Recapping birthright citizenship WIN, anyone want merch?, hijacking religion, upholding freedom of the press, LIVE REACTIONS at SCOTUS, April Ryan with Janai Nelson, and The Pod
What's the big victory here? That only 5 justices voted against trump, one was mixed in his feelings about the situation which is astonishing that he would not accept the fact that the only way one can modify or eliminate a writing in the Constitution is a 3/4 vote by the states. I could understand why Alito and Thomas voted against it, but I can't understand Gorsuch nor Kavanaugh who apparently forgot that the SCOTUS cannot suggest an alternative, given the very thin argument he made splitting his vote into two. Though people are thrilled and happy about the outcome the vote should have been 9-0 if we had a solid Supreme Court who followed the rule of law, and the terms of how one can remove an Amendment or attempt to modify one. This victory has a coldness to it that shouldn't make anyone happy that our country is turning its corner from an autocracy attempt.
If this Court cannot unanimously recognize and enforce plain constitutional language upheld by the same 1890s Court that wrote Plessy v. Ferguson, then there’s no victory here and our rights are deeply and more imperiled by this Court than by stumbling, fumbling idiotic Trump. Let’s avoid the beltway glorification of these pompous un-American ignoramuses.
Big victory? Are you kidding me? You are both lawyers, as am I, and I am ashamed that this was even a case. All nine members of the United States Supreme Court have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, and all this decision indicated to me is that only five of them have even bothered to read it, never mind properly apply it as written.
And Brett "The Rapist" Kavanaugh thinks the court will be able to rewrite the constitution with a little congressional chicanery. The GOP is already fast at work at doing just that. Jesus H. Christ. I am so ashamed of my profession that I can barely think straight. And until the rest of my profession gets up off its dead ass and expresses justifiable outrage at these Ivy League ingrates, our republic is at grave risk.
Truth be told, the United States Supreme Court ceased to be a legitimate governmental institution long ago. It was coincident with the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice, a man who will go down in history as even worse than Roger Taney, the notorious chief justice who authored the Dred Scott decision.
I would not doubt in the slightest that the proudest day in John Roberts's pathetic life was the day he conjured that completely bogus analogy of judges as "umpires who call balls and strikes." What colossal bullshit. What he didn't tell us is that Umpire Roberts's strike zone varies greatly depending upon who's pitching. If a corporation is on the mound, and a union worker is in the batter's box, a pitch in the dirt will be called a strike. And when the roles are reversed, Umpire Roberts's strikes zone becomes the size of a postage stamp.
How could Roberts be even worse than Taney? you may ask. Well, because Dred Scott, an outrageously shitty decision was overruled by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution, that's how. Which constitutional provisions will we need to enact to overrule the myriad shitty decisions by John Roberts? "Money is speech." "Corporations are people." "Machine guns are legal." "Insurrectionists can hold office." "Fuck your voting rights." "Ethics is for suckers."
Seems like the so called "supreme court" is playing defense of quarterback trump...oh you know who he is....the convicted felon, the person who does anything he wants to mess up America and make plenty of money to boot (lately 2B), and he is backed up the republicans in Congress creating a protective line around trump as they violate the Constitution, and have a blind eye towards doing anything about this attempted leap to autocracy. I guess it's easy to complain, but if tens of millions of voters don't get out there this November then we might as well cash in democracy, and learn how it is to live in a Putin style dictatorship. The founders are flipping in their graves, but they are also guilty of not seeing the future (maybe they didn't as most of them were slave holders). Time to fight for America, or sit at home and watch it happen as America goes down the tubes. Your message was right on, Thanks.
The Republicans are already scheming ways to get around the Court's decision. According to Ron Filipkowski in Meidas' Today in Politics:
"Sean Davis, Editor of The Federalist: “Several ways forward here given the choice of Roberts/Barrett to nullify the 14th Amendment and extra-constitutionally replace it with their own language:
Nullification. States issue birth certificates, and they can just stop issuing them to non-citizens. Roberts/Barrett can deal with the fallout and litigate each birth individually.
Pack the court. If Robert wants to be a politician who writes laws instead of a judge, then he can fight with 10 more unelected legislators in robes.
Deny entry to all pregnant foreigners.
