What is there to say? The five real nutcases will block any hope of democratic governance, and Roberts will wring his hands and be embarrassed about it. Which gets him no credit at all with me, his name should be a scandal as long as it's remembered at all for Shelby County. Sotomayor will write firey, passionate dissents that won't do any good, and we'll never get control of the court back.
I'd lose my temper over Breyer, but honestly even if he wasn't being insane it wouldn't do us any real good. Three justices aren't any use.
Not the most consequential case but the shadow docket result on the "Remain in Mexico" policy was a gut punch to me. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Stern with the details here. As I said not the most consequential, but the sheer insanity of it, the original Fox news Judge ruling , the use of the shadow docket and just the whole thing was such a clear indicator that they were going utterly rogue. (And it came right about the time of the Afghanistan Press Wilding Incident and the combo just put me deeper into a funk I have not gotten out of.) A bellwether for the rest of the year (so far).
Every fucking element of the case is an clusterfuck. And it was 6-3; John "Dick" Roberts was all in.
Now go find the most depressing Supreme Court article out there, tiger!
I's a race! And I'm winnninnng!
"What a dystopian future! Have you seen this dystopian future?"
"Yes! We're in it!"
I think our best chance for avoiding either violent conflict or a period of Orbanist rule is that something the Supreme Court does is so overtly horrible and arbitrary that it prompts Korea-style mass demonstrations, millions in the streets of DC and elsewhere, until a Democratic President starts disregarding them as Lincoln did. Such an opportunity might not arise if they're careful. (Maybe banning vaccine mandates during the fifth wave?)
Which gets him no credit at all with me, his name should be a scandal as long as it's remembered at all for Shelby County.
For the most part only 5 are completely wilding at the moment, but John "Dick" Roberts is in fact a truly repugnant racist fuckturd. Rucho ("We don't deal with no gerrymandering.") is almost as bad as Shelby. (And also a Robert's opinion). And along with the recent Arizona thingie they have basically cratered the Voting Right Act which as someone pointed out recently was one oft he most historically important bills in US history (and of course passed and renewed with massive support).
Dreadful, dreadful stuff. And I await with trepidation one of the further mails in the coffin, the supremacy of state legislatures* in picking electors at whichever point in the process they choose.
Jim Crow Laws -> John Roberts Laws.
*When controlled by Republicans of course. See article in 2 for how that works for different parties.
*
What is there to say?
For you, there's a disco duck video.
The Supreme Court as currently constituted has to lose its legitimacy in the eyes of the Democratic and pro-democracy part of the public. That's a prerequisite to any hope of fixing it, whether it happens next year or in twenty or fifty years.
Until basically nowish, elite Democrats were incentivized not to speak too harshly about the Court, because there was value in not burning bridges with Kennedy or with Roberts (who did, after all, save the ACA, so there was good reason to try to play nice with him). But now there are clearly five Justices who don't care whether Democrats think their decisions are legitimate. So it's high time for all Democrats to talk about the Court bluntly as the illegitimate institution that it is.
Politicians, from Biden all the way down to school board members, should not mess around with deceptive nonpartisan labeling and should call the six Republicans on the Court what they are, and call the Court an institution dominated by six unelected Republican partisan extremists.
Calling a spade a spade doesn't fix anything by itself, but it at least calls attention to the fact that there's a big problem here to be fixed, instead of obfuscating it as has been done for decades. One reason why Republican voters have been motivated by the Supreme Court for decades, whereas Democratic voters haven't cared much about it, is surely because their leaders have been telling them about it bluntly whereas Democratic leaders have mostly been trying to play nice and use nonpartisan language.
Once the Court loses its legitimacy in Democratic political discourse, then it becomes at least possible to fix the institution by adding more Justices and instituting term limits.
That would of course require Democratic control of Congress and the presidency, which is hard to achieve, but politics does tend to act like a pendulum and some day eventually enough people will get so sick of Republicans that we'll have another chance to govern (or there will be secession or civil war or dictatorship). Whenever the chance comes around, it needs to be a matter of genuine consensus among Democrats that the Court is illegitimate and must be fixed right away. That all starts with how Democratic politicians talk about the Court: No more nonpartisan BS, just call it what it is.
Agree with 8, and think it's important that the language is "Republican" and not "conservative." This isn't about judicial philosophy, it's about naked partisanship.
Agree with 8 and 9, and suggest that we start thinking of, and referring to, R justices like we do other political officeholders, eg Kavanaugh, J (R, Yale).
For you, there's a disco duck video.
For anyone who wants to know more -- ONE HIT WONDERLAND: "Disco Duck"
I also agree w 8. Court-packing is not going to fly until the average opinion starts seeing the Supreme Court as an arm of Trump.
I think it's doomed, because I think most people don't really have an internalized notion that the Supreme Court ought to be nonpartisan. It's like States Rights. It's what you say when you mean "I want it to tilt my way and right now it isn't."
I think the actual only way that public opinion shifts is when their rulings make life worse for people in a tangible way. Possibly if they're overzealous with Roe v Wade. That's a really high cost.
You can tell I'm grading finals because I just watched a 20 minute duck-umentary on Rick Dees. I kinda enjoyed it too.
I agree that the Court is fully broken and I'm not exactly against adding 4 more seats -- or adding party affiliation to the way we talk about justices, for that matter -- I just don't think it solves the problem(s). I think I'd rather see a system where the Supreme Court is a rotating panel of judges selected from the federal judiciary (you could limit it to the circuit courts or include the district courts, either way) instead of having the same 9, or 13, or whatever number, people sitting at the top of the system. There's no reason to vest that kind of power in such a small number of people for such a long time.
