be within 100 yards of YOU!
Enjoy the valley! I’m enjoying reading this from Cádiz; lovely here. And SCOTUS is an immoral disaster.
Clearly, we must remember and resist. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is past time to expand the SCOTUS and insert staggered term limits.