Any author who begins an article with "Unless you've been living under a rock..." is an amateur. (Just thought I'd mentioned it. )

Indeed.

While I understand that stare decisis was not followed in Brown v BOE, my understanding is the court also reasoned that there could be no 'separate but equal' environment since children would be scarred in on school and not in the other. The precedent was considered. Also the 14th Amendment was considered.

This new trend of saying 'It wasn't in the constitution 200 years ago' (while also granting absurd rights like free speech to corporations) is pretty bad.

It's as if we don't have a court anymore, just two legislative branches. One elected and one appointed for life so the voters don't have to be considered.

We really don't like democracy in the US for all of our flag waving. It's kind of embarrassing tbh.

Also, I blame Obama and Biden. Honestly, what a couple of rubes. Get your justice on the court and get laws passed wrt abortion so you can move onto the next important item in serving the voters. ****wits.

Plato didn't like democracy either, so how embarrassing can it really be?

We should be so blessed that the court would consider it's reputation.
I suspect that ship sailed a long time ago.

Now it's just a goal for ambitious people with no moral or ethical core. Just get the next feather in my cap, get a win for my team and keep living the good life.

I mean, I suppose a person could honestly think an employer has the right to fire an employee who leaves his truck on the side of the road so he doesn't freeze to death and be moral.....but that's not based on any code of morality I'm familiar with. So perhaps conservatives are just evil by definition and that's reflected in their moral code. Power and money first, humanity maybe last.

Direct democracy is unworkable at the state level. But we're supposed to have a representative democracy. When the politicians who's job it is to serve us are skirting the rules it's time for a reorg.

That is an interesting viewpoint (copied your original thesis rather than the reasons).


I am holding off making such judgment until we find out who the leaker is. If it is some law clerk or Jeannie Thomas (who snooped through her husbands desk when he was working at home during Covid) or some low level employee, I would feel better that Roberts still has some control. If it was leaked by a fellow conservative Justice, it is certainly an "et tu, brute" moment signaling his complete loss of control of the Court.

Scalia was a quite a bit more principled than Alito. I was no fan of Scalia's originalism, but his intellectual worldview caused him to be a fairly vigorous defender of the Fourth Amendment. I wouldn't expect any such thing from Alito.

At this point, it seems clear that there have been ongoing leaks with respect to the Dobbs case. I wouldn't be surprised if there are multiple leakers, with at least one on the right and one on the left. I doubt that the leaks are coming directly from the justices, but they probably are coming from highly partisan clerks. At a minimum, the hiring of highly partisan clerks is a reflection of the personality of the current court.

Putting aside the leaks, Roberts no longer seems able to convince a majority of the justices to act in a way that protects the institution.

My bet, given one and one only, would be Jeannie Thomas is the source of the leak. Not to the press but to members of her circle of extremist right wingers who also think the Election was stolen.

My bet is Thomas believed and crowed at home they finally had the votes to over turn Roe but over a few months Roberts worked Kavanaugh or someone else back towards the middle and not over turning it.

That caused Thomas great consternation at home and he talked it about with Jeannie and she told her fellow nutty conservatives it was slipping due to Kavanaugh (?) shifting.

This leak is an attempt to try and bully anyone who would change in to standing their ground. In creating an expectation now that it is passing via the leak and making sure that person who would be viewed as responsible for the change (turncoat) would then face the wrath of this expecting crowd who thought they finally had the change.

It makes far more sense than any lefty clerk leaking it, which if the case would have better been done soon after it was written. You would want to give the Dems and Biden as much time to counter (pack the court, other) as possible.

The problem is that it is hard to maintain a court who would care about their reputation when they see the Politicians in power have no such concern other than self interest, themselves.

There simply is no party who represents the average citizen or their votes or concerns so why would we expect the SC to step in to the breach and hold that position? If you believe your worst actions might be challenged by people with some integrity or at least trying to do some good, that can sway people to be better. Do better.

If all the 'Leaders' are empty corrupt, self serving vessels, that makes things far more difficult. You have the GOP which is a full on party of corruption now just looking to steal power, and a Dem party whose only care is to hold power so they can enrich themselves and their donors. Biden's go to move is to always first signal to Donors 'don't worry, no real change is coming', and he does that deliberately. It is his way of saying you might see us Dem's fighting and scrapping as if we are about to push through real change. You might think Manchin and Sinema, etc are about to cave. But the fix is in. Nothing will change. So don't stress any theatrics.


When FDR faced a hostile Conservative court he was willing to at least threaten if not follow thru with threats against the activist court and it worked in getting them to stand down.

