SCOTUS

[Seacoaster(1)]

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/alito-ups ... -explained

"Everyone is waiting to see what the United States Supreme Court will do with Donald Trump’s outlandish claim he should be given absolute immunity from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Oral arguments indicated that even the conservative justices have some concerns about that stance, but we’ve now learned that Justice Samuel Alito seems pretty on board with Trump’s coup attempt.

It’s yet another ethics scandal for the Court, and it’s a reminder that the right-wing justices operate in a realm of complete unaccountability.

Last week, the New York Times broke news that on January 17, 2021 — 11 days after Trump exhorted his supporters to storm the Capitol and three days before President Joe Biden's inauguration — an upside-down American flag hung outside the Alito home in Alexandria, Virginia. Hanging the flag upside down is literally prohibited by the flag code, save for “as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” There’s a long tradition of upside-down flags being flown by protesters on the left and the right, but by January 17, 2021, it was widely known as a symbol used by “Stop the Steal” supporters.

How long the upside-down flag hung at the Alito home isn't clear. The Times reviewed a January 18, 2021, email from a neighbor that said that it had been upside down for a number of days by that point. Several neighbors spoke to the Times about it but requested to remain anonymous, in part because they feared reprisal. Alito made a brief email statement to the Times, and while the statement succeeded in throwing his wife under the bus, it didn’t do much else. Alito said he “had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag” as it was “briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on lawn signs.”

Even if one takes this statement at face value, it falls far short of an explanation. Several days after an attempted insurrection, a Supreme Court justice let his wife hang a well-known symbol of that attempted insurrection because she got into a spat with the neighbors? Even if the lawn signs were “personally insulting” to the Alitos in some way, how is flying an upside-down flag a legitimate response?

Alito was more expansive with conservative Fox News correspondent Shannon Bream, but even in that friendly atmosphere, he couldn’t come up with a convincing explanation. He told Bream a neighbor had put up a sign that said “heck Trump,” and it was 50 feet from a children’s bus stop. Mrs. Alito decided to talk with those neighbors, but according to Alito, the conversation didn’t go well, and then those neighbors put up a sign that attacked his wife and blamed her for January 6.

Then, when the Alitos were taking a neighborhood stroll, Mrs. Alito got into an argument with one of the residents of that property, who called her “the c-word.” After that, she was distraught and decided to make what Fox News characterized euphemistically as “some sort of statement” by hanging the flag upside down. Notably, when the Washington Post spoke with a neighbor who described the content of the offending signs, they said they did not even mention the justice directly.

None of these additional details makes Alito or his wife look any better. The most charitable reading is that after a neighbor accused Mrs. Alito of being an insurrection enthusiast, she reacted by hoisting a symbol of support for insurrection. A Supreme Court justice’s wife is busy acting out the Matt Bors comic where a MAGA type reacts to hearing someone say Trump fans are racist by going full Nazi.

There will be no consequences — and Alito knows it

It isn’t surprising that Alito has no real interest in explaining himself. Why should he? He has a lifetime appointment and Supreme Court justices are not bound by any enforceable ethical rules. He also knows that while some Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about the need for ethics reform, they simply don’t have the numbers to pass a law. Alito can issue vague statements that in no way deny that Mrs. Alito hoisted an upside-down flag to show support for a belief the 2020 election was stolen and he will suffer no consequences.

This would not be the case for other court employees. The Times reported that the Supreme Court’s internal rulebook for employees bans public displays of partisan political views, including signs and bumper stickers. When asked whether that rule applied to the justices, the Court simply refused to respond.

After the Times report appeared, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin called for Alito to recuse from any cases related to the 2020 election. There’s no reason to think Alito will do so, particularly given that the upside-down flag was hanging outside his home while the Supreme Court decided whether to hear two 2020 election cases from Republicans in Pennsylvania over whether that state had improperly extended the deadline for mail-in ballots. Alito dissented from the decision not to hear the case.

Durbin, instead of digging into any of this, has already said he doesn’t plan to hold hearings.

At the oral arguments about presidential immunity, Alito twisted himself in knots to protect Trump, eventually landing on a theory that applying the rule of law to Trump would wreck democracy: “If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”

If that seems hard to follow, that’s because it is. Alito seemed to be saying that if you prosecute Trump for refusing to leave office after his election loss, future presidents will also refuse to leave office for fear of prosecution. So, the only way to ensure future presidents won’t do what Trump did is to let Trump get away with what he did? This is as poorly reasoned as Alito’s justification for the upside-down flag.

Of course, Alito’s wife isn’t the only Stop the Steal fan among Supreme Court spouses. After Trump lost, Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni, repeatedly texted Mark Meadows to encourage his efforts to overturn the results. She pushed Arizona Republicans to choose a slate of fake electors, actually attended part of Trump’s January 6 rally and, when appearing before the January 6 Committee in 2022, still asserted the election was stolen.

None of this led her husband to recuse himself from January 6-related cases. The Code of Conduct for the justices is aspirational, not enforceable, so despite the code stating justices should recuse if they have a personal bias or if a spouse has “any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding,” there’s no recourse if a justice just ignores the rule.

