The Supreme Court: Clarence & Ginni Thomas Jet Set Edition

[Jman220]

Wegothim.jpg!

[goofy]

Some wonderful in-depth reporting on the SCOTUS leak investigation:

Inside the Supreme Court Inquiry: Seized Phones, Affidavits and Distrust

John Roberts: not the best people manager!

Inside the court, justices are treated with such day-to-day deference that junior aides assist them in putting on their black robes. As staff members were grilled, some grew concerned about the fairness of the inquiry, worried that the nine most powerful people at the court were not being questioned rigorously like everyone else.

The investigation was an attempt by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to right the institution and its image after a grievous breach and slide in public trust. Instead, it may have lowered confidence inside the court and out.

But in interviews, employees raised questions about whether the justices themselves have contributed to a decline in trust inside and outside the court.

Periodically, employees receive a stern memo reminding them that they may not participate in partisan political activities — no events, fund-raising, bumper stickers or statements on social media. So some bristled when four justices attended a 40th-anniversary dinner for the Federalist Society, an influential conservative group that focuses on the judiciary, in November.

It turns out they did talk to justices, but it sounds like a pretty casual conversation where they said “great, thanks, bye” after Clarence said “definitely wasn’t me”:

A day later, the court was forced to issue a second statement saying that the marshal had in fact conferred with the justices, but on very different terms from others at the institution. Lower-level employees had been formally interrogated, recorded, pressed to sign affidavits denying any involvement and warned that they could lose their jobs if they failed to answer questions fully, according to interviews and the report.

In contrast, conversations with the justices had been a two-way “iterative process” in which they asked as well as answered questions, the marshal, Gail A. Curley, wrote. She had seen no need for them to sign affidavits, she said.

Also lol I had no clue the marshal was this much of a purely ceremonial gig:

The chief had assigned the investigation to Ms. Curley, the marshal, whose best-known task was crying “Oyez, oyez, oyez!” as justices entered the courtroom. She was a respected former Army lawyer, but her division had little of the investigative muscle of other government agencies, no subpoena power and a staff only partly devoted to security. Others on her team dealt with court administrative tasks like staffing events and handling mail.

Total clown show.

[MrWookie]

Exclusive: Supreme Court did not disclose financial relationship with expert...

[hammypotter]

Mark Joseph Stern

Coming soon!

[goofy]

lol, let me guess: because there’s not a storied tradition & history of denying domestic abusers access to guns in this country? Let’s see:

Yep! These fucking dipshits.

Also, lol:

Ian Millhiser

Gonna go out on a limb and guess that, no, they aren’t.

[Jman220]

Holy fuck the facts of that case are fucking bonkers horribad:

[commonWealth]

The important thing is that in between those five shootings, he was a responsible gun owner.

[goofy]

More on that psycho gun decision, this time focusing on Ho’s concurrence (this is the guy who’s trying to make “don’t hire any clerks from Yale, because they don’t respect free speech” a thing with zero self-awareness about the irony in that):

Judge Ho Apparently Didn't Bother To Read The Cases He Cited In Domestic...

[goofy]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/04/politics/supreme-court-email-burn-bags-leak-investigation/index.html

Of course we needed an email subplot here:

New details revealed to CNN by multiple sources familiar with the court’s operations offer an even more detailed picture of yearslong lax internal procedures that could have endangered security, led to the leak and hindered an investigation into the culprit.

Supreme Court employees also used printers that didn’t produce logs – or were able to print sensitive documents off-site without tracking – and “burn bags” meant to ensure the safe destruction of materials were left open and unattended in hallways.

“This has been going on for years,” one former employee said.

The problem with the justices’ use of emails persisted in part because some justices were slow to adopt to the technology and some court employees were nervous about confronting them to urge them to take precautions, one person said. Such behavior meant that justices weren’t setting an example to take security seriously.

The justices were “not masters of information security protocol,” one former court employee told CNN.

[DrModern]

Would anything short of a full repeal of the Second Amendment appease the Bruen majority? Decisions like that one make me wonder how this Court’s wrath will ever be undone. I get the feeling we are only just looking at the tip of the iceberg in terms of how much damage to fundamental rights–to say nothing of a socialist or feminist or even just generally left-liberal state–this Court is going to do.

[MrWookie]

A Texas judge could soon force major abortion pill off market nationwide....

We are about to find out if a Texas state judge can ban medication nationwide based on his own whimsy, so I think the sort of constitutional crisis where blue states just start ignoring conservative court rulings may be close

[commonWealth]

@MrWookie

We are about to find out if a Texas state judge can ban medication nationwide based on his own whimsy

It’s going to be a yes. I don’t see Biden telling the FDA to overrule a federal judge. It’ll get appealed to SCOTUS and if they decide to play Calvinball too, it’ll stay banned.

