She is now certifiably not the dumbest justice sitting on the Supreme Court:
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson steals that prize from Sotomayor, easily.
The Federalist: Justice Jackson’s ‘Turning Japanese’ Argument Is So Dumb It Stuns
One may hope, but certainly not expect, that the Democrats have learned not to use DEI as a selection criteria for picking Supreme Court justice candidates in the future.
The leak on the Dobbs case has caused all sorts of wailing, gnashing of teeth and accusations that the current court is an "evil, racist, classicist, Christian-supremacist, activist court" (yes there's a lot of tweets out there many by people who should or do know better making that assertion).
The problem, of course, is that the Roe court was itself activist as heck (whether it was evil depends on your point of view). The Justices at the time announced they had found the constitutional right to an abortion "in a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". Actually they didn't, and instead they discovered it in a penumbra emanating from the Bill of Rights, which is much the same thing, really.
While Roe has been law for 50 years, it froze the abortion debate, satisfied no one, and only hardened the sides to it. It has not allowing any functional debate to move through the democratic process to help the matter be resolved or find a workable middle ground, and being based on such a flimsy to almost non-existent reasoning that they insist is now a "super-precedent" just made everything worse.
It's led to both sides going to extremes, and there's no sign of these extreme reactions subsiding and if anything both sides are doubling-down.
For example, New York and Virginia now have laws where abortions can take place up to the very moment of birth, and a baby can still be killed if it survives an abortion attempt (at least they didn't go quite as far as permitting the ol' fashioned 'swing 'em by the heels and bash their head into a wall' technique, at least not yet). Interestingly, in New York the number of abortions exceeded the number of live births between 2012-2014 - 285k to 237k. Clearly abortion is very popular in New York.
Then we have other states, mainly in the south, where if upheld, a woman will need to get a pregnancy test and decide within 14 weeks of doing the deed if she wants to have an abortion -- regardless of whether the deed was done willingly or not.
In short, there's not a lot of middle ground currently, and both sides are viewing it as an all-or-nothing choice and refusing to compromise or come to any sensible and legally sustainable position.
If the decision remains substantially similar to the February draft (and leaking it was likely a ploy to put pressure on the Court to not do so), and it does overturn Roe, that doesn't make abortion illegal in the United States.
Instead, all that happens is the matter unfreezes and goes back to the states and people in their own states can then democratically decide what they want about abortion in their state. Democracy right? The whole power to the people thing?
Now, if proponents of abortion don't like that, and from the current protests and hissy-fits going around the Internet right now they really, really don't -- they need to read up on the process of amending the Constitution to actually add abortion to it, thus making it actually a constitutional right.
It will take actual work to get such an amendment passed, and it is by no means certain, but that's how you would properly add a right to an abortion to the Constitution.
But, instead of doing the work all these years to make it an actual Constitutional Amendment, the proponents of abortion have been relying on the very thin reed of what even its proponents agree is a really legally flimsy and almost untenable decision that was simply an activist court making an outcome-based ruling for what they wanted rather than an opinion based on any real solid legal grounds. They've also been constantly pushing the boundary of that decision ever farther.
That decision may finally be facing judicial review from, depending on your point of view, an activist court or a court that is actually analyzing and applying constitutional law to the decision.
Not something you see everyday - a supposed leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court on a hot-button issue. You don't see it everyday, as it has never happened before, ever.
Longstanding traditions, traditions maintained for a very good reason, are being destroyed in the name of political expediency.
Secrecy during deliberations is one of the hallmarks of the Court, as opinions can and do shift over time before being issued. That someone for clearly political reasons decided to leak an opinion to Politico is a rather bad sign of the weakening of the bonds of the institution for political expedience.
This is the first time there has been such a leak. Likely the leak, if it is of the real draft, is designed to put pressure on the Court prior to the official ruling being released. It will be very interesting to see if it is actually valid leak or yet another political fake to rally the Democrat base similar to the Steele dossier.
Of course, protestors were conveniently ready-to-go once this leak was announced: NY Post: Protests erupt outside of Supreme Court after Roe v. Wade opinion leak.
It's going to be interesting to see if the leak is indeed genuine or not, the identity of the leaker, assuming such is ever revealed, and it will be interesting to compare this draft to whatever the final opinion will look like.
Apparently any Republican nominated candidate for the Supreme Court will be asked if they have ever sexually assaulted someone.
The Washington Examiner: Hirono asks Barrett if she has ever 'made unwanted requests for sexual favors'
Seriously, the Democrat Senators have reached rock bottom and are starting to dig.
Anything to try and tarnish a rather impressive candidate with ridiculous questions, all because you don't like who is nominating her, right?
At least when it comes to the Second Amendment.
The oath taken when a justice is sworn in states:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
The Detroit News: Retired justice urges repeal of Second Amendment
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment to allow for significant gun control legislation.The 97-year-old Stevens says in an essay on The New York Times website that repeal would weaken the National Rifle Association’s ability to “block constructive gun control legislation.”
Stevens says the decision in that case, District of Columbia v. Heller, “has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power.” Stevens retired from the court in 2010, after more than 35 years.
Stevens was on the losing end of a 2008 ruling in which the high court held that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own a gun for self-defense. He had previously called for changing the Second Amendment to permit gun control.
We could put it down to a 97-year old going senile, or instead that the foolish progressive dream of gun bans, and resultant control of the populace to enforce their progressive program does not diminish with age.
