I'm reminded of another instance in which the Supreme Court abandoned any pretense of having standards: obscenity. Justice Lewis Powell averred "I know it when I see it." That meant that every allegation of obscenity ended up at the Supreme Court, so that the justices could in fact do just that: see it for themselves. Justice Thurgood Marshall, sensibly, just sent his law clerks to watch the porno flix, with the instruction to rule them obscene if they displayed any erect penises — which basically meant he had his own standards. Everybody else was all over the map. And of course the lower courts had no guidance at all, so they kept sending all their obscenity cases up the line to the Supremes, which eventually started thinking of themselves as the national board of censors.
Bottom line: It's good to have clear standards, and that's exactly what the Lemon Test provided. Without it, what's the current Subprime Court going to do? What do they have to replace it with? Coin flips? What are lower courts supposed to do in the absence of cogent judicial precedents? Recommend which kind of coin to use?
This is what happens when a minority president gets to make no fewer than 3 appointments to a 9-member court and chooses to pander to his right-wing fundagelical constituency for each and every one of them.
My guess is that the SC we currently have probably prays on the job, so there's no hope they'd ever rule against the plaintiffs seeking separation of church and state.
AND, this is ALSO is what happens when a foolish, dithering 'majority' candidate runs an ineffective campaign by surrounding herself with 'just not good enough' alleged-professionals, and relies on a national party that she has very strongly helped fashion over the decades for 'flash' versus 'substance'?
Would it be any more right from a conservatives POV that a 'bully-led liberal majority' similarly makes 3 appointments to pander to their left-wing constituency?
You do understand, the election of Trump did not just 'what happens', it was the result of a political party and candidate working HARD to get elected. It is not just 'what happens' it is "what happens when enough, well-led voters express their opinions at the ballot box", in spite of the "Don't Stop" crowd feeling morally superior.
Incompetence, like elections, has consequences.
It is Clinton's problem for losing, not Trump's for actually winning.
Please, leave Hillary Clinton out of it. Blaming her for losing her own election is just pointless and a form of political dishonesty. She lost mostly because of James Comey and the misogyny the GOP and Trump freely wallowed in, and still does.
In any case, Trump and the GOP acted on a decades-old plan beginning in Reagan's presidency to replace retired SC Justices with right wing ideologues. Clarence Thomas was the first.
REALLY? Okay, answer me this question: exactly WHEN did prayer and PRAYER ALONE ever solve a serious community or city problem? And I'm talking about a situation where prayer was the ONLY ACTION TAKEN in the face of a given situation.
Well, if someone is so startlingly incompetent that their active involvement would make a situation measurably worse, then encouraging them to pray could keep them out of everyone else's hair for a few minutes. Other than that, I've got nothing.
As for SCOTUS not taking on this blatant violation of State / Church separation, sadly, I think that's mostly a commentary on the religious beliefs of the Reich-wing members of said court. 😝
I knew we were in real trouble when Obama wasn't allowed to appoint a justice to SCOTUS by Congressional shenanigans. I just had hoped it wouldn't be this bad. More the fool I, it would seem.
So far as I can tell, this version of SCOTUS will ignore precedent, spin facts, and generally do whatever it needs to in an effort to undermine the separation of church and state. I can't honestly claim surprise, but I will certainly say I'm disappointed; several of these decisions over the last few years have upended long time accepted legal practice. (I know it, and I'm not even a lawyer. Yeesh.) I have a feeling it's going to be a generation or two before we really know what the legal fallout will be here, but I strongly suspect that at some point, we're going to see the end of most civil rights for anyone who isn't a Christian.
Standing has been abused by the courts for a long time and the Supreme Court seems set to make it even more egregious. With SCOTUS giving every aid to Christian Nationalists, I fear we will, within my lifetime, face either Civil War or interment camps.
The "mother superior" in my grade school had a habit of postponing punishment (including corporal punishment) till the end of the school day, on the theory that the anticipation of the punishment's severity would make kids squirm for long hours*, and that that agonized waiting would be even worse than the punishment itself. Obviously our Ecclesiastical Supreme Court operates on that same principal.
*This never stopped individual nuns from hitting kids, though.
I used to regularly sit behind a gaggle of nuns in one of my university lectures. They were teaching nuns, and the stories they used to tell each other curled my bloody hair. And there's a story about some sadistic bitch who used to leave her class of primary school kids every so often and when she did she draw a big circle on the blackboard and say, "Anyone who talks will get sucked through this circle straight into hell."
A good friend of mine--another survivor of Catholic "education"--used to say "Every nun in the world ought to have her nose slit." I wouldn't go quite that far, but if anyone wants to borrow my knife sharpener, it's at the ready.
Just recently I saw someone make the observation that Jesus hasn’t returned because his brides are such bitches. It leans toward misogyny but I laughed at it.
Most of you probably don't remember her but Georgina Beyer, the first trans mayor in the world and the first trans MP in the world died the other day of kidney failure. She was elected in what's essentially a rural electorate quite conservative, just north of me and did a lot of work for LGBT people in her time in Parliament. And was apparently also a really nice person, though I never met her personally – everyone seems to think so. Interesting though the first time I ever saw someone dead named, before there was even a name for it was her some arse wrote a letter to the paper about "George". There was a documentary made about her about 20 years ago called something like "Georgy girl" if I remember correctly.
