Rough waters ahead

Politicians come and go but justices of the Supreme Court seemingly stay in office forever. 

Leonard Leo, Federalist puppermaster

We have a SCOTUS stacked with right wing justices now, thanks to the duplicity and chicanery of Mitch McConnell, among others. 

The last ten years or so have been a very bumpy ride while the majority seeks to roll back the entire judicial legacy of the 20th Century, starting at FDR and ending with Roe.

Justice Sotomayor recently signaled that things are about to get even worse.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the most senior liberal on the conservative Supreme Court, told an audience at Harvard University on Friday that she sometimes cries after the court hands down its decisions – and she suggested there may be more tears ahead.

“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor told the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where she received an award Friday. “There have been those days. And there are likely to be more.”

Sotomayor made the remarks as the Supreme Court turns toward the final weeks of a term in which the justices will decide a number of high-profile controversies, including former President Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from federal election subversion charges and two major cases dealing with abortion.

The Supreme Court of this country no longer speaks to or represents the views of a majority of its citizenry, the justices themselves almost solely appointed by Presidents who have also lost the popular vote.

Do they temper their partisan zeal in their attempts to smite their political opponents and the godless as recent recordings of Justice Alito suggest? 

Do they seek to reflect and better understand the will and direction of the American people?

Hell no, they don't. They go full speed ahead, no longer in actuality anything but a group of de facto legislators pushing a partisan political agenda and trying to take us back to their originalist 18th Century happy place.

The scariest portent came from Justice Kavanaugh recently. His message? You'll get used to it in time. Accept it.

“The Warren court was no picnic for the justices. … They were unpopular basically from start to finish from ’53 to ’69,” Kavanaugh said. “What the court kept doing is playing itself, sticking to its principles. And you know, look, a lot of those decisions (were) unpopular, and a lot of them are landmarks now that we accept as parts of the fabric of America, and the fabric of American constitutional law.”

As in, we don't give a damn what America thinks. We are in power and in the driver's seat and there ain't nothing you can do about it. Why should we play fair?