The system simply isn’t set up to deal with justices who are scofflaws. Nor do some legal elites seem able to rise to meet the moment. Witness the email Stephen Gillers, a New York University law school professor who is one of the foremost scholars of legal ethics, sent to the Washington Post. Gillers wrote that he didn’t think “an objective observer would question Alito’s impartiality” and found it “impossible to believe that Alito knew the flag was flying upside down or, if he did know, that he knew the relationship to ‘Stop the Steal.’”

Even Alito himself has not stated that he didn’t know the flag was upside down or that it represented solidarity with Stop the Steal efforts. Gillers is straining to invent excuses for a justice who feels no need to excuse his own behavior.

The Fox-ification of SCOTUS

This isn’t a one-off for Alito. Shortly after the 2020 election, he gave a speech to the Federalist Society that Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth described as “more befitting a Trump rally than a legal society.” The justice ranted about covid restrictions even as related cases were before the Court, and complained about same-sex marriage cases. When Democrats in Congress began talking about an ethics bill, Alito ran to the Wall Street Journal to declare that “no provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.” Alito routinely gives speeches about “religious liberty” where he attacks those who disagree with him.

This past weekend, legal journalist Chris Geidner broke news that Alito decided to dump his Bud Light stock amid the conservative furor over the company’s connection to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. These aren’t the behaviors of a neutral, apolitical justice, but rather those of a Fox News commentator in a robe.

And for that, Republicans love him. Shortly after the Times story ran, Republicans on the House Committee on the Judiciary posted on X a picture of Alito and Thomas with the all-caps caption, “AMERICAN HEROES.” They’re praising Alito and Thomas because it triggers the libs, those beleaguered folks who foolishly believe that norms and rules matter. Republicans correctly view Alito and Thomas as partners in a project to remake America into a hyper-conservative Christian state rather than as part of a separate branch of government that acts as a check and balance on the legislature.

Republicans also correctly view both justices as people who don’t believe any rules should apply to them. Thomas’s flouting of the ethics rules has received more attention than Alito’s, likely because the former’s avariciousness has led him to accept a comically large amount of money from extremely rich people. Senate Democrats are still trying to untangle whether Thomas lied on his taxes by not reporting loan forgiveness from a billionaire pal who helped him buy his $267,000 RV.

The only thing that will fix this is court reform, enshrined into law by Congress. The Supreme Court needs to be expanded, and it needs an actual, enforceable ethical code with real consequences when justices flout the rules. Alito and Thomas have shown they are unwilling or unable to regulate themselves, so it’s time to do it for them."

[Seacoaster(1)]

More bad judgment from Grumpy Sam and his spouse:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/us/j ... eaven.html

Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.

This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.

Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google Street View image from late August also shows the flag.

The photographs, each taken independently, are from four different dates. It is not clear whether the flag was displayed continuously during those months or how long it was flown overall.

Justice Alito declined to respond to questions about the beach house flag, including what it was intended to convey and how it comported with his obligations as a justice. The court also declined to respond.

In commenting for the Times report last week about the upside-down American flag at his Virginia home in 2021, Justice Alito said that it had been raised by his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, during a clash with a neighbor.

The revelation about that flag prompted concerns from legal scholars and ethicists, and calls from dozens of Democratic lawmakers that the justice recuse himself from cases related to Jan. 6. The news also drew criticism from some conservative politicians, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who said that displaying the inverted flag was “not good judgment.”

During the period the Appeal to Heaven flag was seen flying at the justice’s New Jersey house, a key Jan. 6 case arrived at the Supreme Court, challenging whether those who stormed the Capitol could be prosecuted for obstruction.

In coming weeks, the justices will rule on that case, which could scuttle some of the charges against Mr. Trump, as well as on whether he is immune from prosecution for actions he took while president. Their decisions will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election and his chances at regaining the White House in the next one.

The disclosure about the new flag is troubling, several ethics experts said in interviews, because it ties Justice Alito more closely to symbols associated with the attempted election subversion on Jan. 6, and because it was displayed as the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the court.

Judges are not supposed to give any impression of bias, yet the flag could be seen as telegraphing the Alitos’ views — and at a time when the justices were on the cusp of adopting a new ethics code. “We all have our biases, but the good judge fights against them,” said Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University Bloomington. “When a judge celebrates his predispositions by hoisting them on a flag,” he added, “that’s deeply disturbing.”

Records show that the Alitos have owned the beach house since 2014, and he is a well-known presence in the waterfront community. Residents said they recalled seeing the justice last summer, though it is unclear how much time he spent there. Neighbors said that once they realized what the flag signified, they were surprised to see it displayed, particularly in a prominent spot where many boaters glide by. The six people who shared their accounts and photographs asked not to be identified because they didn’t want to antagonize a longtime neighbor. When The Times visited the house on Wednesday, the flagpole was bare.

Until about a decade ago, the Appeal to Heaven flag was mostly a historical relic. But since then it has been revived to represent “a theological vision of what the United States should be and how it should be governed,” said Matthew Taylor, a religion scholar at the Institute of Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. He is also the author of a forthcoming book tracing how a right-wing Christian author and speaker who repopularized the flag helped propel Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.