But even that may not hold as a solution to the real problem, of judges being political actors who are treated as though they're something else. I *think* the lower courts are less fully corrupted this way than the Supremes but (a) the level of corruption sure isn't zero, and (b) trends are surely pointing in the wrong direction.
Really what we need is a whole constitutional convention to rewrite the entire government. Congress is at least as broken as the Court, after all.
I would agree with 14.last if I thought the public could be trusted to elect a constitutional convention that would actually write a better one. The constitution does need fixing, very badly. But there needs to be some real public consensus about what a better constitution would look like before anyone tries to hold a convention. A convention held now would likely produce an impasse, unless it was undemocratically elected, in which case it would produce tyranny.
I think 14.1 is my favored solution, as well. I haven't done the research, but have wondered if there's an argument that it could be done without amending the Constitution.
You can tell I'm grading finals because I just watched a 20 minute duck-umentary on Rick Dees. I kinda enjoyed it too.
If you listened to that, I encourage you to also listen to his video on Funkytown -- both because it also touches on the Disco era and it's a surprisingly interesting story.
13: While I watched it for stressed out pre-holiday travel reasons.
Logistically-complicated with various non-Covid family issues too boring and intricate to relate to start with which leads to complicated questions on when to test (much less the fucking different scenarios if anyone is fucking positive).
Plus main credit cards got fraud-cancelled and were to show up Express Mail today but did not. And when do I really escalate VRBO-property owner who has several times now promised check-in info but not delivered (I am VRBO newb).
Leave Saturday AM, VRBO starts Tuesday.
I hate fucking Christmas.
The video in the OP is a good illustration that men's fashion never changes.
16: I haven't done the work myself either but I feel like I've read that it could be done. It would take a wholesale rewrite of the Judiciary Act, but the within the Constitution itself, Article III is pretty light on details.
It's interesting to consider the new constitutional crisis we'd face if congress did pass a law that effectively abolished the supreme court -- I'm imagining something like, "Every Article III judge is now a member of the constitutionally-mandated Supreme Court, and instead of the same 9 people hearing every case, high-court cases go to a rotating panel" -- and then the old about-to-be-crowded-out justices are called upon to exercise judicial review over that statute. But we don't have to worry about it, as there is no chance of a majority in either house, let alone 60 senators, doing anything so dramatic.
And 15 is right about the challenges of a convention. When we can't even agree on any amendments any more there isn't much hope for majority agreement on bigger changes. That doesn't mean they're not needed, though.
As long as I'm plugging "One Hit Wonderland" I should say my favorite video of his (in terms of offering real insight into a song and a music scene) is Flagpole Sitta.
18: OK. This place is powerful...
Credit Cards arrived (via FedEx).
And just got lockbox info.
You guys are good.
As someone who was alive and purportedly sentient for the Disco Duck craze, I will just say that you had to be there...
Hot pants were invented to enable dancers to look like ducks.
16.2: Would almost certainly lead to better, more stable, decisionmaking of last resort, IMO.
19: The '70s had fashion, but not in a way we would understand today.
(I am amused and dismayed that enough time has passed that the provenance of 'Disco Duck' must be explained for the benefit of the youngsters.)
I like how anyone under 50 probably doesn't remember it from the first time around, old-timer.
That's what I said: Youngsters.
But do you remember Disgorilla, the follow-up non-hit?
Wow. I did not remember that, and despite having come of age in the '70s, I had to Google it to convince myself that wasn't a joke. It would have been a good joke.
Because you didn't watch Nick's duckumentary, like me and Stormcrow.
Right. 33-> folk comment.
I did not recall the gorilla follow-up.
We also can't amend the constitution without simultaneously amending the means of amending - nothing whatsoever will get past three-fourths of the states (whether legislatures or conventions), but something simple like "all citizens have the right to vote conveniently, all districts drawn nonpartisan, 10-year Supreme Court limits, President by popular vote, and all elected representatives have voting power proportional to represented population" might get 55% or even 60% of a nationwide plebiscite.
35: Do not go in for nationwide plebiscites. Trust me on this.
NickS, those One Hit Wonderland videos are fun, thanks!
Trivia: Rick Dees' start in radio was at the same student radio station that I DJ'd at as a UNC undergrad, WXYC.
@35 compact districts drawn through nonpartisan means would hammer the democrats because democratic voters are geographically concentrated in cities. You would end up with a small number of 70% democratic districts and a larger number of 55% republican districts. What you want is proportional representation.
"Even as a novelty hit, it's pretty weird."
Minnesota, 1963. There was actually a lawsuit over writing credits for the lyrics.
Better lyrics than the other guy who came out of Minnesota in the 60s.
39: Pretty sure I didn't say compact. Nonpartisan has flaws, but if done consistently everywhere, undoes enough damage to be highly reparative. Yes, we should get something like PR that works better than single district FPTP, but that's the kind of thing you need a good-faith constitutional convention to work out.
Can I trade my two unicorn for that?
Actually!! It is a myth that democrats self-pack in cities!
What I mean is that when a group is highly concentrated, there are more proportional single member district plans available, and when a group is diffuse, there are far fewer proportional single member district plans available.
For the diffuse phenomenon, see here. But the concentrated phenomenon also holds.