Here is what I wrote and provided on that segment in history below, (which Rococo (and not all historians) do not see the same way FWIW). I think this was our first argument where he was telling my view on this part of history was wrong (not just that he did not agree and held a different view) and he made light of me citing that these arguments were not just mine and I had listened to a panel of historians discuss it and also Lawrence Tribe (first time he let me know he does not hold him in high regard). I am not saying this last part to inflame anything again but just to let anyone know who reads the below that I do recognize others may hold a differing view of the below and that is fine. We can agree to disagree on history analysis.

Roe v Wade was leaked in '73 to the press. Much ado about nothing.

Not the same situation at all.

This time the court is expected to behave as an extension of the GOP legislative branch and the leak was to ensure that would happen.

Last time it was just some clerk that got taken advantage of by the media.

Still, I do agree it's much ado. The court is losing what little reputation it has left by making this ruling. The leak is just icing on the cake.

I'm not sure what there is to disagree on wrt to that historically.

But the fact that this court is openly ignoring precedent it's donors don't like may or may not be a big deal. I mean, I'm not a court historian either so maybe this is how the court has always behaved. It's just that I was under the impression that the law meant something to most justices.

Live and learn I guess. Humans gonna human.

I never expressed any view, nor do I have a view, on Larry Tribe as a historian.

It is not true that I hold Larry Tribe in low regard as a lawyer. I don't feel any compulsion to defer to his judgment on trial court stuff. That isn't his area of expertise.

But he obviously is much more familiar with, and expert on, Supreme Court jurisprudence than I am.

Yeah, and I'm guessing if I asked a GOPer about the two leaks in the 70's, the answer would be something along the lines of being the worst atrocities to ever grace the court. Oddly enough, if you ask a GOPer about this leak, the answer is it's to help the libs by putting pressure on the court. Gotta love politics.

There is some debate as to whether or not FDR's pressure and threat to the Courts was in fact causal to them backing off and much of his New Deal sailing thru when it looked as if the SC was set to scuttle all of it prior.

In the debate I listened to that had the historians the prevailing view was along the lines of my view, but I do recall at least one of the panel arguing FDR's role and threat was not that key, that things were going in that direction regardless which seems to be Rococo's view as you see from his post below that was his reply to me.

You are correct that this is a point of debate among historians. And in fairness to both sides, it's probably a question that cannot be answered definitively.

(more rant by me, sorry)

And the issue is, imo, that FDR did really care about his agenda and promises.

For today's Dem's i honestly believe they only care about any of their promises as far as they get them elected. They are bobbles to attract votes and not core beliefs or desires. That does not mean they are not generally for them ideologically but they just are not going to fight hard for them nor take any risks to push them thru when they get resistance from the donors or others.

The donors are like 'you got what you wanted, which is elected and power', 'now we can get what we want if you let them die on the vine'.

And then they tell them the perk is they can run on those same issues again next time and since they were winners before they should be again.


And that is where we are today.

FDR's willingness to fight mirrors Mitch McConnell's willingness to fight for the very few legislative actions that matter to him. So this where we live now:

- Dem's say 'oh no, we must respect the Senate Parliamentarian and that really sucks as we really wanted this legislation to go thru but the Parliamentarian says no, so sucks to be you Dem voters, but we cannot do it....
- Mitch says '**** the Parliamentarian, fire this one and every one that follows after until we get one that says yes'.


- Dem's say, 'Oh no, we have a long and storied tradition with the Filibuster which must be upheld and that sucks as we really wanted this legislation to go thru, so sucks to be you Dem voters, but we cannot do it...
- Mitch says '**** the Filibuster. We have ways around it. Do it.'


And we hear currently Dem's say the reason we must not change the Filibuster for voting rights and Abortion rights, is the fear that if they do it and break the Norm, that Mitch already broke, it will open the door to more abuse by Mitch and the GOP in the future. So sucks to be you Dem voters but we must protect you in the future from Mitch by keeping this Norm.


It is a completely hollow argument, as no one believes if Mitch has a real priority and the power and votes to get around any obstruction, he will not pull the trigger and do it in a heart beat.

So only one side, the Dem's, refuses to use a gun at a gun fight. And only one base of voters suffer.

But as I saw James Carville galivanting onto every single show he can get on now saying, 'the ONLY answer to all of this current GOp threat to voting rights and abortion rights and other is for the citizens to say enough and rise up en masse and vote all these GOP people out.' He says we need a mass rejection of GOP officials and the election of number of Dem's that send a real signal to the GOP that this culture war stuff is thoroughly rejected by the American voting public.

The ONLY answer is to 'elect more Dems in the MT's and GE to do what the prior Dems refused to do due with regards to the filibuster and Parliamentarian to get things done'. More Dem's to fix the prior Dem's short comings.


What he did not say, though is that such a mass Dem win would end up actually providing a single one of the benefits because who needs to promise that?


