SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

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SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

The blunt reality is that unless and until President Donald Trump openly defies a lawless court order — ideally one that takes the form of an unconstitutional "nationwide injunction" — and thus strikes a grievous, Lincoln-esque blow against the constitutionally fallacious soft tyranny of judicial supremacy, nothing else that happens in our politics will ever matter.

SNIP

Unless and until President Trump and the rest of the Republican Party seize the moment and openly push back against judicial tyranny, nothing else truly matters. Leftists and open-borders zealots will continually defy Supreme Court rulings and take new bites at the apple at sundry lower courts across the country, waiting for one lawless black-robed tyrant who will inflict a "nationwide injunction" on the yokels and plebeians across the heartland. Conservative lower court judges, by contrast, normally feel "bound" by the Court and do no such thing. No matter what President Trump or congressional Republicans do, the courts will find a way to stop it if they are so inclined. They always have, and they always will.

This is not a game we can win. The deck is systemically stacked against conservatives and originalists. And nothing else matters until we rectify the problem.

At what point will conservatives stop playing this doomed game and stand up, once and for all, to reject judicial supremacy?
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

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"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

Why does it seem that liberal extremists are pursuing new infringements on gun rights seemingly unchecked? Why do we have an escalated situation in Virginia where liberal politicians seek to further infringe the Second Amendment rights of its citizens, threatening imprisonment and even violence against Constitutional gun owners who have committed no crimes?

This is due to a failure of our system of checks and balances. Due to a failure of the courts to deal with a barrage of important Second Amendment cases over the last ten years, we are perilously off balance.

In 2008, we had the epic Heller decision, and the subsequent McDonald decision in 2010, which applied Heller to the states. In the more than 10 years since those decisions were handed down, we have seen relentless encroachments on Second Amendment rights by extreme anti-rights fanatics.

When will it ever end? When will the Supreme Court make it end?

The response by gun rights supporters to these continued, ongoing infringements has been appropriate: seek redress using the three branches of government. Specifically, file lawsuit after lawsuit begging the Judiciary to enforce Heller’s holdings on concepts like individual rights and common-use.

Unfortunately, the Judiciary has repeatedly ignored these petitions for redress—a complete and dangerous failure to enforce the provisions enumerated in the Heller decision. The results have been a painful, unconstitutional existence for those of us in states like New Jersey and, most recently, it has brought Virginia to the edge of chaos.
Amidst the finger-pointing that will quickly be forgotten once Virginia is resolved, note how Heller and the SCOTUS Goalie has contributed to the impending chaos. Each were once considered saviors who have proven to be no help to the RKBA.
In a dissent in December (2016), Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, accused the court of ignoring the Heller decision and abdicating its responsibility to enforce the constitutional right to keep and bear arms when it refused to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a law that banned semiautomatic assault weapons.

“The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting,” Justice Thomas wrote. “Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.”

The Heller decision was decided by a 5-to-4 vote, and gun rights advocates say they fear it would be at risk should President Obama succeed in appointing a new Supreme Court justice.
I'd like to quote from another article demonstrating Thomas and his view of how the 14th Amendment has been enforced, but there's not one quick excerpt that would do it justice (see what I did there?). So I commend this article for those willing to dive deep in understanding how we've arrived at Virginia.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

Taken in totality, the “conservative” legal movement, which has promoted the idea of “appointing better judges” rather than fighting the entire concept of judicial supremacism, has failed miserably. This was its Waterloo.

Here is a brief summary of four very important decisions and orders issued by the court today:

The justices denied certiorari to gun rights groups in 10 gun cases where states have denied citizens the right to carry arms under any circumstance. Justice Thomas dissented in the denial of cert in the New Jersey right to carry case and was joined by Justice Kavanagh. It takes four justices to agree to hear a case, and it’s not clear which of the others would also have agreed but didn’t sign on to the dissent. Despite the plain meaning of the Constitution, 10 years after Heller, and with circuit splits, the court refuses to act.
In U.S. v. California et al., the Supreme Court denied the petition from the Department of Justice to overturn a Ninth Circuit ruling upholding California’s sanctuary law. California prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration agents. Only Thomas and Alito would have granted the appeal.
In what has become a growing trend of SCOTUS interference with the few remaining capital punishment cases, the justices remanded a Texas capital case because they believe the accused did not have sufficient counsel. Alito dissented, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
In a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Gorsuch, the court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Right act, which passed in 1964 before anyone could fathom transgenderism, applies to transgenderism and sexual orientation.

