The court does not exist to have its reputation protected. It exists to uphold the Constitution, something Roberts should probably become more acquainted with. //

Adam Liptak
@adamliptak
Justice Kagan, dissenting: "The law
does not require that the state equally treat apples and watermelons." //

In other words, Kagan believes the state can have completely arbitrary, discriminatory rules which reward certain sectors while cracking down on religious gatherings. Movie sets with cafeteria tents are fine. Black Lives Matter protests are gravy. But having your neighbor over to pray for you? Kagan believes the state can send you to jail for that based on its own whim. It’s tyrannical, but we are at a point where nothing surprises me anymore. //

Refr
2 hours ago
Funny that a man so concerned about the SCOTUS's reputation and legacy has done for more damage to both since he's been on the bench. //

mlmorrison44
2 hours ago
One small step from--
Justice Kagan, dissenting: "The law does not require that the state equally treat conservatives and progressives. //

acrucesalus mlmorrison44
2 hours ago
Apples and watermelons. Does that also mean the state also doesn’t have to treat blacks and whites the same? Or Asians and Hispanics the same? How about people with disabilities? Can they be treated differently from non-disabled? Not to mention the sexually confused vs heterosexuals.
What is that meme every love loves so much? It’s settled law? Until it isn’t apparently.
These justices have as much sense as a watermelon.

The losing side needed to know that a fair shake was given, and that justice prevailed, even if it wasn't the outcome they wanted. That did not happen after Nov. 3. //

A Rasmussen survey last month found that 61 percent of Republicans say Joe Biden did not win the election fairly. That number hasn’t changed much since early January, when 69 percent of GOP voters voiced the same concern. That 34 percent of all voters and 36 percent of independents agree with them is a strong signal that something went terribly amiss in the maelstrom of election cases. //

Yet to understand why there is still widespread unease with the election, would it not be better to stop demanding conformity and instead dig deeper to see what the courts told us in those cases, and what they did not? A review of them shows that, contrary to a common narrative, few were ever considered on the merits. //

When most needed, the court that once took the time to render a decision on whether a tomato is a fruit or vegetable chose to punt on each of the key presidential election cases. American voters are worse off for it as confidence in elections erodes. //

The election of 2020, which included more than 155 million votes, was decided by approximately 300,000 votes in six states, or 0.2 percent of the electorate, all of which came by an unnatural flip of results late on election night. Despite judges’ repeated hand-wringing that any court action would disenfranchise millions of voters, the reality is that millions of others may have been disenfranchised, and they instinctively suspect so.

The one thing many voters seem to have learned through the legal chaos is that it’s easier to commit election violations than to stop them. So the electorate remains divided—even after “86 election cases.”

The outcome of Brnovich — if the Arizona statutes are upheld as not violating Section 2 — will provide the “go-ahead” to conservative state legislatures to adopt “ballot integrity” legislation prior to 2022 and 2024 with confidence that the Supreme Court will sustain such legislation so long as the statutes are race-neutral even if they have what some consider a disproportionate impact on minority voters.

The Supreme Court’s role in the judiciary is to chart the course or lower courts to follow — not to step into an electoral maelstrom and attempt to sort out the claims of the competing parties on incomplete and contradictory factual records.

Potentially the two biggest issues that will be directly implicated by the outcome of today’s case will be the degree to which states are going to be allowed to require voter identification and engage in signature matching on absentee ballots without worrying about Democrat lawyers like Marc Elias trying to tie up the election process in court proceedings raising due process and Voting Rights Act claims.

late on Friday the Supreme Court handed down an order granting the application for a preliminary injunction by a California church blocking enforcement of the order by California Governor Gavin Newsom that prohibited any indoor gathering for purposes of religious services.

The order was somewhat fractured, as there were multiple parts of the California order under review, and the Court granted the application but denied them as to others. The Justices in the majority – the six conservatives – were not unanimous in their views on each part of the order, enjoining some but allowing others to remain in place. The three liberal justices would have allowed the entire order to stand. //

This is not a final decision on the merits of this case. The case has been accepted by the Supreme Court for argument and decision this spring. The decision last night only concerns the extent to which the lower court decision is allowed to remain in force pending a determination of the case by the Supreme Court on the merits.