Deny entry to all female foreigners.
Require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry.
Dissolution of the Union. A nation which can’t even restrict who gets to be a citizen isn’t a nation.
Amend the Constitution. This is pointless, because once a judge decides he can rewrite the Constitution at will."
“As I argue in my forthcoming book, Backslide, the God conjured by MAGA is not the compassionate creator of an expansive universe but a vengeful tribal deity tailor-made for a white Christian ethno-religious state.”
Thank you for making this distinction. I believe it is this sort of thing that gets lost in the messaging by the MAGA right.
Robby Jones on Freedom 250 and how White Christian Nationalists view Christianity.
The Supreme Court majority got it right by ruling that the president's EO attempting to outlaw birthright citizenship was unconstitutional. (That EO was full of fallacies.) But unrestricted birthright citizenship is an anomaly of the Western hemisphere, almost entirely. And in the twenty-first century with its expanded travel options, it is a legal relic that warrants reconsideration. Wong Kim Ark, whose case solidified the notion of unrestricted birthright citizenship, was in fact the son of Chinese parents who were legal residents of the US at the time of his birth. Nearly all countries outside the Western hemisphere which honor birthright citizenship attach restrictions, such as needing one parent to be a citizen or legal resident of the country. When we were trained for duty as consular officers in the Foreign Service in 1989, as an example of how birthright citizenship worked, here is an example given to our class: A Brazilian woman who has never been to the US and has no family ties to the US, is flying from Rio to Toronto. While in flight over the US she gives birth. By virtue of having been born in US airspace, that child is a US citizen. This may be a farfetched example, and I don’t know if there is case law supporting this, but it is how the seriousness of birthright citizenship was emphasized as we prepared for consular work. (At an Embassy I served at, 'birth tourism' was a reality. Not a daily issue but not a rarity.
Laws, if they’re to have respect, need periodic review, if not always revisions. We rightly criticize the so-called originalists on the current Court, and should be equally critical when originalism might support our own political ideologies.
What's the big victory here? That only 5 justices voted against trump, one was mixed in his feelings about the situation which is astonishing that he would not accept the fact that the only way one can modify or eliminate a writing in the Constitution is a 3/4 vote by the states. I could understand why Alito and Thomas voted against it, but I can't understand Gorsuch nor Kavanaugh who apparently forgot that the SCOTUS cannot suggest an alternative, given the very thin argument he made splitting his vote into two. Though people are thrilled and happy about the outcome the vote should have been 9-0 if we had a solid Supreme Court who followed the rule of law, and the terms of how one can remove an Amendment or attempt to modify one. This victory has a coldness to it that shouldn't make anyone happy that our country is turning its corner from an autocracy attempt.
If this Court cannot unanimously recognize and enforce plain constitutional language upheld by the same 1890s Court that wrote Plessy v. Ferguson, then there’s no victory here and our rights are deeply and more imperiled by this Court than by stumbling, fumbling idiotic Trump. Let’s avoid the beltway glorification of these pompous un-American ignoramuses.
Big victory? Are you kidding me? You are both lawyers, as am I, and I am ashamed that this was even a case. All nine members of the United States Supreme Court have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, and all this decision indicated to me is that only five of them have even bothered to read it, never mind properly apply it as written.
And Brett "The Rapist" Kavanaugh thinks the court will be able to rewrite the constitution with a little congressional chicanery. The GOP is already fast at work at doing just that. Jesus H. Christ. I am so ashamed of my profession that I can barely think straight. And until the rest of my profession gets up off its dead ass and expresses justifiable outrage at these Ivy League ingrates, our republic is at grave risk.
Truth be told, the United States Supreme Court ceased to be a legitimate governmental institution long ago. It was coincident with the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice, a man who will go down in history as even worse than Roger Taney, the notorious chief justice who authored the Dred Scott decision.
I would not doubt in the slightest that the proudest day in John Roberts's pathetic life was the day he conjured that completely bogus analogy of judges as "umpires who call balls and strikes." What colossal bullshit. What he didn't tell us is that Umpire Roberts's strike zone varies greatly depending upon who's pitching. If a corporation is on the mound, and a union worker is in the batter's box, a pitch in the dirt will be called a strike. And when the roles are reversed, Umpire Roberts's strikes zone becomes the size of a postage stamp.
