A photo blog depicting contemporary courthouses in the Western United States.
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Lex Anteinternet: Monday August 4, 1941. Courts, out of jail, and i...
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Sunday, November 1, 2020
Lex Anteinternet: Amy Coney Barrett as a Mirror
Amy Coney Barrett as a Mirror
Yesterday we published this item about long term demographic trends in the U.S.
Um, correction, we published those about long term demographic trends on Earth, and how that will, and already is, impacting culture..
Following that news, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court.
This is interesting in the context of itself, as well as the context of what we were writing about. Barrett is, in some ways, a mirror on where we are now, and where we're going.
She's also a mirror on how we view democracy itself, at an existential level. Are we for it, or against it?
Barrett's nomination angered and upset the old order liberal establishment. She appeared to be what liberals have really feared over the years but never had to really fully face, at least since the death of Scalia. A legal genius who is a textualist. And here, in a Twitter exchange between two U.S. Senators, who can see the upset distilled and refined.
First, Senator Ed Markey, a semi freshman Senator (he started finishing John Kerry's term in 2013 before being elected to his own first full term and had a long stint in Congress) from Massachusetts and then the reply from Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse.
Ed Markey@SenMarkeyOriginalism is racist. Originalism is sexist. Originalism is homophobic. Originalism is just a fancy word for discrimination.1:22 PM · Oct 26, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Senator Ben Sasse@SenSasseReplying to u/SenSasseActually, “originalism” is another way of saying that texts and words have meaning. That's not to claim that all texts and words from 1789 were correct – but that when they need to be changed, they should be changed by elected legislators, not unelected judges.4:55 PM · Oct 26, 2020·Twitter Web App
First of all, it must be stated that Markey' statement is so blisteringly ignorant that it should disqualify him from voting for dog catcher. This is dumb beyond belief. It's not only partisan, it's just outright stupid. The fact that Markey has a law degree from the Boston College of Law is proof, as if any is needed, that you really don't need to know anything about anything in order to graduate from law school.
You also apparently don't need to know the Constitution or care about the truth of it. Markey has been in Congress since 2013
It also shows that the oath of office that Senators take is regarded as a complete joke by some. The oath 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.
I know that it's hoping against hope, but there should be a point at which the violation of your oath of office has an implication, with that properly being that the Senate should refuse to continue to seat you. You're an oath breaker in your office. You should go.
Sasse isn't a lawyer, and is a PhD, so there's apparently some hope for other disciplines yet remaining.
Of interest, Markey, who joined the National Guard while in college, which he says wasn't to avoid service in Vietnam, and who made it to Specialist E4 after five years of National Guard service, was born in 1946. Sasse in 1972. Markey is a reliably left wing politician who just made it to the US Senate, after a long career in the House. Sasse is a very independent Republican who is on his second term.*
In other words, here we see the prefect example of what we wrote about yesterday. An aged, and now nearly irrelevant, East Coast Boomer politician is stating absolute idiocies about the Constitution, and being corrected by a post boomer respected, and more experienced at the Senatorial level, Mid American politician.
In the reaction to Barrett we're seeing a lot of this, although savvy politicians of all generations avoided it. Long term political survivor, for example, Dianne Feinstein just flat out didn't go there, and for good reason. She's taking a lot of whiny heat for her decision not to, but given her long history in politics, she's adept at reading the Washington tea leaves and avoided committing forced errors in the second Barrett confirmation she participated in.
Garrison Keillor was accused of bullying and humiliating women on his staff and no one should be shocked that he continues to be anti-women. . .
real. raw. bold. brave. Marian devotion to apocalyptic proportions. in the pursuit of corn juice.
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Lex Anteinternet: The First Supreme Court. Who were they, and how ma...
Lex Anteinternet: Notes On Nominations. Replacing Justice Ginsburg
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Lex Anteinternet: Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 1933-2020
Ruth Bader Ginsberg. 1933-2020
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away today, September 18, 2020.
In a year of seemingly endless oddities, difficulties and drama, the death of Justice Ginsburg comes at such a time as to seem to fit into the story of the year at a Cosmic level. Now, added to all of the other drama of the final stages of the Presidential Campaign of 2020, we will have a Supreme Court Justice nomination, and confirmation.
Justice Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Flatbush. Born to Jewish parents, her father was a Ukrainian immigrant. She attended Cornell, meeting Martin Ginsburg, the man she would marry, at age 17. After marrying she worked a variety of jobs while her husband served as an Army officer, having been commissioned following his university graduation through a ROTC commission. In 1956 she entered Harvard Law School, transferring later to Columbia when her husband took a job in New York. She thereby became the first woman to publish in Columbia's and Harvard's law reviews.
Following law school she had difficulty finding employment due to her gender. The prejudice against female lawyers was strong at the time, and indeed would be for decades thereafter. She went on to be a civil rights litigator with the ACLU. Her work lead her to be appointed to the United States Appeals Court for the District of Columbia in 1980, as one of Jimmy Carter's appointments. She advanced to the Supreme Court in 1993 when nominated by Bill Clinton.
Ginsburg was a formidable intellect and will go down as one of the Court's titans. Her position on the court can be regarded as having been on the center left. In recent years she became the focus of the future direction of the Court as, after the resignation of Anthony Kennedy, she appeared to be the most likely justice to step down, due to age or health, or be removed by death. Now the latter has happened. It is well known that Ginsburg herself was carrying on in hopes of making it to the next Presidential term in anticipation of being replaced by a Democratic President.
Now she'll probably be replaced by a nominee named by President Trump. It's clear that the Senate is highly likely to take this up rapidly under Mitch McConnell, but less clear that Republican Senators who are facing difficulties holding on to the Senate will be willing to stake their political fortunes to an act which will be hugely unpopular with Democrats and which will become a focus of the remainder of President Trump's term. Indeed, to at least some extent, a rapid process on the part of Mitch McConnell, assuming a quick nomination by President Trump, will have a certain appearance of throwing Trump, and perhaps some Republican Senators, under the bus, as the act is likely to be so unpopular with Democrats. That would also be a concession on McConnell's part, a concession which has already been made as a practical matter, that in the 21st Century United States the Supreme Court is the most important branch of the government.
At any rate, Ginsburg, agree with her positions or not, was a legal giant. Only Anthony Scalia, her friend outside of the court and opposite on the court, rivaled her in that regard.