Update: Upon further thought and consideration, my opinion in this post was rather overstating the case. Mea Cupla. Please disregard the above portion before the quote from the Detroit News article and We could put it down to a 97-year old going senile, or instead that the foolish progressive dream of gun bans, and resultant control of the populace to enforce their progressive program does not diminish with age. . I do stand by that as an accurate opinion at least. Thanks much.
The Supreme Court rightly upheld Proposal 2 of 2006 that added to the Michigan Constitution that public institutions cannot use race to discriminate or give preferential treatment to groups or individuals.
Now there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the self-proclaimed anti-racist progressive left here in Michigan.
First, we get Laura Berman's puff-piece in the Detroit News warning that Affirmative action ruling jeopardizes Michigan's progress against inequality
Short on you know, facts, the piece gives some fun quotes:
“I am deeply saddened and disappointed by this decision,” says Jocelyn Benson, interim dean at Wayne State University Law School. “Any state has been given the green light to ban affirmative action if the voters so choose.”Had the Supreme Court struck down Michigan’s ban, “we would have revisited our policies to take a more holistic view of our applicants.”
Holistic of course being a euphemism for focusing on skin color. Which, to the race merchants is very holistic indeed and clearly determinative of the rightness of admitting or barring the admission of a student.
Apparently banning discrimination based on race will in Berman's words:
affirms the right of the people of Michigan to close doors that once swung open. And it points toward the closing of an era of social remedies, including affirmative action in education, despite the persistence of inequality.
So banning racial discrimination will close doors? really? Not to mention the laughable concept of social remedies - that you deserve to be either discriminated against or in favor of based not on what you did but what some group you are a part of based solely on your skin color may or may not have done in the past, and before you were born.
On top of that, the lawyer for BAMN then went off into far-leftist land with this inane statement:
“At the very moment that America is becoming a majority minority nation, this court is declaring its intention to uphold white privilege and to create a new Jim Crow legal system,” she said in a statement.
Can anyone parse that one out? Banning discrimination based on race upholds "white privilege" and prohibiting discrimination will create a "Jim Crow" legal system? Does she even understand that what she said and how it's rather contradictory?
But not to worry fans of social and group racial determination uber alles, the University of Michigan has pledged to work hard to ensure diversity by again, focusing on race where it can still get away with it:
We remain committed to the goal of a diverse, academically excellent student body, and will continue to seek to achieve that goal in ways that comply with the law.”After talks with the Black Student Union, U-M agreed last week to initiatives aimed at increasing black enrollment and improving the campus climate for minority students. The school will partner with black students at university-sponsored events that encourage African-Americans who have been admitted to U-M to enroll.
U-M also will launch a pilot transportation project for black students living in more affordable housing outside Ann Arbor; improve security at the Trotter Multicultural Center; and create a website for emergency funds available to students.
Just imagine substituting the word white for black in those paragraphs and you'd have outraged protests if not full-scale riots breaking out at UofM.
BAMN now is demanding that the University of Michigan not look at SATs or ACTs, because objective scores can get in the way of subjective touchy-feely and makes it more difficult to use race-based admissions under the radar by having an easily discernible standard.
Expect a lot more, and louder, wailing and yelling from the race merchants as they come to realize the time for discrimination based on race is coming to an end.
In Canada, thanks to a gobsmacking decision by the Canadian Supreme Court issued today, you no longer need to tell your potential or current partner you have HIV as long as you have a low viral load and use a condom.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that some people with low levels of HIV who use condoms during sex do not need to disclose their condition to sexual partners.In a 9-0 ruling, the top court updated a landmark 1998 decision that made it a crime if HIV carriers did not reveal their status when there was a significant risk of transmission to a sexual partner.
Wow. So according to the Canadian Supreme Court, an individual infected with a deadly communicable virus does not need to disclose to a potential intimate partner that they HIV. This is because, according to the court, it is just a low risk, and the infected's privacy beats requiring full disclosure to a partner, whose health and decision is, according to the court, of lesser import.
The court ruled Friday that the "realistic possibility of transmission of HIV is negated" provided the carrier of the virus has a low viral load and a condom is used during sexual intercourse.
Of course, members of the Canadian Supreme Court, unlike the Canadian dating public in general, are unlikely to face a situation where they will be unknowingly intimate with people with low HIV viral loads willing to use condoms.
I'm not sure I agree with some commenters that I highly respect that this decision was a form of political judo by Roberts that keeps the chance of an ACA repeal and Obama defeat alive.
I fear that's more a form of wishful thinking than anything else.
Even if the Commerce Clause in in eclipse, and that's a big if considering it wasn't needed to uphold this Act so that ruling might well be considered mere dicta, the taxing power is now newly ascendant.
If any regulatory regime that requires an expenditure can now be construed constitutional because it is a tax we're duly and truly hosed.
So ACA Act, with its mandate sold as not being a tax, is then argued before the Court as being both a tax and not a tax, and is then upheld by the Court as a tax.
After all, repealing bad legislation is quite difficult and just because it is upheld because it is a tax is likely to shift any voter's positions come November. Indeed, the left is already trumpeting this as a win with no mention of the little detail that the commerce clause was restricted but the taxing power unleashed.
In short, I fear Judge Roberts just punted and we're going to look back at this case as a lost, and possibly the last, real chance to step back from the morass that is the (un)Affordable Care Act.
