Koch Brothers-funded McCarthyite faux outrage machine Campus Reform goes after @LDBurnett with results that would be hilarious if it wasn't for the disgracefully craven response of her college admin lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/is-mik…
The essential non-existence of an academic job market means that faculty have essentially no leverage when the leaders of their college are openly contemptuous of academic freedom, which compounds the problem
The president's response would be a immediately firable offense if Burnett had really issued a First Amendment-protected profanity-laced tirade against the vice president. But for the record this was the tweet that the president pretended to be outraged about:
You have the right to free speech
As long as
You're not dumb enough to actually try it
"Mild criticisms of the Forcible Family Separation administration on Twitter are contrary to our Core Values."
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The Supreme Court has issued an order allowing its partners in the Trump administration to stop the census count. Sotomayor dissents. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
The Court granted the administration's request based on the alleged need to complete the count by December 31, even though the administration is saying it will not meet the deadline no matter what!
The idea that the balance of interests favors the government is preposterous -- unless you think undercounting racial minorities is a feature, not a bug, and the five Republican nominees and Trump are on the same page there
All you need to know about the popularity of the Republican Party's agenda is that it is settled GOP dogma that the dirtiest trick in politics is to suggest that a Republican Supreme Court has the views of virtually all elite Republicans on a constitutional question
Bork (v.): "To commit the ultimate act of incivility in American politics: accurately describing the publicly stated views of a Republican Supreme Court nominee" nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
Republicans have to be systematically dishonest about what they expect Barrett to do because it is radical and massively unpopular, which is why Republicans think their only hope is vote suppression and government-by-judiciary
It's also worth noting that there's no symmetry here. The cases conservatives most complain about -- Roe and Oberegefell -- are both hugely popular, striking down laws that stayed on the books through legislative sclerosis and (in the case of Roe) selective enforcement
Again, the idea that Republicans have any kind of commitment to a 9-person Court that would transcend their immediate partisan advantage is absolutely laughable. We don't even have to spectate. npr.org/2016/11/03/500…
Legislative priorities if Dems get trifecta in 2021 (ending the filibuster goes without saying): 1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt HEROES Squared Relief Act 2. John Lewis Voting Rights Act 3. Cruz-McCain-McConnell Judicial Reform Act
Exactly. The Republican justification for both Garland and ACB is "the Constitution allows us to do it." This argument is PRECISELY as applicable to court expansion/reorganization and jurisdiction-stripping.
"Maximalist hardball for me, unilateral adherence to recent norms for thee" is not actually a principle
The thing is that the GOP had a good thing going with Roberts as the median vote -- overwhelmingly conservative results but very unlikely to trigger a hardball response. They decided to get greedy, and if that ends up with the Court blown up they have only themselves to blame
And, of course, it was also the consensus understanding of the Reconstruction Congress that federal courts should allow popular majorities to govern and if they didn't the use of Article III powers to discipline the courts was appropriate lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/07/thomas…
For Dems to expand the Court in 2021 would be consistent with historical norms, not a departure. There are zero (0) cases in American history of a minority faction successfully using the Supreme Court to prevent a majority coalition from governing: lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/there-…