Taken together, these decisions show the court believes there is an inalienable right to transgenderism and illegal immigration but not to the Second Amendment. The court believes it can tamper with every state criminal and capital conviction on ever-evolving novel grounds, but it somehow believes a state can criminalize foundational federal immigration powers. A world upside down, and we only have one consistent originalist on the court in Clarence Thomas, with Justice Alito a step or two behind him.

SNIP

Then again, ignoring foundational rights while creating super-rights is exactly what the Supreme Court has been doing for decades. “Conservative” justices taking part are merely the icing on the cake.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by Mr. Glock »

The Dems/ leftists have an agenda, and hate Trump. The GOP seems to wish Trump gone too, back to the comfy days of the Elites in charge, regardless of any possible legislative victories today. And, frankly, Trump isn’t exactly a Constitutional scholar.

No where in there is an Originalist viewpoint.
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

Run this every time you watch SCOTUS ruling news
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

FYI 20 of the last 28 Justices were appointed by people calling themselves "Republicans"
The Roberts’ Court will not take up another Second Amendment case unless the Court is able to sidestep the core 2A issue as in the Voisine case, or in the recent NYC gun transport case, or when or if the liberal wing knows it has a decisive majority. That would be calamitous. It would sound the death knell for Heller and McDonald. Once our right to keep and bear arms is lost, our Nation is undone.

Thus, the conservative wing won’t wish to hear a Second Amendment case unless it knows that Roberts is on board, and Roberts will never be on board.

Understand, each Justice knows how each of the others will resolve a case before any vote is cast to grant cert or to deny cert on a case.

Justice Thomas’s scathing dissents reflect his knowledge and frustration—which obviously, he cannot express openly—that Roberts will not support the Second Amendment. It is as simple as that.

So, forget support from the Roberts’ Court on our Bill of Rights, given the Court’s present composition.

So, where does that leave you and me?

The Globalist puppet masters have been utilizing, of late, Radical Left Anarchist groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, along with the common criminal class, to rain havoc on our Nation—to soften the Country up—encouraging rebellion and insurrection, even attempting to destroy public faith in the police. And it is all by design.

The last thing these Globalist puppet masters want to have to deal with is internal police forces and an armed citizenry, in the midst of a civil war these puppet masters have, themselves, fomented. They are neutralizing the police, but they cannot so easily neutralize an armed citizenry; and if they cannot do that, they cannot win this civil war.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by kcclark »

bignflnut wrote:FYI 20 of the last 28 Justices were appointed by people calling themselves "Republicans"
David Souter had NOW protesters outside his confirmation hearings. NAACP told all their members to write letters opposing Souter's confirmation. Kennedy said Souter was as bad as Bork. Maybe they knew he was a closet liberal and put on a show for us.
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

WASHINGTON – Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a fall requiring overnight hospitalization two weeks ago, the third such episode dating back to 1993 for the leader of the Supreme Court.

The Washington Post was first to report the incident Tuesday night, and it later was confirmed to USA TODAY by court spokesperson Kathleen Arberg.

"The chief justice was treated at a local hospital on June 21 for an injury to his forehead sustained in a fall while walking for exercise near his home," she said. "The injury required sutures, and out of an abundance of caution, he stayed in the hospital overnight and was discharged the next morning. His doctors ruled out a seizure. They believe the fall was likely due to light-headedness caused by dehydration."

And now with SCOTUS insisting that POTUS release his taxes for 8 years ( 7-2 rout)...we shall see who wants to continue relying on Judicial Supremacy.
In both rulings, Roberts was joined by the court's four liberals as well as Trump's two conservative appointees to the court, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.

The prosecutor and the House committees all issued subpoenas to third parties for the records, not the Republican president himself.

Trump went to Twitter shortly after the rulings to complain about the outcome, writing, "Courts in the past have given 'broad deference'. BUT NOT ME!"

"This is a tremendous victory for our nation's system of justice and its founding principle that no one - not even a president - is above the law," said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, a Democrat, in relation to the ruling in his case.

The ruling in that case does not mean the documents will be handed over immediately as there is likely to be further litigation in lower courts, which means a final outcome could be delayed in both cases until after the Nov. 3 election in which Trump is seeking a second term in office.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

CNN Article detailing how Roberts is hosing us...
Challenges to other firearms regulations were pending and conservatives who had wanted to clarify the scope of the Second Amendment had to consider whether to bring the issue back to the justices.

