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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNYT Opinion: The Supreme Court Has Gone Off the Rails
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/04/opinion/supreme-court-conservatives.htmlBy Donald Ayer
Mr. Ayer was a U.S. attorney and principal deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration.
As the court begins a new term, regrettably, its recent history suggests that it lacks a majority of justices with sufficient concern about the basic continuity and integrity of the law or the ability of government to function.
The evidence has been growing quietly in recent years and then, last summer, quite loudly, when the court decided to twiddle its thumbs while Texas enacted an abortion law that practically bans nearly all procedures while evading timely judicial review.
. . .
The Reagan revolution pitted itself against activist judges who were seen as following personal whims by altering the law and creating rights not found in the Constitution. Through interpretive tools like textualism and originalism, the Reagan lawyers sought to make the law more predictable and steady as articulated by John Roberts, the job of justices was to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.
That revolution, however, has morphed into what it was meant to curtail, as the expanding right-wing majority on the Supreme Court has relied on an array of innovative constitutional rights to undermine traditional governmental actions while discarding longstanding precedents with which they disagree.
In the highest-profile case of the courts new term, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health, the conservative justices may be ready to repeal the constitutional right to abortion.
At the same time it seems ready to cast aside certain constitutional rights, the court today regularly gives sweeping new interpretations to other rights and invokes them to radically narrow certain government powers that were until quite recently uncontroversial, including, for example, powers related to public safety or our democratic process. . .
elleng
(130,127 posts)orangecrush
(19,236 posts)Wealth's attack and robbery of the American worker/middle class by an extensive propaganda and political strategy, to take us back to the guilded age.
And here we are.
mopinko
(69,806 posts)imho, this is THE thing that happened under st ronnie- the pres was allowed to lie, and call it something else, and everyone swallowed that.
once you start calling lies something else and getting away w it, you can do anything.
esp- turning 'entitlement' into a dirty word that means the opposite of what it means.
orangecrush
(19,236 posts)Was the real President.
Ronnie was a sock puppet.
Much like Cheney and W.
Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)orangecrush
(19,236 posts)IMO, the Occupy movement had them crapping their pants.
Took control of media coverage, and advocated direct action participatory democracy taken to the streets, instead of playing against their stacked deck.
Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)originally wanting to hold Wall Street banksters accountable, was co-opted. Koch Bros. and others saw an opportunity to influence and ultimately direct/ take over a movement. And they did. Not much truth about that out there, and I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. It is what it is at this point. A rabid cult being manipulated by folks intent on destroying democracy. That's what it looks like anyhow.
orangecrush
(19,236 posts)Thanks!
:
Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,145 posts)themselves from the damage and pretend they weren't responsible for what they now decry.
WHITT
(2,868 posts)ain't gonna like all these high-intensity spotlights on them. They were planning on rolling-out their extremist RightWing agenda while people weren't paying attention.
bucolic_frolic
(42,663 posts)Much of what I see in court rulings, from many levels, is about 20% partisan, and on the Supreme Court its 60%
czarjak
(11,191 posts)madaboutharry
(40,150 posts)It is all about the outcome. The 6 conservatives on the court render opinions based on their personal political views. They manufacture strained legal arguments to justify their opinions. The Supreme Court has become a farce.
Takket
(21,424 posts)I'm reading Oral arguments are December 1st. I'm not sure when a ruling actually comes down, but this was the plan all along. Stack SCOTUS, have some state start a case effectively banning abortions, and get that case in front of SCOTUS. Well, here it is........ this is the moment they spent years preparing for.
irisblue
(32,828 posts)Much more info available online.
Source-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobbs_v._Jackson_Women%27s_Health_Organization
Snip-Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is a pending U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi state law that banned abortion operations after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. Lower courts had ruled in preliminary injunctions to prevent enforcement of the law on the basis that the law violated the holding of women's rights in Roe v. Wade, which generally allows a woman to opt for abortion within the first 24 weeks. Oral hearings are scheduled on December 1, 2021.
Jon King
(1,910 posts)Maya Angelou told us long ago. These people are exactly who they showed they were....Clarence Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, Coney Barrett.....McConnell, Bannon, Trump, all the MAGA voters. Nothing they do should be a surprise.
They will cheat to win in 2022, they will then impeach Biden and Harris in the House, they will put in state voting boards to do their bidding, they will install Trump in 2024, they will ban women's rights, they will ensure white male minority rule on every possible aspect of American life.
Tired of anyone of any party that wants to play by the old rules. These people are nothing if not transparent, they have showed us what they want and they will do it when they have the chance.
bucolic_frolic
(42,663 posts)GoodRaisin
(8,885 posts)Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)And only our kind of whites. The purity tests will make McCarthy look like an amateur. This ain't no party.
Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)Mysterian
(4,523 posts)They seek to install a dictatorship in the USA.
jaxexpat
(6,701 posts)The essential mechanism of our government is to address challenges with appropriate legislation, while acknowledging perpetual and current imperfection. Our problems are when the electorate gives into the temptation to presume an arrival at a state of perfection or at least preferability. The pressure to discover, accept and maintain this illusory state is the primary cause of discord and dis-ease among the governed. Conservatism captures the inherent tendency of an individual to distrust the unknown and focuses the public's attention on fear of change. Conservatism, by this fashion, is a democratic society's worst devolution, the heart of discord and disease which makes all citizens into cowards.
The inevitability of this tragedy should have been ameliorated by the existence of a timeless and absolute account of laws complete with judges to oversee their dispensation. BUT, somehow, the idea of unelected lifetime terms (appointed judicial monarchs) to provide personnel for a full one third and equal branch of our government was infused into our founders' thinking as a reasonable provision. I suspect it was, like the electoral college, a nod to a peculiarly self-righteous aspect of "conservatism" endemic to coalitions of the powerful. It was/is a mistake.
Ultimately conservatism is the product of a lazy mind. Chalk another one up for gravity.
PlanetBev
(4,098 posts)Now theyre bemoaning that they cant control it. Just like they welcomed every evangelical religious nut to the GOP to consolidate power, and now they are the party.
You cant control fanaticism.
LastDemocratInSC
(3,625 posts)And are now complaining about the bugs eating from the buffet and swimming in the punch bowl.
WTF did they think was going to happen?
bluewater
(5,376 posts)Farmer-Rick
(10,072 posts)The filthy rich and the corporations they use to extract our national wealth.
The US Supreme Court, like in any fascist system, is used to ensure profits over any other concerns of the majority of citizens. Keeping a desperate and poor abused woman popping out those neglected and hungry babies, ensure a ready supply of starving cheap labor. Outlawing abortions keeps those uppity women in their place.
Forced birth only applies to women who can't get away from the abusive laws. My offspring can go to another country to use the abortion pills. The Senator with a pregnant mistress can get the abortion pills off the black market easily enough despite laws. And poor abused folk are frequently unable to get away or able to afford the black market prices. So, poor folk end up being the underpaid, overworked and desperate labor force of the filthy rich capitalists thanks to anti-abortion laws approved by the Supremes.
It's just another scam.
Boomerproud
(7,889 posts)You are irrelevant. Bye.
JHB
(37,128 posts)...about it being against "activist" judges, but anyone taking a good look at the people and groups driving the shift could tell the goal wasn't putting the breaks on "activism", it was to reverse decades of decisions they didn't agree with.
Not just Roe v. Wade: labor law rulings, regulatory rulings, corporate law rulings, privacy rulings, permissible government reach rulings, right up to and past reversing the rulings that allowed Social Security and any other program that helped regular people or added obstacles to the wealthy bulldozing anyone in their way.