This is a time in America's cultural history where the stupidity is like a fog settled over the South and even parts of the North, in the form of the Second Amendment and other ridiculous monuments to "freedumb."
It's quite a feat to claim that measures to restrict access to firearms are "ineffective" the way these idiots always do, but to actually believe that praying and singing hymns will fix the problems of violence and death caused by them.
An even bigger feat to manage to survive a court challenge that they didn't, pardon the pun, have a prayer of winning 20 years ago. This is a bad omen.
Knee-jerk reaction to a snarl/buzz word "Social Justice", like "cancel culture", it's a word they don't know the meaning of, but have been trained to hate.
I went to the FFRF convention in San Antonio last year, and heard Daniel Mach (ACLU leader on religious freedom) speak about the Lemon Test. It seemed to me at the time that it was too ambiguous anyway, however that’s unlikely to improve going forward.
It seems that what is needed is a case where a provider of a patented or unique product or service refuses to sell to a Christian. See how that rolls up.
The problem with that is the SCROTUS and all other Right Wing Christians have no issue creating loopholes to protect their privilege. Too many Christians in positions of power state plainly that religious freedom only applies to Christianity.
It's sad there aren't more honest christian leaders with the courage to speak out against this court and it's grossly dishonest opinions, opinions that throw the law, precedent, truth, logic, and reason under the bus to serve their religious biases. There were christian leaders clamoring for the establishment clause before its inception due to being the victims of other christians persecution. BY FAR most victims of christian persecution have been other christians, we're seeing that now as christians who don't hold with that fetal personhood nonsense are prevented from getting abortions. This court is a huge danger to the future of this country, it has made it clear it simply doesn't care what the 1st Amendment says, and, as said in this piece, that neutrality is persecution, an idea that NO rational, honest person could believe, that can't possibly be honestly or reasonably justified.
I'm reminded of another instance in which the Supreme Court abandoned any pretense of having standards: obscenity. Justice Lewis Powell averred "I know it when I see it." That meant that every allegation of obscenity ended up at the Supreme Court, so that the justices could in fact do just that: see it for themselves. Justice Thurgood Marshall, sensibly, just sent his law clerks to watch the porno flix, with the instruction to rule them obscene if they displayed any erect penises — which basically meant he had his own standards. Everybody else was all over the map. And of course the lower courts had no guidance at all, so they kept sending all their obscenity cases up the line to the Supremes, which eventually started thinking of themselves as the national board of censors.
Bottom line: It's good to have clear standards, and that's exactly what the Lemon Test provided. Without it, what's the current Subprime Court going to do? What do they have to replace it with? Coin flips? What are lower courts supposed to do in the absence of cogent judicial precedents? Recommend which kind of coin to use?
This is what happens when a minority president gets to make no fewer than 3 appointments to a 9-member court and chooses to pander to his right-wing fundagelical constituency for each and every one of them.
My guess is that the SC we currently have probably prays on the job, so there's no hope they'd ever rule against the plaintiffs seeking separation of church and state.
AND, this is ALSO is what happens when a foolish, dithering 'majority' candidate runs an ineffective campaign by surrounding herself with 'just not good enough' alleged-professionals, and relies on a national party that she has very strongly helped fashion over the decades for 'flash' versus 'substance'?
Would it be any more right from a conservatives POV that a 'bully-led liberal majority' similarly makes 3 appointments to pander to their left-wing constituency?
You do understand, the election of Trump did not just 'what happens', it was the result of a political party and candidate working HARD to get elected. It is not just 'what happens' it is "what happens when enough, well-led voters express their opinions at the ballot box", in spite of the "Don't Stop" crowd feeling morally superior.
Incompetence, like elections, has consequences.
It is Clinton's problem for losing, not Trump's for actually winning.
Please, leave Hillary Clinton out of it. Blaming her for losing her own election is just pointless and a form of political dishonesty. She lost mostly because of James Comey and the misogyny the GOP and Trump freely wallowed in, and still does.
In any case, Trump and the GOP acted on a decades-old plan beginning in Reagan's presidency to replace retired SC Justices with right wing ideologues. Clarence Thomas was the first.
𝑊𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑂𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑎 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑦𝑒𝑟...
REALLY? Okay, answer me this question: exactly WHEN did prayer and PRAYER ALONE ever solve a serious community or city problem? And I'm talking about a situation where prayer was the ONLY ACTION TAKEN in the face of a given situation.
I'm waiting...
I used to pray for the day when I'd get out of Catholic school, and eventually I did. Does that count?
Well, if someone is so startlingly incompetent that their active involvement would make a situation measurably worse, then encouraging them to pray could keep them out of everyone else's hair for a few minutes. Other than that, I've got nothing.
As for SCOTUS not taking on this blatant violation of State / Church separation, sadly, I think that's mostly a commentary on the religious beliefs of the Reich-wing members of said court. 😝
They didn't think they could do enough damage to make it worth the effort of ruling on, plain and simple.