@MrWookie

so I think the sort of constitutional crisis where blue states just start ignoring conservative court rulings may be close

I doubt it, because it’s not like Newsom can manufacture the drug, and the drug companies that make it probably don’t want to get dragged into court over it, which would be a lock. Probably criminal and civil proceedings, and even liberal judges would rule against them because it would be an open and shut case. The court said you couldn’t do it and you did it, here’s your fine.

The next liberal “lol fuck you,” ruling by a federal court will be the first. Until it happens, I’m not banking on it.

[MrWookie]

It may not be on this ruling, but if it stands, expect conservatives to go after misoprostol and Plan B next. Maybe IUDs, too? I don’t expect Gen Z to take that lying down.

[commonWealth]

@MrWookie

It may not be on this ruling, but if it stands, expect conservatives to go after misoprostol and Plan B next. Maybe IUDs, too? I don’t expect Gen Z to take that lying down.

I agree with all of that, but game it out. What recourse does Gen Z have other than protesting? The decision makers are CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, Biden, Dem governors, and federal judges.

If companies are facing actual legal ramifications, they’ll have no choice if they’re publicly traded. They’ll have little choice if they’re private. Dem governors can promise not to enforce it, Biden can promise not to enforce it, but what happens if Trump or DeSantis win and the statute of limitations hasn’t run out? What happens when some conservative group sues a corporation in Texas for selling it in California and runs it through the same lunatic judge?

This isn’t a true “They have their ruling, now let them enforce it,” situation. It’s a tangled mess of civil and criminal legal risks with statutes of limitations that likely exceed political term lengths.

[commonWealth]

It seems like the only solution to this is to protest extensively, turn out voters, and elect tons of Democrats… Only to realize that the ones we have aren’t going to play Calvinball because they worship at the altar of norms, thus leaving us still stuck for another cycle or two until we start primarying the useless empty suits, pack courts, impeach judges, etc.

That’s assuming the GOP doesn’t get to go full North Carolina in enough states to maintain enough power to block all that.

[commonWealth]

And by the way it’s an absolute joke that liberals aren’t judge shopping a lawsuit with this same bullshit logic to ban guns. These doctors say someone may take these abortion pills in the future and suffer side effects and visit their practice and thus cause them harm. This judge is like “Sure that sounds like standing!”

So find a doctor to sue Remington or whoever because their gun may be used in a mass shooting and the victim may end up in their ER, and thus the gun should be banned. Bring the suit in a liberal court and get Biden to appoint a total partisan who will say, “Sure, that sounds like standing!”

Do this shit on every issue, tit for tat for every stupid lawsuit conservative judges allow to proceed.

Sure they’ll all end up before SCOTUS and we’ll lose every single one as the conservatives flip flop on their logic case but case, but it’ll make a mockery of the whole fucking thing and demonstrate the obvious need for reform.

Like, if (when ldo) this works, what comes next?

The Worst Judge in America Could Outlaw the Abortion Pill Nationwide. It Gets...

[DrModern]

Yeah, excellent point. I think genuine constitutional crisis, wherein the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is cast into doubt on a large enough scale that many states’ legal systems start to function independently of SCOTUS, is a plausible outcome here.

A more passive response also seems plausible, though. The rejoinder to Dobbs among feminists, for example, sounds more like resignation than revolution.

Like: Given that this horrible decision has been made, how can we protect women’s rights as best we can?

Rather than: Fuck this Court. Fuck everything that it stands for. We won’t take it. We’re no longer listening. Here come the pitchforks. Etc.

It’s hard for me not to blame, well, liberals and liberalism for the overall passivity (though obviously the Right, and Trumpism in particular, deserves the blame for the actual decisions being made).

[MrWookie]

I think a lot of the resignation and lack of action is because a ton of women are still basically OK in liberal states, or else there’s at least a plan to help your friends who aren’t (mail them pills covertly, help them cross state lines, etc.). Once radical state judges start making bullshit rulings that affect the whole country, there will be a lot more motivation to do something. We saw some of this in the past election. Democrats tended to overperform in places where abortion was at risk (PA, GA, the upper midwest, etc.) and underperform where it was safe (NY especially). Maybe not with this ruling, but if they go farther, I think you’ll start to see talk of nullification, either from new candidates in primary challenges or from incumbents who can read the room.

[hammypotter]

Merrick Garland is probably daydreaming about enforcing these court decisions and has the effete liberal octogenarian equivalent of a half chub

[CaffeineNeeded]

I’m confused here. You keep saying state judge but it’s federal right? In a dumb state?

Wouldn’t that mean that any sort of ban would only apply to their circuit until it hits scotus? Admittedly I’m nowhere near sure and it doesn’t exactly make things a whole lot better, but it does mean that liberals in blue states would remain unaffected for awhile