Mask ruling just the start for conservative courts
By Sid Schwab / syndicated columnist
And, lo, great happiness came upon the land. And the people uncovered their faces and lifted them joyfully to the heavens (closer to which they had risen by about 30,000 feet). Hosannas were shouted, and citizens wept as one in gratitude. Sang they their praises to the blessed source, whence came the glad tidings, whose Name remained on their lips like manna, thenceforth and forevermore. All glory they pledged to That which gaveth even as it tooketh away. For They are and shall be known as … the Federalist Society.
It’s what happens when a “president” who neither understands nor cares about the law is lazy enough simply to rubber-stamp recommendations from a far-right group of lawyers and judges, a group whose criteria for judgeships are two: longevity and predictable predilection to legislate from the bench in their favor. Packaged and delivered by Fed S., the judge who contravened mask mandates was approved by Mitch McConnell’s Senate despite a “not qualified” assessment by the American Bar Association, despite being only eight years out of law school, and despite having never tried a single case in a court of law. Legal scholars have called her opinion a “train wreck,” a “concocted justification” (Vox: tinyurl.com/wreck4u).
Denying entry to an airplane if unmasked, she “reasoned,” is equivalent to unlawful detention and quarantine. Whatever your opinions about masking in a flying sardine can, that level of legal twisticuffs in order to grant the goals of those who bought her judgeship ought to disturb everyone. But, as the anti-democratic end has come to justify any non-democratic means, it won’t. Thanks to Mitchotrumpic court-packing with hardcore right-wing ideologues and religious zealots, there’s worse to come.
Compared to everything else a majority of Americans support but which Trumpublicans and their courts don’t, masks are nothing: availability of abortion and birth control; equal voting access; mail-in ballots; LGBTQ rights; government action on climate change; renewable energy; public schools. And the holy grail: separation of church and state. The Christian right considers itself an oppressed majority, and now they have the courts.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/schwab-mask-ruling-just-the-start-for-conservative-courts/
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