ONE THING THAT IS OVERLOOKED in the appalled response to the appalling Supreme Court ruling of yesterday, letting the clearly Roe v Wade defying Texas abortion ban stand, in which Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett explicitly gave Republican-fascist state legislatures the power to nullify civil rights is the idea that those "justices" and their like have any intention of practicing integrity in following the "principle" they have now made the federal law by the fiat of five out of nine members of that Court acting as a super-legislature instead of the Supreme Court.
I have absolutely no doubt that those five and, at times, joined in by Roberts on concurrence, would have no problem with nullifying any laws passed by Democratically controlled state legislatures, even far more modest in their infringement on personal freedom and even control by an individual on their on bodies. I have no doubt that they would have different rules based on whether or not they or their ideological colleagues or the billionaires they serve liked or disliked them.
The Republican-fascists have no sense of justice, they have no intentions of producing equal justice under law, theirs is an exercise in raw power without any but the most ephemeral nod towards impartiality. I have no doubt that Coney Barrett will be as scrupulous in the protection of her families' financial interests as Thomas is on settling scores and damaging the lives of People of Color and LGBTQ people and Kavanaugh to do whatever he figures will further the one-party state he has served his entire and sordid life. Alito is capable of doing all of that and worse based on his snooty imperious conceit. Roberts, with some regard for the actual reputation and repute of his term as Chief Justice may at times oppose them but his agenda and theirs will mesh more often than not. He will not use this ruling as a citation in writing dissents against the five when they act to nullify state laws which he might not want to see go into effect but which are as on shaky grounds as the abominable Texas abortion ban is.
There is no right for any non-lying, non-invested person to pretend that this Supreme Court has any integrity at all with this ruling, we are finding out just what a bad idea it is to have nine unelected, lifetime-appointed group of people in black, sometimes, most of the time in that Courts history of very dubious integrity and devotion to equal justice acting as a legislative body of nine, carrying all of the malignancies of the anti-democratic Senate and adding infinitely more, as many as those lifetime holding hacks can get away with without even having to worry about facing the voters.
It's time to brush off Louis Bodin's book Government By Judiciary, which warned of this and contained some ideas of how to deal with an out-of control Supreme Court. A term limit of ten years would be where I'd start, retiring most of the present court soon. Since they have taken it on themselves to be able to nullify federal law passed by both the House and Senate, I'd give the House equal say in their appointments as the Senate. It would be a terrific mess but no more of one than we've got and have had for a long time. I would put a lifetime ban on former and sitting members of the Court for ever hearing a case in which they, their families or patrons have a financial interest - the extreme corruption of this court is intimately tied in with financial self-interest, something which has been a feature of the Supreme Court as its members regularly decided cases in matters of slavery which, they being slave holders, benefited them directly. John Marshall, the man who gave the Court the power to nullify federal laws was one of those, a power which was next used by the slavery loving Roger Tawny in the most infamous of cases, the Dred Scott case. The use of that power has gotten entirely out of hand, it was long ago time to reign it in if not end it.
Update: You can download Louis Boudin's book at archive.org but I will warn you if you try to download the pdf it will take forever and likely make your computer crash. If you download the text it takes a few seconds. It comes form the Public Library of India, which might explain that. Volume 1 and
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