Five justices endorsed the "most favored nation" theory of free exercise—that the presence of ANY secular exemption to a law triggers strict scrutiny when that law is applied to religious exercise. This is basically the end of Employment Division v. Smith.https://t.co/IEQd9IWM4a

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC

Jason Willick
@jawillick
A fundamental divide: conservative judges are more likely to defer to legislators; liberal judges to experts. //

Yes, conservative judges do defer to the protective confines of the constitution and not the arbitrary and unaccountable edicts of the “experts.” Every atrocity in human history has had an “expert” standing beside leadership endorsing the action about to be taken. The idea that we should hand over our governance to “experts,” making them preeminent to the actual Constitution is an idea so insane that it makes me think a national break-up might actually be a good idea. How does a country even survive with so many of its citizens holding such a position?

But really, what does the fact that all the liberal judges on the court agreed with the ban say? I think it says that we are a few Supreme Court appointments by a Democrat away from having absolutely no liberty at all. If a state can simply decide you can’t go to church, then what is left, exactly? Because they can dang sure declare an “emergency” and arbitrarily decide you don’t get to have guns either. They can certainly suppress speech under that standard for the greater good as well. //

For every Never Trumper out there who didn't think Trump's term was worth it, had he not been elected, SCOTUS would have decided last night that a state can just stop people from going to church while allowing celebrity book signings. Your decorum wasn't gonna save you. https://t.co/YSStLCWMnS

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate)

The fact that the Trump campaign or other plaintiffs have raised many of the same factual claims in lower courts — which the various responses go into in great detail — is actually irrelevant as to Texas because those outcomes have no bearing on Texas’s entitlement to defend its own interests by raising the same or similar claims. There is always the potential that Texas will present the claims in a different manner, or that Texas has accumulated evidence that the earlier litigants lacked.

Further, many of the outcomes in the lower courts that the Defendant states place so much value in were not decisions on the merits, the were jurisdictional decisions or decisions based on a lack of standing on the part of the plaintiffs who brought them. //

The oppositions assure the Supreme Court that they conducted the elections and counted the votes in accordance with the statutes in each state. But simple denials of a plaintiff’s claims are not a basis to short-circuit a lawsuit. Plaintiffs are entitled to offer to the fact finder — the nine Justices in cases of “original jurisdiction” — evidence that contradicts the denials made by the defendant states and to contest the defendant states’ denials through cross-examination.

Many of the explanations offered by the defendant states are plausible and reasonable. If they are true they should hold up to scrutiny. If they do hold up to scrutiny, and the Supreme Court finds that Texas has not sustained its burden to prove the allegations it has made, that would act to reassure the country that Joe Biden’s election is not the product of fraud or corruption by partisan state and local actors. In that respect, the prospect of having the 2020 election forensically scrutinized by the Supreme Court should be welcomed by all.

Four years ago Justices Thomas and Alito took the view that the Supreme Court cannot, in an exercise of discretion it has conferred upon itself, deny States a forum to litigate disputes with other states because, under the Constitution, the Supreme Court is the only forum where such disputes can be resolved.

What is unknown on this day is the views of Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett on this key issue. //

The Texas Complaint is not slapped together. It is the result of extensive research and drafting. It was likely a work-in-progress for weeks, and I do not believe that work would have been undertaken on a lark as a political stunt.

Those on both sides of this partisan issue who are dismissing the Complaint as an unserious effort are failing to consider what I believe to be a crucial consideration in whether or not to allow Texas — and the other 18 states who have now joined — to “have their day in court.”

There is only one forum where Texas can present what it believes is evidence supporting the allegations it makes in the Complaint against the four defendant States. Only one tribunal has the authority to hear and consider witnesses and documentary evidence of this dispute.

What recourse do one or more states have in the face of evidence that one or more other states have failed to produce — intentionally or by negligence — an election process and ballot count with integrity?

If the Supreme Court is not a forum where such disputes can be aired and resolved, what forum is there? Congress is controlled by the same partisanship that is said to be the cause of the irregularities at the state and local level. //

I have concerns that the Justices will view these matters as nonjusticiable — meaning that while there may be validity in the claims raised by Texas, the claims are political disputes between the partisan branches which they must resolve outside the judicial branch.

What other means might exist for Texas to resolve its claims is where the difficulty sets in.

Texas argues that the case ‘presents constitutional questions of immense national consequences,’ namely that the 2020 election suffered from serious constitutional irregularities.

how is the Court prepared to respond if it were to grant the injunction against the Pennsylvania state defendants, and on January 6, 2021, the Joint Session of Congress nevertheless counts the slate of Electors already certified and sent by the Pennsylvania Governor for Joe Biden?

