Supreme Court

11 V 2022: No more pills?

Today’s Huffpost reports that some of the more dim and ambitious Republicans are talking about using their illegally obtained control of the Supreme Court to eliminate the Federal guarantee of access to contraceptives established by Griswold v. Connecticut of 1965. Amanda Terkel observes in today’s article: “ … if Republicans get what they want ― an overturning of Griswold ― it would kick the issue back to the states and open the door to restrictions or bans on birth control methods, because there would be no federal guarantee of access.”

White male reactionaries and the demagogues that pander to them have a long tradition of preference for wanting to keep issues like slavery, female suffrage, evolution, school segregation, etc. down at the state level where they cannot be compelled by federal law to do what is right. 

I don’t know what could prevent this overturn. It might be necessary to reduce the number of Catholics on the Supreme Court, for Catholics in the male-supremacy museum that gave us the Court’s current College of Cardinals still maintain that birth control is contrary to divine law, natural law, and, if they could have their way, contrary to state law. But how could the number of Cardinals on the Court be reduced? It would require mobilization of all who are disgusted by the growing power of the reactionary oligarchy to create the political energy to impeach Clarence Thomas for unethical behavior, and Samuel A. Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett for lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

3 V 2022: At Supreme Court, the fix is in

Leaked documents give additional evidence that the Catholic faction has turned the Supreme Court into the College of Cardinals. They have their package for the right diehards ready to go, wrapped, sealed, and awaiting delivery. How many of these Catholic justices gave assurances to the confirmation committee that they would stick to the law in the event of a clash between the law and their religious convictions? And how many of them perjured themselves in saying this?

14 I 2022: Six horses of the Apocalypse

The Supreme Court has made its latest contribution to the reactionary war to block change and eliminate the due protection of the people by the Federal Government. The six reactionary justices blocked the COVID mandate for large businesses. Who will suffer for this? Not the justices, I’m sure. Not the wealthy whom they serve. No, no. Ordinary people who will not be protected at work and all the other people with whom they live and come into contact.

In the Apocalypse, there are Four Horsemen that bring woe and death upon the earth. I might call the reactionary justices the Six Horsemen, but I think the Six Horses is a better fit, for they are only doing what the reactionaries who ride them want to be done.

I will not, cannot conceal my disgust. It is said that this is part of a program of the reactionary justices to reduce the Federal Government’s role in the lives of citizens. No, it’s a program to deprive the people of the protection of the Federal Government. Corruption is rife in Republican state legislatures, the Republicans in Congress are united in rejecting anything that might benefit the American people. Who will contain the voracity of big money?

This reactionary court, along with the Republican Party that created it, will continue to oppress us and will destroy the United States. Nor do they care, so long as power remains in the hands of those who hold it now.

2 XII 2021: Of course Trump appointees to Supreme Court were lying

Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court all claimed to have an open mind about Roe v. Wade. But they came to the Senate Committee already tainted from their contact with Trump, and are, like Trump, not to be trusted. And it wouldn’t have taken much imagination to conclude that in any deliberation about reproductive rights they would be guided by their own religious and political positions.

Trump and McConnell had, by a mixture of good luck and native shamelessness, managed to pack the Supreme Court, but they could not have succeeded in doing so if their nominees had told the truth to the Senate Committee. Two of Trump’s appointments added to the other reactionary Roman Catholics create a right-wing Catholic majority on the Court: Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. These justices, given the kind of Catholic they are, are barred by personal convictions from supporting Roe v. Wade, whatever they may have told the Senate about an open mind.

I wonder if an earlier Catholic justice, the now much reviled Roger B. Taney of Dred Scott fame, would have been more candid with the Senate.

12 IX 2019: Illegalities and privileges for the few

Today CNN reported the following: “A lion trophy from Tanzania has been approved for import to the US, the first such case since lions began receiving protections in January 2016 as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, a conservation group says.” I wouldn’t call this news, although it is something I had not known before. But it is so damned predictable. Special deal arranged for over-rich playboy hunter to import illegal game trophy. It would have been news if permission had been denied.

Speaking of the marginally legal: The Supreme Court just gave the Trump Gang permission to break national and international law with its new requirement that anyone seeking asylum in the U.S. must first have sought asylum in a country through which he passed. I’m tempted to try to buy a piece of wasteland just across the Southern border, set up a new nation there, and require emigrants to apply for asylum as they pass through the gift shop. I guess the Trump Tools on the Supreme Court were singing for their supper on this one.

Also no-news is the announcement that the Trump EPA is going to allow monied people to pollute the water even more. Under the reign of Trump, the environment has received blow upon blow. A colleague once said to me of a university’s administration: “If you can think of anything dumber than what they are doing, send them a letter and they will adopt the suggestion.” I truly feel that if I think of something more destructive to the environment, more morally repugnant, more productive of poverty, more anti-democratic than what the Trump Team is doing, I could send it in an email and they would grab onto it.