How could Roberts be even worse than Taney? you may ask. Well, because Dred Scott, an outrageously shitty decision was overruled by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution, that's how. Which constitutional provisions will we need to enact to overrule the myriad shitty decisions by John Roberts? "Money is speech." "Corporations are people." "Machine guns are legal." "Insurrectionists can hold office." "Fuck your voting rights." "Ethics is for suckers."
Seems like the so called "supreme court" is playing defense of quarterback trump...oh you know who he is....the convicted felon, the person who does anything he wants to mess up America and make plenty of money to boot (lately 2B), and he is backed up the republicans in Congress creating a protective line around trump as they violate the Constitution, and have a blind eye towards doing anything about this attempted leap to autocracy. I guess it's easy to complain, but if tens of millions of voters don't get out there this November then we might as well cash in democracy, and learn how it is to live in a Putin style dictatorship. The founders are flipping in their graves, but they are also guilty of not seeing the future (maybe they didn't as most of them were slave holders). Time to fight for America, or sit at home and watch it happen as America goes down the tubes. Your message was right on, Thanks.
The Republicans are already scheming ways to get around the Court's decision. According to Ron Filipkowski in Meidas' Today in Politics:
"Sean Davis, Editor of The Federalist: “Several ways forward here given the choice of Roberts/Barrett to nullify the 14th Amendment and extra-constitutionally replace it with their own language:
Nullification. States issue birth certificates, and they can just stop issuing them to non-citizens. Roberts/Barrett can deal with the fallout and litigate each birth individually.
Pack the court. If Robert wants to be a politician who writes laws instead of a judge, then he can fight with 10 more unelected legislators in robes.
Deny entry to all pregnant foreigners.
Deny entry to all female foreigners.
Require sterilization of all foreign visitors prior to entry.
Dissolution of the Union. A nation which can’t even restrict who gets to be a citizen isn’t a nation.
Amend the Constitution. This is pointless, because once a judge decides he can rewrite the Constitution at will."
"Dissolution of the Union. A nation which can’t even restrict who gets to be a citizen isn’t a nation."
Over and over and over again, it seems like it was a bad idea to fight a civil war to keep the Union together. Maybe it'd be better if they just left.
As Favor Flav says, "Yeah Booyyyeeee!!!"
Excellent job contrarians. We'll take every win we can get.
“As I argue in my forthcoming book, Backslide, the God conjured by MAGA is not the compassionate creator of an expansive universe but a vengeful tribal deity tailor-made for a white Christian ethno-religious state.”
Thank you for making this distinction. I believe it is this sort of thing that gets lost in the messaging by the MAGA right.
Robby Jones on Freedom 250 and how White Christian Nationalists view Christianity.
The Supreme Court majority got it right by ruling that the president's EO attempting to outlaw birthright citizenship was unconstitutional. (That EO was full of fallacies.) But unrestricted birthright citizenship is an anomaly of the Western hemisphere, almost entirely. And in the twenty-first century with its expanded travel options, it is a legal relic that warrants reconsideration. Wong Kim Ark, whose case solidified the notion of unrestricted birthright citizenship, was in fact the son of Chinese parents who were legal residents of the US at the time of his birth. Nearly all countries outside the Western hemisphere which honor birthright citizenship attach restrictions, such as needing one parent to be a citizen or legal resident of the country. When we were trained for duty as consular officers in the Foreign Service in 1989, as an example of how birthright citizenship worked, here is an example given to our class: A Brazilian woman who has never been to the US and has no family ties to the US, is flying from Rio to Toronto. While in flight over the US she gives birth. By virtue of having been born in US airspace, that child is a US citizen. This may be a farfetched example, and I don’t know if there is case law supporting this, but it is how the seriousness of birthright citizenship was emphasized as we prepared for consular work. (At an Embassy I served at, 'birth tourism' was a reality. Not a daily issue but not a rarity.
Laws, if they’re to have respect, need periodic review, if not always revisions. We rightly criticize the so-called originalists on the current Court, and should be equally critical when originalism might support our own political ideologies.
Can we make the screen print sets into screen savers or backgrounds for computers, phones, and tablets? Thanks.