There is no functional method I can envision where the Court would attempt to place itself deeper in this controversy between January 6 and January 21 if the Congress was to certify the vote of the Electoral College which included 20 Electoral votes from Pennsylvania in favor of Joe Biden. If it issues an Order that the political branches ignore along partisan lines, the Court will be damaged as an institution. I think there is no question that the Democrats, in their overriding desire to be rid of Donald Trump and deny him a second term, will disregard the damage they would do to the Court by ignoring any Order and moving forward. Under the Electoral Count Act, even if the GOP controlled the Senate, a dispute regarding the validity of Electors that cannot be resolved between the two chambers results in the acceptance by default of the Electors cerfitied by the State’s Governor — meaning the Electors named for Joe Biden would be counted.

This fact is, in my view, the practical counter-balance to any sentiment on the Court to insert itself at this time by creating any form of “retrospective” relief that addresses the validity of the Pennsylania “mail in” voting scheme.

Justice Gorsuch comes roaring out by taking a flamethrower to the Chief Justice — not on just one issue but on two. To me, his language borders on intemperate and likely to leave a mark on the relationship between the two. I agree with Gorsuch on the merits of his points, but I’m still a bit taken aback by the force with which he advances them here on a petition for emergency relief. //

Why have some mistaken this Court’s modest decision in Jacobson for a towering authority that overshadows the Constitution during a pandemic? In the end, I can only surmise that much of the answer lies in a particular judicial impulse to stay out of the way in times of crisis. But if that impulse may be understandable or even admirable in other circumstances, we may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do.

As someone who has read a lot of Supreme Court cases over more than three decades, this is close to “blow torch and pliers” territory between two Justices ostensibly aligned from a jurisprudential point of view. This five-vote majority — not coming from a case before the Court but rather in response to an emergency petition — changes everything now pending in lower courts regarding coming challenges to lock-down orders that may be imposed by governors in the days and weeks ahead.

Do not overlook Gorsuch’s view that “shelter-in-place” orders are an “attack” on the Constitution. This is a religious liberty case, but the overt hostility of Justice Gorsuch is revealing, and I suspect it is going to extend to other burdens imposed on individual liberties by the orders.

Will the Confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett Usher in the Beginning of the Thomas Court
By streiff | Oct 27, 2020 4:45 PM ET

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Last evening, Circuit Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court.

To say that the nomination and confirmation were controversial is perhaps an understatement. Coney Barrett is an orthodox Roman Catholic and opponent of infanticide; she succeeds Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a reliable vote for Moloch’s interests and most other forms of deviant behavior. The confirmation took place in the shadow of a presidential election that is viewed as an existential one by many of us.

While it is safe to say that no one knows how a Justice will vote once they are seated on the Supreme Court, Coney Barrett’s writings, background, and decisions while on the Seventh Circuit give us great hope that she will be a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia.

When she was sworn in, Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath.

This not only provoked some howls of outrage from the left.

Yes, I know that Schmidt styles himself as something other than the pathetic loser he really is, but if he isn’t on the left, there is no longer a left in this country.

There may have been some low-level trolling going on in the bargain.

And there was definitely payback:

Wait. How could Thomas now be de facto Chief Justice?

I don’t think any of us have been terribly enamored with the performance of Chief Justice John Roberts. From his initial betrayal of the law to salvage ObamaCare, his behavior has been more and more akin to someone seeking the plaudits of the mainstream media and Democrat power structure than those of a man devoted to the preservation of the Constitution. Recently Roberts has acted to save DACA; he’s refused to allow Second Amendment cases to come before the court; he’s been hostile to challenges to abortion; he ruled in favor of Nevada’s Democrat establishment in allowing casinos to have greater rights to operate than churches; and, he voted to recognize sexual proclivity as a protected class under federal employment law. //

No less a source than fivethirtyeight.com has documented how Roberts’s voting pattern is looking very much like that of Anthony Kennedy. In fact, again, according to fivethirtyeight.com, Roberts voted with Kagan just as often as he did with Alito.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have a cohesive four justice bloc–Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas–that seems to have few qualms about upholding the Constitution even if a few sacred cows turn into hamburger in the process. Thomas appears to be providing the potential targets. //

Thomas has voted with the minority on abortion cases. Coney Barrett could make Thomas’s opinions the law of the land. If Thomas does, in fact, end up as leading the winning voting coalition, as the senior justice, he decides who writes the opinion. //

one doesn’t know how much opinions are driven by knowing they are the minority, and one doesn’t know how justices may vote when the dynamic on the court changes. But, if past is prologue, we may have just seen the end of the Roberts Court and the beginning of the Thomas Court, and the only way Roberts will have any relevance will be to vote with the five conservative justices.

