The US Supreme Court

[Sean Hayden]

[Svartalf]

It's already rocky now that we have an active pope and a retired pope, I'm not sure I want to see how things work with nine popes acting at the same time...

[JimC]

All hail the Antipope!

[L'Emmerdeur]

The 'conservative' majority on the court will very likely nod along with the lies told by the lawyers for the organization that's suing to try to end affirmative action in higher education.

'Yeah, no, Reconstruction laws were actually race conscious'

Conservatives are so obsessed with the concept of originalism they continue to twist history in order to pretend their nonsense legal agendas are in line with what the “founders” of the country or the Fourteenth Amendment actually wanted. The latest historical victim of ahistorical legal ramblings is the entirety of Reconstruction legislation in order to claim affirmative action is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the latest attack on affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard during which attorney Cameron Norris, for Students for Fair Admissions, the group challenging Harvard’s policy, argued that the legislation passed following the Civil War to address the harms of slavery was not about race and that none of the legislation passed was race conscious (as opposed to race neutral). Buckle in for an angry history lesson to understand just how bizarre that claim truly is.

The Civil War was explicitly about slavery and the US had worked very hard to ensure slavery and Blackness had a strong correlation.

Legally, one could not be enslaved in the US if one was not of African descent. Indigenous people initially could be enslaved, but by the early 1800s, Native Americans were deemed legally free.

Even free Black people were often presumed to be enslaved if they could not prove they were free. Enslavement was not race neutral. Legislation to address slavery was very much not race neutral.

[Brian Peacock]

Interesting article, but I feel it pulls it punches somewhat.
These Originalist arguments go way beyond 'silly.'

[Svartalf]

seriously, if originalists were serious, the amish wFramers not having foreseen them, no room for them could be made in national infrastructuress...

[Tero]

https://esapolitics.blogspot.com/2022/1 ... ution.html

[Tero]

On the lighter side
https://karireport.blogspot.com/2022/11 ... eople.html

[Tero]

Who knew?
SC has not just conservative judges but
-lobbyists
-dark money
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/11 ... roblem/amp

[Scot Dutchy]

Corruption...

[rasetsu]

Tammany lives again.

[Joe]

Now we know why they ruled that money is speech.

[Svartalf]

Give me lots of green speech

[Tero]

It's not the words, it's more how you interpret the words. Each word.
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com/2022/1 ... ution.html

[L'Emmerdeur]

How sweet to have openly partisan ideologues spouting their slant on reality from the bench of the highest court in the land. Gorsuch this time...

'Gorsuch Angrily Accuses Colorado of Forcing Anti-LGBTQ Baker Into "Re-Education Program"'

Jack Phillips, a business owner who refused to bake cakes for same-sex weddings, citing his religious beliefs, was required to attend a class so he could become familiar with Colorado anti-discrimination law.

The Supreme Court’s ruling at the time called it, “additional remedial measures, including ‘comprehensive staff training on the Public Accommodations section'” of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.

Justice Gorsuch instead called it a “re-education program,” and slammed the state’s Solicitor General, Eric Olson, with it on Monday.

“Mr. Phillips did go through a re-education training program, pursuant to Colorado law, did he not, Mr. Olson?” Gorsuch asked the solicitor general.

“He went through a process that ensured he was familiar –” Olson responded, before Gorsuch cut him off.

“It was a re-education program, right?” the justice blared.

“It was not a ‘re-education program,'” Olson replied, holding his ground.

“What do you call it?” Gorsuch, dissatisfied, pressed.

“It was a process to make sure he was familiar with Colorado law,” Olson explained.

“Some might be excused for calling that a ‘re-education program,’” Gorsuch snapped.

“I strongly disagree, Justice Gorsuch,” Olson said, defending the law.

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern ... warns: “It does not bode well for the future of civil rights law that Gorsuch believes a state imposes ‘reeducation training’ on employers when it reminds them how to comply with nondiscrimination rules.”

“Astounding that Gorsuch, A Supreme Court Justice,” tweeted Adam Cohen of Attorneys for Good Government, “Refers to Colorado giving courses on following civil rights law, As ‘reeducation training.'”

“Like being taught not to discriminate against LGBTQ is the same as being sent to a gulag for protesting communism in the Soviet Union,” he added.

...

Attorney Andrew L. Seidel, Vice President of Strategic Communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State tweeted, “WHOA. Gorsuch asks a very hostile question about sending the bakery to ‘a re-education program.’ He spits the phrase with venom and repeats it several times. He’s regurgitating right wing talking points.”