That figure, Dutch Sheets, has led a yearslong campaign to present the flag to political figures, including Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential pick, and an Indiana gubernatorial candidate whom Mr. Sheets wrapped in the flag at a recent rally. Republican members of Congress and state officials have displayed the flag as well, among them Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator and a leader of the “Stop the Steal” campaign. The highest-ranking elected official known to show the flag is Representative Mike Johnson, who hung it at his office last fall shortly after becoming speaker of the House.

A spokesman for Mr. Johnson said that the speaker “has long appreciated the rich history of the flag, as it was first used by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War.” It was a gift, the spokesman said, from Pastor Dan Cummins, a guest chaplain for the House of Representatives.

Since its creation during the American Revolution, the flag has carried a message of defiance: The phrase “appeal to heaven” comes from the 17th-century philosopher John Locke, who wrote of a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule. “It’s a paraphrase for trial by arms,” Anthony Grafton, a historian at Princeton University, said in an interview. “The main point is that there’s no appeal, there’s no one else you can ask for help or a judgment.”

In 2013, Mr. Sheets, a prominent figure in a far-right evangelical movement that scholars have called the New Apostolic Reformation, discovered the nearly forgotten flag and made it the symbol of his ambitions to steep the country and the government in Christianity, he wrote in a 2015 book also titled “An Appeal to Heaven.”

“Rally to the flag,” he wrote. “God has resurrected it for such a time as this. Wave it outwardly: wear it inwardly. Appeal to heaven daily for a spiritual revolution that will knock out the Goliaths of our day.”

He placed the high court at the center of his mission. In 2015, the court’s ruling that states must allow same-sex marriage had galvanized the movement and helped it to grow. In a speech three years later, he said, “There’s no gate that has allowed more evil to enter our nation than that of the Supreme Court.”

But Mr. Sheets and fellow leaders described Justice Alito, the member of the court most committed to expanding the role of faith in public life, as their great hope: a vocal defender of religious liberty and opponent of the right to abortion and same-sex marriage.

“You can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” the justice said in a 2020 speech. “Until very recently that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry,” he said, a point he had made strongly in his dissent to the ruling.

The religious leaders cast Mr. Trump as another of their heroes. A few weeks before the 2020 election, at a Las Vegas megachurch prayer service for his second term, a pastor from the group presented Mr. Trump with an “Appeal to Heaven” flag from the stage. When he lost, Mr. Sheets and a team of others formed an instant, ad hoc religious arm of the “Stop the Steal” campaign, blitzing swing state megachurches, broadcasting the services at each stop and drawing hundreds of thousands of viewers.

On Jan. 6, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was prominent: at the Washington Monument, where throngs gathered to hear President Trump deliver a speech contesting the election results, and later above the angry mob that surrounded the Capitol. The flag was visible above clashes with law enforcement on the building’s west terrace, as rioters breached police lines underneath the scaffolding set up for President Biden’s inauguration, and finally, inside the building.

By that day, scholars say, the flag had become popular enough to sometimes be used by a few other groups, including militia members. But most often, they said, it is tied directly to Mr. Sheets, his contemporaries and adherents and their vision for a more Christian America.

Last October, soon after the flag was last documented at the Alito beach home, Mr. Sheets devoted a prayer session to the court, this time sounding triumphant. He cited the Dobbs decision, overturning the federal right to abortion, in which the majority decision had been written by Justice Alito.

“We have reached another phase in the process of shifting the Supreme Court,” he announced. Through the justices, he said, “God’s intent for institutions of government can now be fulfilled.”

[dislaxxic]

Thanks for posting those articles, Seacoaster...

Dahlia has some thoughts on the subject...

What These Stories About Samuel Alito’s “Provocative” Flags Are Really About

..

[Seacoaster(1)]

Thanks for posting those articles, Seacoaster...

Dahlia has some thoughts on the subject...

What These Stories About Samuel Alito’s “Provocative” Flags Are Really About

..

Thanks; she is not wrong. These two guys are so brimming with hubris, and backed into their little election denial enclaves that it is futile to expect reform or even a positive reaction from either of them. The Chief will have to decide if his legacy will include, not only the stripping of constitutional rights from women, and failure on voting rights, and the coddling of a right-wing threat to the country, the death of this institution's credibility and reputation for impartiality -- the death knell of any court or court system pretending to feature the stabilizing rule of law.

But a reasonable observer cannot help but disparage Alito for this stuff; sure, it can be made to sound minor, flying a little flag in the neighborhood.
But a Justice swears his or her oath and then becomes a literal guardian of the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the institution that is the Court, its legitimacy, and its impartiality. William O. Douglas and others famously didn't read the newspapers. Sam flies a flag that can only translate to "this is how we think, this is my bias," for all to see. He's a disgrace. He he pushed his wife under the bus.

[MDlaxfan76]

Thanks for posting those articles, Seacoaster...

Dahlia has some thoughts on the subject...

What These Stories About Samuel Alito’s “Provocative” Flags Are Really About

..

Thanks; she is not wrong. These two guys are so brimming with hubris, and backed into their little election denial enclaves that it is futile to expect reform or even a positive reaction from either of them. The Chief will have to decide if his legacy will include, not only the stripping of constitutional rights from women, and failure on voting rights, and the coddling of a right-wing threat to the country, the death of this institution's credibility and reputation for impartiality -- the death knell of any court or court system pretending to feature the stabilizing rule of law.