The legacy of the Kavanaugh confirmation battle is that Republicans finally figured out to stop playing along with the left’s games, in which nominees see their lives, family, and reputation on the chopping block. It took them a while, but better late than never.

This isn’t about Amy Coney Barrett or Justice Neil Gorsuch or Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The truth is that this has been in the works since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States four years ago.

The good news is that Senate Republicans saw this coming and began laying the groundwork to push back against the Democrats’ efforts to destroy our institutions. In March 2019, my colleagues and I introduced a constitutional amendment that would limit the Supreme Court of the United States to nine justices.

It is telling that no Democratic senator has cosponsored my constitutional amendment, which would merely keep the Supreme Court at the same number of seats it has had since 1869. Now, every Republican who cares about preserving our institutions should join us. //

Protecting our legal institutions is critical. Over the past two centuries, they have defended and upheld Americans’ natural rights and made the United States the most exceptional nation in all of human history.

But this is about more than our institutions -- it is about what happens to our country, our communities, and our way of life if the radical left and the Democratic Party destroy them. It is clear they don’t want to pack the Supreme Court just to cancel out the votes of Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and soon Amy Coney Barrett. They want to pack the Court to cancel out your ability to resist their radical agenda. //

Our Founders believed in a radical idea: that all men are created equal and that their rights came from God, from our Creator. That idea -- the very premise of our nation’s founding -- is increasingly under assault from the left. They would have you believe that America and its founding is irredeemably racist, and that nothing short of a revolution is acceptable.

This cultural revolution will come at a great cost to our personal freedoms and natural rights, but our nation’s institutions stand as a bulwark against the effort to remake America.

Rubio argued that while protecting the integrity of the Supreme Court is important, the fight against the Democrat Party is about more than protecting our institutions — another part of the “dirty little secret”:

“[T]his is about more than our institutions — it is about what happens to our country, our communities, and our way of life if the radical left and the Democratic Party destroy them. It is clear they don’t want to pack the Supreme Court just to cancel out the votes of Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and soon Amy Coney Barrett. They want to pack the Court to cancel out your ability to resist their radical agenda.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Judge Barrett to explain to those listening what it felt like to be a nominee for the Supreme Court.

The answer she gave was pretty powerful:

“I’ve tried to be on a media blackout for the sake of my mental health,” Barrett told the committee. “You can’t keep yourself walled off from everything and I’m aware of a lot of the caricatures that are floating around.”

She added: “We knew that our lives would be combed over for any negative detail. We knew that our faith would be caricatured. We knew our family would be attacked. And so we had to decide whether those difficulties would be worth it because what sane person would go through that if there wasn’t a benefit on the other side?”

Barrett continued to say that the benefit is “that I’m committed to the rule of law and the role of the Supreme Court in dispensing equal justice for all. And I’m not the only person who can do this job. But I was asked, and it would be difficult for anyone. So why should I say someone else should do the difficulty if the difficulty is the only reason to say no?” //

Throughout the process, Barrett has had very little sitting in front of her with the exception of a singular notepad. At one point, Texas Senator John Cornyn couldn’t help but notice how cluttered everyone’s space is with notebooks, documents, and more on their side while her desk only sported a singular notepad.

“You know most of has multiple notebooks and notes and books and things like that in front of us,” said Cornyn. “Can you hold up you’ve been referring to in answering our questions?”

She did as requested and presented a notepad that had absolutely nothing written on it.

“Is there anything on it?” asked Cornyn.

Without skipping a beat, Barrett answered like a boss.

“That letterhead that says “United States Senate”,” she said smiling.

“That’s impressive,” responded Cornyn. //

hawkeye1903
8 hours ago
You don’t need notes when you’re not trying to fling BS or lie. //

MF
6 hours ago
Not to take anything away from her answer, but I kind of suspect that was a setup from Cornyn. It just seemed to be too convenient a question from him.

But even if it was, she gets 100% for delivery!

hawkeye1903 MF
2 hours ago
She didn't know in advance. Some democrat media monkey for NBC or ABC tweeted out a photo from above showing the blank pad and insulting Barrett for not having notes. Cornyn must have got wind of this and asked his question. //

fbks
7 hours ago
Seems like they start well then are threatened or bribed and we get mixed results. Hoping for best

RafBo fbks
5 hours ago
That is why having an underlying thing of value (such as faith and reverence for God) is a plus.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Judge Barrett to explain to those listening what it felt like to be a nominee for the Supreme Court.