I knew we were in real trouble when Obama wasn't allowed to appoint a justice to SCOTUS by Congressional shenanigans. I just had hoped it wouldn't be this bad. More the fool I, it would seem.
So far as I can tell, this version of SCOTUS will ignore precedent, spin facts, and generally do whatever it needs to in an effort to undermine the separation of church and state. I can't honestly claim surprise, but I will certainly say I'm disappointed; several of these decisions over the last few years have upended long time accepted legal practice. (I know it, and I'm not even a lawyer. Yeesh.) I have a feeling it's going to be a generation or two before we really know what the legal fallout will be here, but I strongly suspect that at some point, we're going to see the end of most civil rights for anyone who isn't a Christian.
The cruelty is a core function.
Standing has been abused by the courts for a long time and the Supreme Court seems set to make it even more egregious. With SCOTUS giving every aid to Christian Nationalists, I fear we will, within my lifetime, face either Civil War or interment camps.
The "mother superior" in my grade school had a habit of postponing punishment (including corporal punishment) till the end of the school day, on the theory that the anticipation of the punishment's severity would make kids squirm for long hours*, and that that agonized waiting would be even worse than the punishment itself. Obviously our Ecclesiastical Supreme Court operates on that same principal.
*This never stopped individual nuns from hitting kids, though.
I used to regularly sit behind a gaggle of nuns in one of my university lectures. They were teaching nuns, and the stories they used to tell each other curled my bloody hair. And there's a story about some sadistic bitch who used to leave her class of primary school kids every so often and when she did she draw a big circle on the blackboard and say, "Anyone who talks will get sucked through this circle straight into hell."
A good friend of mine--another survivor of Catholic "education"--used to say "Every nun in the world ought to have her nose slit." I wouldn't go quite that far, but if anyone wants to borrow my knife sharpener, it's at the ready.
I have a ceramic knife, I am good.
Just recently I saw someone make the observation that Jesus hasn’t returned because his brides are such bitches. It leans toward misogyny but I laughed at it.
Most of you probably don't remember her but Georgina Beyer, the first trans mayor in the world and the first trans MP in the world died the other day of kidney failure. She was elected in what's essentially a rural electorate quite conservative, just north of me and did a lot of work for LGBT people in her time in Parliament. And was apparently also a really nice person, though I never met her personally – everyone seems to think so. Interesting though the first time I ever saw someone dead named, before there was even a name for it was her some arse wrote a letter to the paper about "George". There was a documentary made about her about 20 years ago called something like "Georgy girl" if I remember correctly.
I do remember her, and from what little I saw of her I thought she was terrific.
Just remembered ... she said many of the skills she gained in sex work were transferrable to politics. :)
This is a time in America's cultural history where the stupidity is like a fog settled over the South and even parts of the North, in the form of the Second Amendment and other ridiculous monuments to "freedumb."
It's quite a feat to claim that measures to restrict access to firearms are "ineffective" the way these idiots always do, but to actually believe that praying and singing hymns will fix the problems of violence and death caused by them.
An even bigger feat to manage to survive a court challenge that they didn't, pardon the pun, have a prayer of winning 20 years ago. This is a bad omen.
https://www.comicsands.com/jordan-peterson-pope-social-justice-2659503616.html
Pope Francis: Help the poor.
Jordan Peterson: Wrong. Lemme mansplain your job to you.
"Pope Francis: Help the poor."
You first, Frankie. How about you crooks give away some of your $30 billion.
Knee-jerk reaction to a snarl/buzz word "Social Justice", like "cancel culture", it's a word they don't know the meaning of, but have been trained to hate.
Hilarious, although not nearly enough mockery. He's taken far too seriously. 😄
(Edit: and I don't mean the Pope)
So is Frankie.
Il n'y en a pas un pour rattraper l'autre.
I went to the FFRF convention in San Antonio last year, and heard Daniel Mach (ACLU leader on religious freedom) speak about the Lemon Test. It seemed to me at the time that it was too ambiguous anyway, however that’s unlikely to improve going forward.
It seems that what is needed is a case where a provider of a patented or unique product or service refuses to sell to a Christian. See how that rolls up.
The problem with that is the SCROTUS and all other Right Wing Christians have no issue creating loopholes to protect their privilege. Too many Christians in positions of power state plainly that religious freedom only applies to Christianity.
They relish in being called hypocritical.
It's sad there aren't more honest christian leaders with the courage to speak out against this court and it's grossly dishonest opinions, opinions that throw the law, precedent, truth, logic, and reason under the bus to serve their religious biases. There were christian leaders clamoring for the establishment clause before its inception due to being the victims of other christians persecution. BY FAR most victims of christian persecution have been other christians, we're seeing that now as christians who don't hold with that fetal personhood nonsense are prevented from getting abortions. This court is a huge danger to the future of this country, it has made it clear it simply doesn't care what the 1st Amendment says, and, as said in this piece, that neutrality is persecution, an idea that NO rational, honest person could believe, that can't possibly be honestly or reasonably justified.
OT : my friend sent me a crocheted* bag and a wine sized bottle of maple syrup 🤤
* One day I will bring her to the right side, knitting.