But a reasonable observer cannot help but disparage Alito for this stuff; sure, it can be made to sound minor, flying a little flag in the neighborhood.
But a Justice swears his or her oath and then becomes a literal guardian of the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the institution that is the Court, its legitimacy, and its impartiality. William O. Douglas and others famously didn't read the newspapers. Sam flies a flag that can only translate to "this is how we think, this is my bias," for all to see. He's a disgrace. He he pushed his wife under the bus.

Of course, he may too actually have a wife like Ginni who is a flaming MAGA nutcase.

The first flag flown at that timing was clearly a reference to the zeitgeist of Jan 6. It was already a political statement by right wing MAGA Stop the Steal nutcases, no one else was flying the flag upside down.

The second flag is very popular among the Christian Nationalist crowd, and that's why it was one of the symbols used on Jan 6. That it was flown through last summer by the Alito's tells us an enormous amount about where the Alito family thinks of themselves positioned in the world.

Now, if the wife ain't a MAGA, Christian Nationalist nut job, she should have a heck of beef with her husband for putting her in the mess...but my guess is she's more likely the kind of gal Butker was talking about positively....or worse, a flat out ideologue like Ginni.

There's been a rumor that she was involved in the leaking of the Hobby-Lobby case, so ideologue may well fit.

https://www.newsweek.com/who-samuel-ali ... al-1901988

Or she's just of like-mind with hubby Sam and a willing participant in the on the take for the couple: https://theintercept.com/2023/06/26/sam ... vironment/

[Seacoaster(1)]

"I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag," Alito's statement said. "It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs." No involvement? How about owning the home where the flag was raised? Liar and a little man letting his wife take the hit.

So, someone put up a "F*ck Trump" sign, so Sam thought it was no big deal for his wife to fly a flag supporting seditionist activities and the Big Lie outside their home. Then put up a flag supporting a Christian Nationalist worldview outside his beach home.

This is the prefatory part of Canon 4 of the Code of Judicial Conduct for federal judges (and, notably, not the SCOTUS):

"A judge may engage in extrajudicial activities, including law-related pursuits and civic, charitable, educational, religious, social, financial, fiduciary, and governmental activities, and may speak, write, lecture, and teach on both law-related and nonlegal subjects. However, a judge should not participate in extrajudicial activities that detract from the dignity of the judge’s office, interfere with the performance of the judge’s official duties, reflect adversely on the judge’s impartiality, lead to frequent disqualification, or violate the limitations set forth below...."

[PizzaSnake]

The Dominionists are almost there…

“Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home
The justice’s beach house displayed an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol carried on Jan. 6 and associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/us/j ... eaven.html

[PizzaSnake]

Thanks for posting those articles, Seacoaster...

Dahlia has some thoughts on the subject...

What These Stories About Samuel Alito’s “Provocative” Flags Are Really About

..

Thanks; she is not wrong. These two guys are so brimming with hubris, and backed into their little election denial enclaves that it is futile to expect reform or even a positive reaction from either of them. The Chief will have to decide if his legacy will include, not only the stripping of constitutional rights from women, and failure on voting rights, and the coddling of a right-wing threat to the country, the death of this institution's credibility and reputation for impartiality -- the death knell of any court or court system pretending to feature the stabilizing rule of law.

But a reasonable observer cannot help but disparage Alito for this stuff; sure, it can be made to sound minor, flying a little flag in the neighborhood.
But a Justice swears his or her oath and then becomes a literal guardian of the separation of powers, the rule of law, and the institution that is the Court, its legitimacy, and its impartiality. William O. Douglas and others famously didn't read the newspapers. Sam flies a flag that can only translate to "this is how we think, this is my bias," for all to see. He's a disgrace. He he pushed his wife under the bus.

Of course, he may too actually have a wife like Ginni who is a flaming MAGA nutcase.

The first flag flown at that timing was clearly a reference to the zeitgeist of Jan 6. It was already a political statement by right wing MAGA Stop the Steal nutcases, no one else was flying the flag upside down.

The second flag is very popular among the Christian Nationalist crowd, and that's why it was one of the symbols used on Jan 6. That it was flown through last summer by the Alito's tells us an enormous amount about where the Alito family thinks of themselves positioned in the world.

Now, if the wife ain't a MAGA, Christian Nationalist nut job, she should have a heck of beef with her husband for putting her in the mess...but my guess is she's more likely the kind of gal Butker was talking about positively....or worse, a flat out ideologue like Ginni.

There's been a rumor that she was involved in the leaking of the Hobby-Lobby case, so ideologue may well fit.

https://www.newsweek.com/who-samuel-ali ... al-1901988

Or she's just of like-mind with hubby Sam and a willing participant in the on the take for the couple: https://theintercept.com/2023/06/26/sam ... vironment/

A willing executioner as well?

This inflection point arriving in November has been a long time coming, and it will be spectacular.

[dislaxxic]

THIS is the country we get with a radically activist, far-right nutjob SCOTUS:

Clarence Thomas Makes a Full-Throated Case for Racial Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision on Thursday in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP is a devastating blow to the fight against racial gerrymandering. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the conservative supermajority guts a series of precedents that guarded against racist redistricting, granting state legislatures sweeping new authority to sort their residents between districts on the basis of skin color.