It takes four votes to accept a case and five to rule on it, and sources have told CNN that the justices on the right did not believe they could depend on a fifth vote from Roberts, who had in 2008 and 2010 voted for milestone gun-rights rulings but more recently seemed to balk at the fractious issue.

In mid-June, the high court turned down petitions from 10 challenges to state laws limiting the availability of firearms and when they can be carried in public.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

Texas wasn’t complaining about something minor, Widburg writes. It was arguing that Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, “engaged in unconstitutional conduct to create the circumstances by which Democrat activists (and, possibly, foreign agents) could commit fraud in order to hand the election to Biden.”

“Understood the proper way, not only does Texas, in which Trump won, have a say in what those states did, so does every Trump voter in America.”

It cannot be disputed that the four defendant states “unconstitutionally changed their election laws through court action or settlement agreements. Additionally, in each defendant state, there is voluminous (and mostly uncontested) evidence that these rule changes allowed Democrats to engage in massive fraud to shift their citizens’ votes from Trump to Biden.”

If this fraud had not taken place, “the disputed states would have elected Trump and Trump would have won the national election. That Biden ‘won’ the national election through this fraud is a real harm to every Trump voter and can be remedied through the Court’s intervention. There’s your standing.”

Are these points really that hard to grasp?

Every American now has to wonder if justice was uppermost in the minds of the court’s members when they nixed Texas v. Pennsylvania.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

In a not entirely surprising decision, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to expedite election appeals filed by President Donald Trump (including Lin Wood's suit) to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

This does not mean the cases are dismissed but the justices won’t consider them until later this winter; and, as @steve_vladeck pointed out, they should all be moot by that point, though the justices can always find a way to rule.
(*clears throat*)
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an important brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Holloway v. Attorney General Garland, et al. encouraging the Supreme Court to grant certiorari (review) of a wrong-decided Third Circuit opinion holding that a non-violent misdemeanor crime can result in a lifetime ban on firearms under the Gun Control Act. The reply brief in support of cert.—the last step before the Supreme Court considers whether to hear and rule on the case—can be viewed at Holloway2Acase.com.

Two decades ago, Mr. Holloway was convicted of a non-violent misdemeanor but has been law-abiding ever since. As a result of that conviction, however, he is prohibited from possessing firearms for the rest of his life. Federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 922, prohibits all felons and many misdemeanants from possessing firearms, based on arbitrary state-law distinctions that vary between jurisdictions.
NSSF, NRA, etc say we shall uphold GCA and Prohibited Person fallacy.

We keep appealing to this SCOTUS...how far has it gotten us?
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

WASHINGTON – When Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett took her seat on the Supreme Court in October, Democrats openly fretted about a lopsided conservative court unwinding years of precedent on abortion, gun control and other divisive issues.

Rather than handing conservatives a string of victories, the justices have – so far – left advocates on the right grasping for answers about why a number of pending challenges dealing with some of the nation's biggest controversies have languished.

From an abortion case out of Mississippi to a scorching dispute between Texas and California pitting religious freedom against gay rights, the justices are sitting on several contentious issues that will wait until this fall – at the earliest – to get a hearing, assuming the court takes the cases at all.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by schmieg »

I believe the Court is running scared of the packing threat and doing its best to avoid controversial decisions for the time being. The Court did the same thing when FDR threatened to pack it.
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Re: SCOTUS Goalie Watch: Deck stacked against us

Post by bignflnut »

It is very notable that not a single other justice signed onto Thomas' important concurrence. Ask yourself the following question: If the conservative justices are not even willing to roll back radically unconstitutional expansions of unconstitutional decisions as recent as 2016, and the best we can hope for is that sometimes they will decline to expand upon it further for now, do you really think we have the votes to overturn even the expansions of Roe (such as Hellerstadt with the Gosnell laws), much less Roe itself and Casey? Do you really think the non-Thomas justices will have the moxie to overturn any bad precedent couched in race, sensitivity, morality, and caring, which is essentially how every important decision is framed?

Indeed, the Republican Party has convinced conservatives to continue voting for Republicans, despite the betrayals, all to save the courts. Now they are promising to fight the Democrats trying to pack the courts. But if we were truly honest, as this low-profile but important case demonstrates, we'd concede that the courts were lost a long time ago. It's the current orientation of the court that's the problem. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
“It’s not that we don’t have enough scoundrels to curse; it’s that we don’t have enough good men to curse them.”–G.K. Chesterton-Illustrated London News, 3-14-1908

Republicans.Hate.You. See2020.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams to Mass Militia 10-11-1798
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