…or, why the recent pronouncements from the Supreme Court should have all of us asking Hillary Clinton for the Powerball numbers.
ABOVE PHOTO: Defending democracy on the heels of the Supreme Court rolling back affirmative action and LGBTQ rights, fed-up activists and advocates take part in a We The People March at Black Lives Matter Plaza Friday, June 30, 2023 in Washington. The DC march was one of six regional marches held over Independence Day weekend in conjunction with the We The People National March taking place in Ft Lauderdale, Florida, on Sunday, July 2. Over 2,400 people from more than 70 organizations nationwide are expected to gather for the national march to also speak out and fight for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ communities, Jewish people, social justice, gun control and more. We The People is a growing coalition of citizens, groups and community leaders working to protect democracy and speak out against the nearly thousand bills authoritarian lawmakers and legislatures are introducing across the country that threaten basic freedoms and rights. (Eric Kayne/AP Images for AIDS Healthcare Foundation)
By Denise Clay-Murray
Recently, John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, complained about how folks were reacting to some of the court’s recent decisions.
It seems that he doesn’t care for the fact that the words “illegitimate,”, “overreaching” and “basura” keep getting tossed around every time a new opinion comes out.
(For those who don’t know, “basura” means garbage in Spanish.)
In any case, he’s annoyed, especially since Justice Elana Kagan said that one of the more recent decisions from the Court, the one negating President Joe Biden’s student loan relief program, represented serious court overreach.
“It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
Well, dude, I can understand why you’re annoyed. No one likes to have their work criticized by 51% of the population, several communities of color, and a whole bunch of millennials who are now miles away from that first Lexis because they didn’t get enough scholarship money for their stint at the University of Southern California.
But when your Court is basically making decisions based on the whims of ghost litigants, and you have at least three judges that would be enduring impeachment trials if you had ethics laws, you can’t blame the taxpayers who pay your salary for calling you out on your “basura.”
(Were the SUN not a family newspaper, I’d go a little further into my catalogcatalogue of Spanish curse words.)
From the Dobbs decision, whose leaked pages told us that with this iteration of the Supreme Court, the cruelty is indeed the thing, to the sStudent lLoan decision that was filed by clients who didn’t even know they were filing it, the Supreme Court has spent much of this term showing us why more than 60% of the country doesn’t have a lot of faith in it.
During all of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings that led to the creation of this court, the phrase “stare decisis”, — which means “stands decided” in Latin — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett “I like beer!” Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett said they’d adhere to established laws when making decisions.
Either the three of them forgot the Latin they learned from their law school days, or they straight-upstraight up lied. I’m going with door #2. And to be honest, that doesn’t surprise me much. You don’t get on the Heritage Foundation’s Lucky List of Judges by promising to allow Americans to vote, love who they love, or NOT have a baby.
But to add insult to injury, two of the cases — Biden v. Nebraska and 303 Creative LLC vs. Elenis — were filed by people and organizations that didn’t even know they were involved. In fact, according to the AP, one of the people involved in the 303 Creative LLC suit has been married to a woman for 15 years and is so afraid of reprisals that he wouldn’t even give the wire service his last name.
Hell, in one of the cases, Counterman v. Colorado, the court decided that stalking was covered under the First Amendment!
(An additional “Basura!” needs to go here because I can’t say what I really want to say.)
In any case, a whole lot of folks are really not feeling your court right now, Justice Roberts. Folks are talking about adding more Justices to keep you from slapping chastity belts on everyone and telling students what they can study in college.
But to be honest, many of the folks yelling “Basura!” the loudest at the Court for the decisions it’s made this term need to take themselves over to Lincoln Financial Field and grab themselves some seats.
And while you’re at it, you might want to prepare your apology to the woman from New York who tried to keep the single most incompetent president America has ever endured from coming through the White House doors and stuffing the court with people who shouldn’t be judging a dog show, much less deciding my voting rights.
Personally, I’m going to reach out to Hillary Clinton on one of the many social media platforms I’ve joined in the last three days to ask her to pick some Powerball numbers for me. If she’s as good at that as she was predicting everything this court has done this term, I’m about to get PAID!
Due to a combination of people showing us just how much the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights and LGBTQ Rights movements actually scared them, the perfect continuing to be the enemy of the good, and good old-fashioned sexism, no one listened to Clinton when she told them, point blank, what would happen if Donald Trump became president and got to control who became members of the court.
Now women of childbearing age will only get to control what goes on with their bodies if they live in a state that allows them to. You’re going to have to pay those student loans back, and because of the COVID pause, you’re going to have to pay an arm, a leg, and several of your teeth.
And if you think that making life harder for the LGBTQ community is going to stop at wedding websites, you’ve missed Justice Clarence Thomas stating his desire to see every decision related to a right to privacy — Griswold v. Connecticut, (birth control) Baker v. Nelson (I’ll let you look that up), and Obergfell v. Hodges (same-sex marriage) — revisited.
We’re supposed to ignore, of course, that he conveniently left Loving v. Virginia (interracial marriage) off of his list, but his wife Ginny would probably cut him off from the luxury yacht-owning friends that have been financing his life of leisure if he said that.
In fact, the only thing this court has done right this term is dismiss — for now at least — the whole Independent Legislature Theory and the gerrymandering on steroids that would have accompanied it, proving that even a broken clock is indeed right twice a day.
I understand that folks don’t like to be criticized for how they do their jobs. But if your job seems to be taking people’s rights away, those most impacted by your shenanigans have the right to speak.
If you don’t want to hear that criticism, try, I don’t know, following the actual constitution, not the one that the Heritage Foundation made up.
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, The Philadelphia Sunday SUN, the author’s organization, committee or other group or individual.
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