And yet, as bad as Alito’s opinion was, it didn’t go far enough for Justice Clarence Thomas, who penned a solo concurrence demanding a radical move: The Supreme Court, he argued, should overrule every precedent that limits gerrymandering—including the landmark cases establishing “one person, one vote”—because it has no constitutional power to redraw maps in the first place. And he places much of the blame for the court’s allegedly illegitimate intrusion into redistricting on a surprising culprit: Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown was, of course, the 1954 decision holding that racial segregation in public education violates the equal protection clause. Many of us celebrated its 70th anniversary just last week. But Brown has always had its detractors, and Thomas has long been one of them. He has written that the decision rested on a “great flaw” by focusing on the stigma that Jim Crow inflicted on schoolchildren. He rejected Brown’s assertion that Black children suffered constitutional harm when denied access to integrated education. And he condemned the court’s ongoing efforts to remedy decades of segregation by integrating public school systems by judicial decree, decrying these integration efforts as “predicated on black inferiority.”

Thomas’ latest critique of Brown springs from a similar frustration with the Supreme Court for allegedly overstepping its constitutional role to police racial discrimination. The case at hand, Alexander, involves a South Carolina congressional district that was becoming competitive for Democrats. After the 2020 census, the GOP-controlled Legislature moved thousands of Black voters out of this district, and brought thousands of white voters into it. This population-shuffling shored up the district’s Republican lean, meeting the Legislature’s goal. Voting rights advocates sued, arguing that the redistribution of residents on the basis of race violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. A federal district court agreed and found the map unconstitutional.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court, insisting that the Legislature cared about partisanship (which is allowed), not race (which is, in theory, disallowed). In the process, it effectively overturned precedent prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a proxy for partisanship in redistricting. Alito’s majority opinion also turbocharged the “presumption of legislative good faith,” better described as the presumption of white racial innocence. He directed lower courts to more or less ignore “circumstantial evidence” of racist intent when assessing these gerrymanders. The result is a new, nearly insurmountable bar for victims of racial gerrymandering: It will be virtually impossible for any plaintiff to prove that lawmakers targeted them because of their race rather than their assumed political beliefs. Legislatures may now aggressively dilute the voting power of Black communities by shifting them into districts where their votes will matter least.

..

[cradleandshoot]

I wonder how Alito and Thomas sleep at night knowing a gaggle of puny and irrelevant FLP types dislike them so vehemently. Would y'all like some cheese with that whine? If you want better SCOTUS members try and find candidates that don't resemble yourselves when you look in the mirror. That would be a positive first step. The truth is for every Sam Alito there is a rat faced weasel like Garland waiting in the Democrat on deck circle. The SCOTUS could be a 1000 times worse if Democrats have their way. Any of you folks read about the FLP judge who boldly declared the 2nd amendment was meaningless in her court room? Betcha alot of you agree with her.

So the 2nd amendment doesn't exist in HER court room. Let's skip that disconcerting fact and get back to what flag someone chooses to fly on their flag pole in a allegedly free country. It is none of my business, none of your business as to what flag Alito or any other American chooses to fly on their property. Now when a FLP judge publicly states in her court that she doesn't respect the 2nd amendment or will allow it in her court room she is a judge that needs to be shown the door. She already just gifted the party involved in this case a HUGE win. Let us all get back to more serious issues. Maybe Biden can sign an executive order dictating what flags Americans can fly.. problem solved. How ironic that with Memorial Day Weekend coming up some people want to dishonor the men and women who gave their lives so any American can fly any flag on their flagpole that their heat desires. I'm going to for the first time since I purchased it after 9/11 I will fly my 13 star Betsy Ross flag proudly in my front. If that upsets some of you liberals then suck it up you panty waists.

[dislaxxic]

Elena Kagan Sees Exactly What Samuel Alito Is Doing

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dealt yet another major blow to the voting rights of Black Americans. The court’s 6–3 opinion in Alexander v. NAACP greenlighted the South Carolina legislature’s decision to shuffle Black residents out of a competitive congressional district to shore up its Republican lean. After a lengthy hearing, a district court found that the GOP-controlled legislature targeted Black South Carolinians, diminishing their voting power in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Now, however, SCOTUS’ conservative supermajority has absolved the legislature of racist intent, reshaping the law to make it near-impossible for voting rights advocates to win racial gerrymandering claims.

It was a decision that set aside mountains of actual fact-finding by the district court, because Alito just decided, well, all those facts are wrong.

Until now, the Supreme Court has reviewed those decisions on what’s called “clear error,” which is a fancy way of saying that unless the lower court really obviously messed up, you should give deference to their findings. Why? Because they were the ones sitting in the courtroom listening, witnessing, looking at the evidence, deciding the case on the very complex facts and law and math and geography that are unique to every redistricting case. Alito essentially overturned that principle of deference. He did so on the basis of what he calls the “presumption of legislative good faith”—and what Vox’s Ian Millhiser rightly calls “the presumption of white racial innocence.”

