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Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’

October 21st, 2024 - 8:04 pm § in America, Biden, Christianity, Democrats, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Law and Courts, Politics, Racism, Republicans, Schools & Colleges

The tides of political change

Tides flow and ebb, and so does America’s political center. From 1980 to 2005, the progressive left “was mostly irrelevant to national politics,” a Vox article says (here). “The Cold War was over, and capitalism reigned ascendant.” The parties shifted — the GOP to[...]

October 9th, 2024 - 6:01 pm § in Christianity, Law and Courts, Religion

Will the Supreme Court base decisions on the Bible?

“A group of religious conservatives listed nearly a dozen Bible passages in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court” on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, in a case involving gender-affirming health care bans, Huffington Post reported (here). The Christian Bible is the world’s most p[...]

September 7th, 2024 - 1:33 am § in Law and Courts

Why is Justice Alito taking gifts from a German bigot?

Supreme Court justices can’t be fired. Congress can impeach and remove them for bad behavior, but that requires bipartisan cooperation. A few decades ago that was possible; but today’s Republican Party is so dysfunctional, and so invested in the blatantly partisan decisions of the worst [...]

August 15th, 2024 - 5:45 am § in Law and Courts, Republicans

The Supreme Court isn’t a real court anymore

A court makes judicial decisions. This Supreme Court makes political decisions. The Supreme Court is supposed to be one of the Constitution’s checks and balances. It no longer is. This court has grabbed power for itself and eliminated checks on presidential power. Let’s look, for a minut[...]

August 12th, 2024 - 3:43 pm § in Donald Trump, Law and Courts, News Media, Politics, Republicans

A brief history of free speech in America

Free speech as we know it occurred late in American history, is fragile, and could go away. For most of American history, unpopular political views could (and did) get dissidents, organizers, publishers, and even artists thrown in prison. The notion of a “free trade in ideas,” which spra[...]

August 2nd, 2024 - 9:46 pm § in Biden, Hypocrisy, Law and Courts, Politics, Republicans

McConnell doesn’t like Biden’s Supreme Court reforms

Good. If he did, I’d be very suspicious. Sen. McConnell broke every rule of Senate collegiality when he blocked Obama’s appointee, using “it’s an election year” as an excuse, then jammed through another Trump appointee right before an election. McConnell engineered a co[...]

July 29th, 2024 - 10:26 pm § in Biden, Democrats, Law and Courts, Republicans

Can the Democrats fix the Supreme Court?

The first question to ask is whether the court is broken. I would argue yes. Many other people think so, too. Polls show this is the least trusted court in generations. It’s widely seen as a partisan body. Vox describes it as “essentially [a] policymaking arm of the Republican Party̶[...]

July 12th, 2024 - 12:42 am § in Hypocrisy, Law and Courts, Politics, Republicans

Thomas and Alito deserve to be impeached

Justice Thomas took millions in undisclosed gifts, and refused to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases even though his wife was neck-deep in efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, even calling Trump’s chief of staff. Justice Alito also failed to report expensive gifts, including a luxury fishing [...]

July 9th, 2024 - 10:24 pm § in Law and Courts

The Supreme Court isn’t just partisan, it’s incompetent

“All of the United States’ most important governing institutions are failing at once. Congress has long been barely able to function. The Republican Party has atrophied into a cult of personality. The Democratic Party is unable to dislodge a senescent leader. And then there’s the Supreme C[...]

July 8th, 2024 - 4:46 pm § in Biden, Donald Trump, Politics

What is “democratic recovery” and how does it work?

The phrase was coined by Prof. Corey Brettschneider of Brown University (photo, left; see his C.V. here), who studies past presidents who “posed great threats to democracy” and wrote a book on that subject (get it here). His idea is that pushback by citizens can, and did, rein in rogue president[...]