The answer she gave was pretty powerful:

“I’ve tried to be on a media blackout for the sake of my mental health,” Barrett told the committee. “You can’t keep yourself walled off from everything and I’m aware of a lot of the caricatures that are floating around.”

She added: “We knew that our lives would be combed over for any negative detail. We knew that our faith would be caricatured. We knew our family would be attacked. And so we had to decide whether those difficulties would be worth it because what sane person would go through that if there wasn’t a benefit on the other side?”

Barrett continued to say that the benefit is “that I’m committed to the rule of law and the role of the Supreme Court in dispensing equal justice for all. And I’m not the only person who can do this job. But I was asked, and it would be difficult for anyone. So why should I say someone else should do the difficulty if the difficulty is the only reason to say no?”

The Constitution, the highest legal document in the land, has always been a guiding light for the nation, keeping its people protected from power-hungry people and schemes that would upset their liberties.

For Democrats, the Constitution is a thorn in their side. Their der wille zur macht is consistently thwarted by the stopping power of the document laid down by men far smarter and wiser than they are.

For the left, they found that the Constitution is something they can’t defeat. Even after decades of eroding the American people’s will to support it, Americans are still reluctant to toss it into the scrap heap. //

They attempt to find gaps in the Constitution’s reasoning, argue over comma placements, attempt to translate what the founders would have meant in today’s day and age, etc.

In order to do that, they must appoint Justices who will do this very thing when possible. The Justices have a constructionalist philosophy. Their method is to be presented with legislation and proceed to find a way to make it legal. //

For Democrats, Barrett is far from the kind of person they want on the Supreme Court. She’s a textualist, meaning she won’t be interpreting legislation and attempting to make laws fit. If they’re presented to her and they don’t fit within the boundaries of the Constitution, she’ll rule against it. //

Deep behind it all, however, is the fact that Democrats are lying about Barrett and dragging her through the mud because they don’t like her. She’s not one of them. She’s going to make it harder to subvert the American people and have their way. Their ability to increase in power has been staunched and they hate her for it.

And that’s fine. If it upsets the people who would rule over you and I and have their way with the country, then their anger is as revealing as it is pleasurable to see.

The show’s ending is preordained: “All the Republicans will vote yes; all the Democrats will vote no,” Graham said. He was really just holding the hearings to be polite. And then he puffed himself up on sanctimony and warned that everyone should be on their best behavior because “the world is watching.”

What exactly did the world see — if it hasn’t already turned away from this country in horror? It saw children used as messaging devices. It saw Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) describe the 2018 confirmation hearings for Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh as a “freak show,” because apparently asking a Supreme Court nominee to address credible accusations of sexual assault is against the natural order of things. “It looked like the cantina bar scene out of ‘Star Wars,’ ” Kennedy added. The world saw flailing Democrats and self-righteous Republicans.

And the world saw Barrett. She sat at the witness table in the center of it all wearing a non-wrinkling dress in a jubilant shade of magenta, a strand of pearls and a dark face mask. And while the hearing was ostensibly about Barrett, she spent the vast majority of it silent and nearly immobile. It was a feat of self-control that she didn’t appear to fidget or even furrow her brow. She didn’t fold her arms across her chest in a defensive posture as Democrats declared her a menace to liberal society. She didn’t lean in as Republicans anointed her a maternal Wonder Woman in judicial robes.

Barrett simply sat and blinked. And when she finally spoke, for just about 12 minutes, it was to make a few key points about her cultural identity. If confirmed, she would be the only justice who had not attended those bastions of East Coast elitism, Harvard or Yale; she graduated law school at Notre Dame. She believes in the power of prayer.

And she would be the first mother of school-age children to serve on the court.

The idea that the Senate saying absolutely nothing negative about Merrick Garland and simply choosing not to take up his nomination is somehow the beginning of the current Supreme Court insanity is so historically wrong as to be laughable. Democrats, led by Joe Biden, destroyed Robert Bork with lie after lie. They accused him of the worst evils and this was decades before Garland was ever nominated. //

Garland was not mistreated. It is not mistreatment or wrong to not confirm a nominee if they don’t have the votes. What is mistreatment and wrong is accusing Brett Kavanaugh of rape, Robert Bork of back alley abortions, and Amy Coney Barrett of being in a cult.

The fact is that Republicans have never treated a Democrat nominee the way Democrats treat Republican nominees. Even Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor got GOP votes to confirm despite their radical ideologies.