Alito says, in short, that courts should pretty much never find that state legislatures acted with racist intent, because they are owed this presumption of good faith that cuts in their favor. And he just makes up the reasons why—he’s just pulling it out of his pocket. Alito says: First, state legislators are bound by an oath to the Constitution, and we should assume they’re following that oath. Second, when we accuse state legislators of doing race-based redistricting, we’re accusing them of “offensive and demeaning conduct” that bears a “resemblance to political apartheid,” and “we should not be quick to hurl such accusations at the political branches.” Finally, he says we should be wary of voting rights plaintiffs “who seek to transform federal courts into weapons of political warfare” through racial gerrymandering claims.

So overall, he’s saying it really hurts the feelings of state legislators to accuse them of racial gerrymandering. It’s so mean, in fact, that courts should close their eyes to evidence of racist redistricting and give legislators a benefit of the doubt that they do not deserve and have not earned. All to ensure that the actual victims of their handiwork, the plaintiffs who are bringing this case, cannot cynically manipulate the courts into a tool of political warfare to win more Democratic representation in Congress.

Let’s talk about what happens if Alito doesn’t like you and you happen to be an established precedent of the Supreme Court. This case should have been really easy because the Supreme Court decided a similar one in 2017 called Cooper v. Harris, which involved a North Carolina congressional district. The court—which looked very different in 2017—struck down the district. And in her majority opinion, Justice Elena Kagan rejected all the garbage that Alito shoveled into the law on Thursday. She wrote that plaintiffs don’t have to present a specific kind of evidence, and appeals courts should defer to district courts’ findings, not go over them with a super-skeptical eye.

Here, rather than acknowledging that he’s overturning Cooper v. Harris, Justice Alito accuses Justice Kagan of misreading her own opinion from just seven years ago. He says she was talking about “an imaginary version” of Cooper v. Harris—which, I cannot stress enough, is a decision that she herself wrote. It is a noxious mix of mansplaining and gaslighting for Alito to overrule this precedent without admitting it, then tell the author of the precedent that she misunderstood the meaning of the opinion that she wrote.

Alito is the WORST kind of activist judge. He openly sides with seditionists and White Christian Nationalists and what do we get? The kind of reaction we just heard from our resident low information voter and Lib-Baiter: "What's the big deal??"

..

[MDlaxfan76]

I wonder how Alito and Thomas sleep at night knowing a gaggle of puny and irrelevant FLP types dislike them so vehemently. Would y'all like some cheese with that whine? If you want better SCOTUS members try and find candidates that don't resemble yourselves when you look in the mirror. That would be a positive first step. The truth is for every Sam Alito there is a rat faced weasel like Garland waiting in the Democrat on deck circle. The SCOTUS could be a 1000 times worse if Democrats have their way. Any of you folks read about the FLP judge who boldly declared the 2nd amendment was meaningless in her court room? Betcha alot of you agree with her.

So the 2nd amendment doesn't exist in HER court room. Let's skip that disconcerting fact and get back to what flag someone chooses to fly on their flag pole in a allegedly free country. It is none of my business, none of your business as to what flag Alito or any other American chooses to fly on their property. Now when a FLP judge publicly states in her court that she doesn't respect the 2nd amendment or will allow it in her court room she is a judge that needs to be shown the door. She already just gifted the party involved in this case a HUGE win. Let us all get back to more serious issues. Maybe Biden can sign an executive order dictating what flags Americans can fly.. problem solved. How ironic that with Memorial Day Weekend coming up some people want to dishonor the men and women who gave their lives so any American can fly any flag on their flagpole that their heat desires. I'm going to for the first time since I purchased it after 9/11 I will fly my 13 star Betsy Ross flag proudly in my front. If that upsets some of you liberals then suck it up you panty waists.

While you're at it, fly it upside down.

[Seacoaster(1)]

It is none of my business, none of your business as to what flag Alito or any other American chooses to fly on their property."

Remember the old phrase, "with great authority comes great responsibility"? Your statement, pasted above, essentially frees public actors like Alito to act in any way they want, a particularly troublesome attitude in a Justice of the Supreme Court, a job whose essential characteristic is fairness, impartiality, "calling balls and strikes" honestly, if you want. Alito's flag tells us "I am biased. I see the world in a specific way. Don't expect impartiality on issues that are confronting my bias." It's a complete disgrace -- and folks like you who laugh it off are the ones handing the country over to narrow minded morons, notwithstanding your constant burnishing of your service record for us.

[jhu72]

THIS is the country we get with a radically activist, far-right nutjob SCOTUS:

Clarence Thomas Makes a Full-Throated Case for Racial Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision on Thursday in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP is a devastating blow to the fight against racial gerrymandering. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the conservative supermajority guts a series of precedents that guarded against racist redistricting, granting state legislatures sweeping new authority to sort their residents between districts on the basis of skin color.

And yet, as bad as Alito’s opinion was, it didn’t go far enough for Justice Clarence Thomas, who penned a solo concurrence demanding a radical move: The Supreme Court, he argued, should overrule every precedent that limits gerrymandering—including the landmark cases establishing “one person, one vote”—because it has no constitutional power to redraw maps in the first place. And he places much of the blame for the court’s allegedly illegitimate intrusion into redistricting on a surprising culprit: Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown was, of course, the 1954 decision holding that racial segregation in public education violates the equal protection clause. Many of us celebrated its 70th anniversary just last week. But Brown has always had its detractors, and Thomas has long been one of them. He has written that the decision rested on a “great flaw” by focusing on the stigma that Jim Crow inflicted on schoolchildren. He rejected Brown’s assertion that Black children suffered constitutional harm when denied access to integrated education. And he condemned the court’s ongoing efforts to remedy decades of segregation by integrating public school systems by judicial decree, decrying these integration efforts as “predicated on black inferiority.”