I was watching a talking head news show on Sunday and the interviewer asked the Dem Congressperson who had just said similarly 'the answer is to give us more Dem's in the MT's' , that it seemed the Dem's had given up all paths to potentially fixing this now, with the powers and options THEY DO STILL have, in favour of an election still months away and then any legislative changes being a year or more away at best. That it seems the Dems are willing to let people live in a post Roe America until that distant help can come and only if they win. A big gamble as the Dem are not favoured to win, so not pushing to use they power they have now seemed very risky.

I think the Dem's are 100% fine with the risk of losing and the post Roe world being locked in and maybe codified by a GOP Senate and House. the are ok with the risk because if they use their power to fix it now, it might make people not show up to the polls for the MT's or GE, and the Dem's never want to waste a great election issue by actually fixing it.

Right, you own the libs and I get the power and money. GG

lol

Yeah, that whole loyal opposition thing works if you have an opposition. Both sides are taking money from the same donors so this is kind of a reasonable outcome to expect.

I get that politicians in every culture work for the elite but representing the common folk is actually a safe guard that protects them. FDR knew this very well. I suspect he was a man of good morals as well but he was protecting his family as well. Not many people have that level of common sense today.

Also, he wasn't a ****ing cuck. If you publicly tried to make a fool out of him he pushed back. The Dems are a bunch of guys who got beat up in HS. Mostly by the Dem gals.

Lol. You have a talent for reading something someone writes and then translating it into something totally different before it hits your brain.

Oh, I misread what you wrote. I swear I thought it said 'own the libs'.

The 'helping the libs' narrative was like two weeks ago. It's hard to keep it straight. Now the wags are saying conservatives leaked it to keep their guys in line.

Mybad. Sorry.

I did not think of it that way prior but this truly seems to cement what you say.

I would call this an attempt by Clarence to provide a defense if the view is the Court becomes completely split along ideological lines and say 'it is Roberts fault'.



Clarence Thomas calls out John Roberts as Supreme Court edges closer to overturning Roe v. Wade


There was a little-seen warm moment between Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas last November 1, just before the Supreme Court heard arguments on Texas' abortion ban.

Roberts announced that 30 years ago on that exact date, a ceremonial investiture for Thomas had been held. Thomas, sitting to Roberts' right, beamed and slung his arm over the chief's shoulder.

That collegiality in the courtroom, filled with only a few dozen spectators because of Covid-19 protocols, has vanished. The two justices are now engaged in an epic struggle over a new abortion case that could mean the end of Roe v. Wade nationwide and unsettle the public image of the court.

Last week at a Dallas conference, Thomas took a surprising, public jab at Roberts. Thomas has long touted the good relations inside the court and avoided public criticism of colleagues. He might not always have embraced his colleagues, but he avoided letting any enmity slip.

Thomas last week recalled the court atmosphere before 2005, when Roberts joined, and said, "We actually trusted each other. We may have been a dysfunctional family, but we were a family, and we loved it."

Thomas' blunt remarks suggest new antagonism toward Roberts and added to the uncertainty regarding the ultimate ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, expected by the end of June.

Roberts, with his institutional ist approach, is positioned as the one justice who might generate a compromise opinion that stops short of completely overturning Roe v. Wade, at least this year. That would thwart an outcome that Thomas has worked toward for decades....

And I will repeat my view from prior, which I know Rococo and others have disagreed with that packing the court, could provide tools to fix many of these issues, if indeed a person sees it as a problem that Trump and McConnell were able to basically hijack and pack the court in a way that has deliberately created this mess for Roberts by forcing too many ideologues in to the SC.

You are not going to remove the ideologue vote but you can give Roberts the tools to manage it better when he has no real tools to do so now.

And Biden should not pack the court in a purely partisan way. I would suggest adding about 10 more Justices, all of whom, who would have passed prior partisan scrutiny with unanimous consent (or near to it) with 6 of them being dem leaning and 4 being GOp leaning.

Give Roberts enough Justices that he can set up a panel type system that can ensure more fair consideration in a way that will not matter if Mitch then gets the Senate and sends in 10 or 20 more GOP justices to try and counter act it, as Roberts still controls how the panel get seated.

In fact, the more Justices both GOP and Dem pile in the harder it is to ensure you have the type of tight alignment you see between a Thomas and ACB type justice and the more likely you get a Roberts type conservative or even a Kavanaugh one who may be more interested int he pro business POV but not as vested in the abortion stuff.

With numbers comes diversity of thought and that is what the SC needs.

Mitch exploited the fact that with small numbers and edges it is much easier to control for diversity of thought.

I don't know exactly what to make of Thomas's comments, but I wouldn't be surprised if Roberts has been whispering to Kavanaugh and ACB that Alito and Thomas are on the verge of doing irreparable damage to the Court. Roberts probably believes that is true, but it's the sort of thing that probably would offend Thomas if it got back to him.