23 Comments
Oct 30, 2023Liked by Neoliberal Feudalism

A great analysis, albeit a discouraging one.

I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion (at least to me) that hope for a course correction that actually has some kind of teeth to it will not be coming from ANY government source. Any words or supposed actions that would seem to give hope are mere theatre and stagecraft, most likely intended to pacify the easily influenced in the population. Fantastic term you coined there, btw.

I look only to divine intercession to get the party started to restore balance to humanity and the world. I fear it won’t be pretty and could last a lot longer than I’d hope. But I remain firm in my belief that God will have the last words on all the madness swirling around us.

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Oct 30, 2023Liked by Neoliberal Feudalism

By term, I meant originalist. I like that a lot!

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author

Nicely said, NanaW.

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Thanks!

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An alternative is, this world is ruled by God, it is beautiful beyond words, wondrous, mystical and sublime, and merely overrun with post-modernists enthrall to the demiurge, which is itself subject to God.

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Oct 30, 2023Liked by Neoliberal Feudalism

So, strictly speaking, it is not really a Republican Supreme Court (except for Thomas). Bunch of happy people, floating along in their extremely odd 'lives', pretending to do their jobs.

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author

And Alito. Alito is pretty solid.

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Forgot that -- it's not my favorite game.

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Oct 31, 2023Liked by Neoliberal Feudalism

Justice Kavanaugh always was a swamp creature that's why since he's been on the Supreme Court he sided with the Left more than the conservatives... because the left is the regime

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Nov 1, 2023Liked by Neoliberal Feudalism

Tracks with what we see in Congress and elsewhere. We have a Trumpist base, with a fraction of the Party electees fighting the good fight, constantly hamstrung and frustrated by legions of Liz Cheney / Mitt Romney regime collaborators.

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Nov 1, 2023Liked by Neoliberal Feudalism

Just to remind everyone, Roberts was on Epstein Island at least once.

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Much thanks for all the work you put in on this. Very useful information. I plan to refer to it and quote in upcoming posts of mine.

Regarding the relationship of culture and cultural beliefs to SCOTUS, it’s interesting that while the majority of Americans are Protestant Christians, there is not a single Protestant Christians on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the has been the case (pardon the pun) for a long time. So long that it seems like a government policy to keep Protestant Christians off the court. Wonder why?

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author

It's a good question. As you stated, "Following the retirement of John Paul Stevens in June 2010, the court had an entirely non-Protestant composition for the first time in its history": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Protestant_justices . But while Neil Gorsuch has a Catholic background, he attends an episcopal parish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gorsuch#Religion , and Ketanji Brown Jackson is apparently a non-denominational Protestant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketanji_Brown_Jackson#Personal_life .

This article alleges that Protestants are substantially underrepresented at the top law schools (7% of student body vs. 25% of U.S. population) that typically feed into the Supreme Court pipeline: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/march-web-only/supreme-court-justice-evangelical-protestant-catholic-nomin.html

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Good catch on Ketanji Brown. Yes, I was looking at SCOTUS before her.

But regarding the Christianity Today article you quote "Protestants are substantially underrepresented at the top law schools (7% of student body vs. 25% of U.S. population)" The article is about Evangelical Christians being 25% of the population. According to the 2020 census 41% of Americans identified as Protestant. That's less then I thought, but more than 25% and more than identify as Catholic. So Protestant are still vastly under-represented on the court and have been for so long a long time that it hardly seems like an accident. To me anyway.

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author

Good catch on that. Yes, it is curious why Protestants are underrepresented on the Court. I'm open to hearing more on this topic if you come across persuasive explanations.

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The legal profession is primarily attractive to fast-talking bullshitters, which is either culturally or genetically not a common characteristic of Northern Europeans. Thus, you end up with all Catholics and Jews on the Supreme Court.

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Well justices serve for life so its important to appoint ones who won't drift in their position.

The Republicans have started to appoint all Catholics after it was observed during the later half of the 20th Century that Conservative Catholic Justices stay Conservative more reliably than Conservative Protestants.

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USA is done.

All that's left is the inescapable descent.

Get right with this fact.

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My question is: are the lousy RINO justices appointed by Trump evidence of his real allegiance being to the swamp, or just another example of his feckless behavior with appointments?

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author

Hi Bort, the nominees have to be confirmed by the Senate, and the Senate Republicans are mostly RINOs, so even if Trump was good with appointees (as we all know he wasn't), Trump nominating a dissident would be dead on arrival for Senate confirmation. Therefore his options are quite limited and he has to work off a pre-approved "shortlist" of confirmable justices.

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From a political point of view, Dobbs might turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory, but as a matter of Constitutional law, it's still a wonderful thing. Nothing good comes from 50 years of pretending to uphold a precedent that is so clearly illegitimate.

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> We will limit the analysis to cases where Thomas dissented from the majority

So you're literally trying do determine how Conservative the supreme court is while limiting the analysis to cases where the Conservatives lost.

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author

I think I gave a reasonable amount of credit for the recent significant Republican majority opinions (National Federation of Independent Business v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization). The point of this post was to compare the ideologies of the Republican justices, which can only really be done when they disagree with each other.

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