Thomas’ latest critique of Brown springs from a similar frustration with the Supreme Court for allegedly overstepping its constitutional role to police racial discrimination. The case at hand, Alexander, involves a South Carolina congressional district that was becoming competitive for Democrats. After the 2020 census, the GOP-controlled Legislature moved thousands of Black voters out of this district, and brought thousands of white voters into it. This population-shuffling shored up the district’s Republican lean, meeting the Legislature’s goal. Voting rights advocates sued, arguing that the redistribution of residents on the basis of race violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. A federal district court agreed and found the map unconstitutional.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court, insisting that the Legislature cared about partisanship (which is allowed), not race (which is, in theory, disallowed). In the process, it effectively overturned precedent prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a proxy for partisanship in redistricting. Alito’s majority opinion also turbocharged the “presumption of legislative good faith,” better described as the presumption of white racial innocence. He directed lower courts to more or less ignore “circumstantial evidence” of racist intent when assessing these gerrymanders. The result is a new, nearly insurmountable bar for victims of racial gerrymandering: It will be virtually impossible for any plaintiff to prove that lawmakers targeted them because of their race rather than their assumed political beliefs. Legislatures may now aggressively dilute the voting power of Black communities by shifting them into districts where their votes will matter least.

..

... he is trying to prove he is the whitest black man in America.

[a fan]

THIS is the country we get with a radically activist, far-right nutjob SCOTUS:

Clarence Thomas Makes a Full-Throated Case for Racial Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision on Thursday in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP is a devastating blow to the fight against racial gerrymandering. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the conservative supermajority guts a series of precedents that guarded against racist redistricting, granting state legislatures sweeping new authority to sort their residents between districts on the basis of skin color.

And yet, as bad as Alito’s opinion was, it didn’t go far enough for Justice Clarence Thomas, who penned a solo concurrence demanding a radical move: The Supreme Court, he argued, should overrule every precedent that limits gerrymandering—including the landmark cases establishing “one person, one vote”—because it has no constitutional power to redraw maps in the first place. And he places much of the blame for the court’s allegedly illegitimate intrusion into redistricting on a surprising culprit: Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown was, of course, the 1954 decision holding that racial segregation in public education violates the equal protection clause. Many of us celebrated its 70th anniversary just last week. But Brown has always had its detractors, and Thomas has long been one of them. He has written that the decision rested on a “great flaw” by focusing on the stigma that Jim Crow inflicted on schoolchildren. He rejected Brown’s assertion that Black children suffered constitutional harm when denied access to integrated education. And he condemned the court’s ongoing efforts to remedy decades of segregation by integrating public school systems by judicial decree, decrying these integration efforts as “predicated on black inferiority.”

Thomas’ latest critique of Brown springs from a similar frustration with the Supreme Court for allegedly overstepping its constitutional role to police racial discrimination. The case at hand, Alexander, involves a South Carolina congressional district that was becoming competitive for Democrats. After the 2020 census, the GOP-controlled Legislature moved thousands of Black voters out of this district, and brought thousands of white voters into it. This population-shuffling shored up the district’s Republican lean, meeting the Legislature’s goal. Voting rights advocates sued, arguing that the redistribution of residents on the basis of race violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. A federal district court agreed and found the map unconstitutional.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court, insisting that the Legislature cared about partisanship (which is allowed), not race (which is, in theory, disallowed). In the process, it effectively overturned precedent prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a proxy for partisanship in redistricting. Alito’s majority opinion also turbocharged the “presumption of legislative good faith,” better described as the presumption of white racial innocence. He directed lower courts to more or less ignore “circumstantial evidence” of racist intent when assessing these gerrymanders. The result is a new, nearly insurmountable bar for victims of racial gerrymandering: It will be virtually impossible for any plaintiff to prove that lawmakers targeted them because of their race rather than their assumed political beliefs. Legislatures may now aggressively dilute the voting power of Black communities by shifting them into districts where their votes will matter least.

..

... he is trying to prove he is the whitest black man in America.

The part Republicans don't get....and you see this worldview on this forum.....is that the more you push on the cultural pendulum, the harder it swings back past the center.

And fake conservatives clutch pearls as the left gains more traction as Trump and his crew push things waaaaay to the right of mainstream, actual conservatives who know doggone well that gerrymandering and f'ing with voters like this is wrong.

Oh well. Keep packing Congress with fringe nutjobs. And act shocked when we get more nutjobs on the left into Congress to counter their nutjob policies.

[cradleandshoot]

THIS is the country we get with a radically activist, far-right nutjob SCOTUS:

Clarence Thomas Makes a Full-Throated Case for Racial Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision on Thursday in Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP is a devastating blow to the fight against racial gerrymandering. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the conservative supermajority guts a series of precedents that guarded against racist redistricting, granting state legislatures sweeping new authority to sort their residents between districts on the basis of skin color.

