Chief Justice John Roberts had the nerve to give an interview where he was whining about the ‘possible loss’ of the legitimacy of the Court. Oh please. That ship has said with the three illegitimate people on the Court that were installed by Dolt45.
Roberts says Supreme Court will reopen to public and defends legitimacy https://t.co/xv3Ehp5cgT
— Miss Aja (@brat2381) September 11, 2022
And, then there was someone who brought receipts on John Roberts and his legacy…which will be that he oversaw the most rotten Court since Taney.
He wanted to thread the needle with Abortion; trying to do it as he had done Voting Rights – keep it on paper, but, hollow it out. But, the right lunatics would have none of that.
Roberts is all about appearances. Remember, he didn’t mind Dobbs – the heinous thing wasn’t stripping half this country of its body autonomy, it was the ‘leak’. A ‘ leak’ was more important than the case itself.
Sure.
Whatever.
‘Chief Justice’ John Roberts says “it’s a mistake to question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court based on its decisions.” So let’s review how he has personally waged a war on democracy his entire career and is largely responsible for the illegitimacy of the current court.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
Even more distressing to him was the fact that a filibuster-proof senate majority *supported* this legislation. “Something must be done to educate the Senators on the seriousness of this problem,” Roberts wrote.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
Roberts’ early crusade against voting rights failed. Though Reagan preferred a weaker law, he eventually bowed to political pressure and signed the legislation Roberts deemed contrary to many of our nation’s “most fundamental” tenets into law. But time was on Roberts’ side.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
While Roberts has shown some moderation as Chief Justice (saving the Affordable Care Act twice and voting to preserve Roe before ultimately letting it fall), he has never shown any leniency when it comes to voting rights.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
The most important factor in any democracy is the basic question of who is allowed to vote and which ballots are counted. And on this, Roberts is the same man who tried and failed to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act nearly four decades earlier, and is now on the cusp of victory.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
Section 5 was set to expire just 5 years later (in 1970) unless renewed by Congress. While never made permanent, Congress chose to extend it in 1975, 1982, and 2006. Section 2 permitted voting rights plaintiffs to bring lawsuits challenging racist laws that are already in effect.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
This was a monumentally high bar to clear because the authors of voter suppression bills are quite masterful at drafting legislation that appears to be racially unbiased on its face, despite effectively disenfranchising voters of color.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
THIS was the amendment that young John Roberts fought so hard to kill. He wrote 25 memos opposing it; drafted talking points, speeches and op-eds for DOJ officials against it; attended weekly strategy sessions; and worked closely with senators on Capitol Hill to eliminate it.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
A similar process unfolded in 2006 under Bush. Conservatives were seething at their failure to stop what they perceived as an “affront to the Constitution” even after winning the Presidency and majorities in Congress. Antonin Scalia and Roberts were particularly irate over this.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
Roberts’ majority opinion in Shelby went further, claiming America was simply no longer racist enough to need a fully operational Voting Rights Act. If this sounds ridiculous to you, it is. His argument was basically: since preclearance worked, there was no longer a need for it.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
Nothing in the Constitution suggests that SCOTUS gets to decide whether the U.S. is “racist enough” to justify extraordinary measures to curb the impacts of that racism. In fact, the text of parts of the 14th as well as the 15 Amendments make clear that they do NOT get to do this
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
Even if Roberts was right that our nation had made enough racial progress to ease off of preclearance requirements, Congress disagreed with him. And the text of the Constitution states that Congress has the final word on such matters.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
The state’s new election law, in the words of a federal appeals court judge that struck it down, “targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision.” And it did so because that was its PURPOSE. They get data on the use of voting practices by race and use it to draft bills
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
The law also eliminated the first seven days of early voting because data showed that African Americans were especially likely to vote in those days. And it eliminated one of the two Sunday voting days when Black churches often held “souls-to-the-polls” to bus attendants to vote.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
With Shelby’s effective evisceration of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, all that remained to actually stop voter suppression on the basis of race was Section 2.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
In one of his memos attacking the Voting Rights Act, young John Roberts argued that prohibiting laws that merely have the effect of disenfranchising voters is unnecessary because voting rights plaintiffs can fairly easily prove that racist laws were enacted with invidious intent.
— Andrew Wortman 🏳️🌈🇺🇸 (@AmoneyResists) September 11, 2022
The truth is that it’s not just the Supreme Court. It’s that our Judiciary is full of Federalist Society hack judges. People completely unqualified to have a lifetime appointment to the Judicial Branch of this country, and whose ONLY qualification has been membership in the Federalist Society. Exhibit one is that Clown Cannon in Florida, who gave that ridiculous ruling for Dolt45 about the Special Master. Actually rated UNQUALIFIED, she got a lifetime appointment. And, she’s not the only one. Was part of a large group of those shoved through by Moscow Mitch.
The Solution to the Trump Judge Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
BY DAHLIA LITHWICK AND MARK JOSEPH STERN
Legal analysts lit up social media on Monday in response to the broad and potentially devastating order by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Donald Trump appointee to the Southern District of Florida, temporarily halting the criminal investigation of the former president and his alleged pilfering of classified documents. Her order further authorized a special master to identify and return the small fraction of materials seized in last month’s court-approved search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence that may belong to him. One analyst after another meticulously detailed the failings of Cannon’s reasoning: It was “untethered to the law,” “a political conclusion in search of a legal rationale,” “deeply problematic,” “laughably bad.” At some point, one truly runs out of euphemisms for lawless partisan hackery.
It’s possible to agree with every one of these criticisms but still find them less than satisfying. Because at the end of the day, no matter how much withering criticism she faces, Cannon still gets to put on the black robe and run interference for her benefactor. She will still get a standing ovation at some future Federalist Society gathering. She remains in control of this case. But it’s not just Cannon: Many smart lawyers also noted that the Justice Department now faces the unenviable task of having to appeal this decision up to higher courts that are filled with Trump appointees, which takes the sting out of the opprobrium: For all we know, the Trump-stacked 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or five radical justices on the Supreme Court may also greet her outrageous decision with a standing ovation.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/09/trump-judge-aileen-cannon-court-reform.html
Not just a Supreme Court issue. The rot of the stench of the Federalist Society within our Judicial Branch.
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