Elena Kagan and the Supreme Not-A-Court

[Nevilledog]

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Sheldon Whitehouse
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Great overview of the Supreme Court majority making up false facts in the football prayer case; false facts, but ones that got them the result they wanted.

thehill.com
Elena Kagan and the Supreme Not-A-Court
The Court’s position on a range of issues increasingly mirrors the average Republican voter’s.
5:44 AM · Sep 27, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3659769-elena-kagan-and-the-supreme-not-a-court/

The Supreme Court is supposed to decide questions based on the law, not public opinion. Yet its power consists solely in its ability to issue pieces of paper, which have no effect unless other officials, the ones with guns and money, respect it and are willing to enforce its decisions.

Justice Elena Kagan and Chief Justice John Roberts have been having a public conversation about whether the Court is jeopardizing its legitimacy for reasons that go beyond mere disagreement with results. Recent revelations about a decision last June, declaring that a high school football coach had a right to publicly pray on the field, show that Kagan is right: The Court has a deep problem.

The Court’s position on a range of issues increasingly mirrors the average Republican voter’s. Perhaps not coincidentally, the public’s confidence in the Court has plunged, to the lowest point in the history of polling. Roberts was evidently responding to this when he said that “simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the court.”

Implicitly answering him, Kagan explained why concerns about legitimacy are, well, legitimate. But her explanation was so diplomatically worded and abstract that it will be easier to understand her if we focus on one example.

*snip*

[SheltieLover]

1. Kicking for visibility

[spooky3]

2. Very good analysis. Nt

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Roberts is duplicitous and an idiot.

If the hard religious right judges on the Court are ignoring FACTS in order to reach conclusions that they politically support, the Court's integrity is shot.

Roberts assumes the reputation of the Court will provide cover for their agenda. But he forgets we're Americans and not all of us are blinded.

How does that go? "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

[dalton99a]

4. An official auxiliary of the Republican Party since December 2000 - and a bunch of shitty liars