And yet, as bad as Alito’s opinion was, it didn’t go far enough for Justice Clarence Thomas, who penned a solo concurrence demanding a radical move: The Supreme Court, he argued, should overrule every precedent that limits gerrymandering—including the landmark cases establishing “one person, one vote”—because it has no constitutional power to redraw maps in the first place. And he places much of the blame for the court’s allegedly illegitimate intrusion into redistricting on a surprising culprit: Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown was, of course, the 1954 decision holding that racial segregation in public education violates the equal protection clause. Many of us celebrated its 70th anniversary just last week. But Brown has always had its detractors, and Thomas has long been one of them. He has written that the decision rested on a “great flaw” by focusing on the stigma that Jim Crow inflicted on schoolchildren. He rejected Brown’s assertion that Black children suffered constitutional harm when denied access to integrated education. And he condemned the court’s ongoing efforts to remedy decades of segregation by integrating public school systems by judicial decree, decrying these integration efforts as “predicated on black inferiority.”

Thomas’ latest critique of Brown springs from a similar frustration with the Supreme Court for allegedly overstepping its constitutional role to police racial discrimination. The case at hand, Alexander, involves a South Carolina congressional district that was becoming competitive for Democrats. After the 2020 census, the GOP-controlled Legislature moved thousands of Black voters out of this district, and brought thousands of white voters into it. This population-shuffling shored up the district’s Republican lean, meeting the Legislature’s goal. Voting rights advocates sued, arguing that the redistribution of residents on the basis of race violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. A federal district court agreed and found the map unconstitutional.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court, insisting that the Legislature cared about partisanship (which is allowed), not race (which is, in theory, disallowed). In the process, it effectively overturned precedent prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a proxy for partisanship in redistricting. Alito’s majority opinion also turbocharged the “presumption of legislative good faith,” better described as the presumption of white racial innocence. He directed lower courts to more or less ignore “circumstantial evidence” of racist intent when assessing these gerrymanders. The result is a new, nearly insurmountable bar for victims of racial gerrymandering: It will be virtually impossible for any plaintiff to prove that lawmakers targeted them because of their race rather than their assumed political beliefs. Legislatures may now aggressively dilute the voting power of Black communities by shifting them into districts where their votes will matter least.

..

... he is trying to prove he is the whitest black man in America.

Even liberals can be hate filled racists. Hey doc have you filled out your KKK application yet?

[cradleandshoot]

Justice Sotomayor declares that some SCOTUS decisions have driven her to tears. Wow!!! I don't even think that Darth Vader Ginsberg had tear ducts. I'm certain that Scalia never cried over a SCOTUS decision. I'm certain that there are members of this forum who shed crocodile tears every time a decision is handed down.

[CU88a]

Time for Congress to act:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/opin ... jan-6.html

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Chief Justice Roberts assured America that “Judges are like umpires.”

But professional baseball would never allow an umpire to continue to officiate the World Series after learning that the pennant of one of the two teams competing was flying in the front yard of the umpire’s home. Nor would an umpire be allowed to call balls and strikes in a World Series game after the umpire’s wife tried to get the official score of a prior game in the series overthrown and canceled out to benefit the losing team. If judges are like umpires, then they should be treated like umpires, not team owners, team fans or players.

[old salt]

This absurd Alito flag faux controversy is ridiculous.
What happened to respecting a woman's (wife's) independence & opinion ?
The beach house flying the tree flag was purchased by his wife with money she inherited.
What was Alito supposed to do, threaten to move out ? ...nice neighbors.
Compare Alito's grounds for recusal to Merchan's.
How long before Stanford is pressured to remove the tree from their logo ?

[cradleandshoot]

This absurd Alito flag faux controversy is ridiculous.
What happened to respecting a woman's (wife's) independence & opinion ?
The beach house flying the tree flag was purchased by his wife with money she inherited.
What was Alito supposed to do, threaten to move out ? ...nice neighbors.
Compare Alito's grounds for recusal to Merchan's.
How long before Stanford is pressured to remove the tree from their logo ?

Alito responded exactly as an American should. He advised all of you angry, hate filled liberals to go pound sand. We still live in America where only FLP pinheads have the self anointed right to tell people what flag they can fly. Good for Alito liberals poked their finger in his face and he metaphorically punched them in the nose and told them to go home and play with your toys. Bravo justice Alito bravo. The downside is Justice Alito probably won't be able to dine out in public anymore. The petulant liberal scum toadies would love to make a scene.

I plan on honoring justice Alito by keeping my Betsy Ross flag flying indefinitely. Any FLP object to that... too damn bad, we still live in a somewhat free country much to your chagrin you don't get to tell what flag they can fly. IMO I hope Alitos wife finds one new flag to fly that includes a middle finger salute to all of you angry and intolerant FLP liberals.. . You angry hate filled liberals are the bona fide biggest threat to this country. Y'all want to determine what flags are acceptable to you and which ones are not. If they don't pass your muster who knows maybe the FBI and DoJ will come knocking on your door to have a chat. " Have you now or have you ever flown a revolutionary war flag in front of your house" The spirit of tail gunner Joe lives on in the Democrat party.