Category Archives: SCOTUS

fuck everything, especially those guys

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Yeah, I’m talking about those Nazgûl motherfuckers on SCOTUS. Like almost everybody I know, I spent yesterday vacillating between 1) feeling depressed and helpless and 2) wanting to set fire to the entire combustible world. The decision yesterday that POTUS (and Trump in particular) is essentially above the law was appalling and frightening, but the fact that it was delivered in smug terms by the most conspicuously corrupt and openly partisan SCOTUS in history was insulting. It’s like they’re standing there, grinning in their black robes, saying “Fuck yeah, we’re corrupt. And ain’t nothing you plebs can do about it.”

Justice Sotomayor, in her properly raging dissent, wrote, “in every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.” And she’s right. That whole notion that nobody is above the law has gone straight down the porcelain facility. This is an unprecedented fuckwankery. This is deep fuckwankery; fuckwankery down at the cellular level. I mean, the spouses of two of the Justices (Alito and Thomas) openly supported the insurrection/insurrectionists, and yet those two tainted pricks didn’t have the fundamental sense of decency to recuse themselves from the case.

What makes this even more galling is the fact that those arrogant motherfuckers on SCOTUS were put on the bench by partisan politicians who represent a minority of US citizens. A combination of partisan gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the absurdity of the Electoral College means that the US is largely ruled by the minority. And in recent years, that minority cheated, lied, and wriggled around enough to install three partisan hacks onto the SCOTUS bench.

Wipe the smiles off the faces of 6 of these corrupt wankers.

Every single one of the Justices sitting on this SCOTUS testified under oath that they respected stare decisis, the legal concept that courts should follow precedent. At least six of them lied about that. This Court has largely shat all over precedent. For almost half a century, Roe guaranteed a woman’s right to choose. That’s gone. The Bakke decision on race-conscious admissions in higher education was the law of the land for almost as long. Not any more. For 40 years, Chevron — Jesus suffering fuck, people, there have been 70 SCOTUS and some 17,000 or so lower court cases based on Chevron, which states courts need to defer to the experts in various regulatory agencies when deciding how to interpret a law. A judge probably doesn’t know enough to decide what level of exposure to a certain chemical or substance would be harmful to a child. A judge probably doesn’t have a fucking clue about the long term effects of effluent run-off from a hog containment farm into a local river upstream from a small town. Experts need to decide this shit, not judges. But nope, this SCOTUS has turned that power over to elected or appointed judges.

Wait…I forgot bribery. Last week, this SCOTUS (and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP) made the bizarre decision that while it’s illegal for a public official (like, say, a mayor or a member of Congress, or possibly a judge) to accept a bribe, it’s perfectly for fine for them to accept a gratuity. A bribe is the offer of money (or something of value) from a person/entity before the public official makes a decision affecting that person or entity. A gratuity is accepting the same fucking thing after the decision is made. Seriously, the Court says bribes are bad but gratuities are okay. This decision was written by the Justice whose massive credit card debt was mysteriously paid off before he was nominated. You know who I’m talking about–the guy reliably accused of sexual assault. That guy. (Okay, Kavanaugh.)

If you’re reading this hoping that at the end I’ll suggest some way to make you feel better about the situation…sorry. If you’re hoping I’ll cobble together ideas for a way forward, or maybe offer some practical advice on how to minimize the damage…nope. Maybe tomorrow or at some point in the future. For now, all I have to say is let yourself be angry or depressed for a while. Maybe just be numb for a while.

But pretty soon we’ll need to get over it and resist. Resist in any way we can. Resist in every way we can. But today it’s literally raining here in the heartland, and for today that’s fine.

can we please just impeach this asshole?

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A couple weeks ago — the day before Valentine’s Day, in fact — the House GOP impeached the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. Why? Did he commit any ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’? Nope. Is he even suspected of committing any HC&M? Nope. Did the Republicans actually think there was any way in hell the Senate would act on this? Nope. So why did they impeach him?

Because: 1) Donald Fucking Trump wanted somebody — preferably Biden, but anybody in the Biden administration — impeached. 2) They want to use scary brown immigrants as an election issue. 3) Pure malignant spite and the desire to hurt people. 4) They hope it’ll give their base the appearance that they’re doing something. 5) They wanted to say ‘Fuck you’ to Joe Biden and his entire administration.

These are all bad reasons to impeach anybody. That pisses me off. But what pisses me off just as much — and maybe more — is that there are people who absolutely fucking deserve to be impeached. People who are totally impeach-worthy. People whose past behavior has earned an impeachment and whose future behavior actually threatens the future of representative democracy in the United States. People like this fucking guy:

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Clarence ‘Deep Pockets’ Thomas

Right now, we have the most openly corrupt and partisan SCOTUS in US history — and ain’t nobody more openly corrupt and partisan than Clarence Thomas. He’s had his hand out since Day One. This avaricious sumbitch would steal the sugar out of a cake. Hell, he’d do it while you watched and dare you to call him on it. He barely tries to hide it. For decades, he’s received ‘gifts’ from billionaire ‘friends’ whose business interests depended on favorable SCOTUS opinions. These are ‘friends’ he made after he was tapped for SCOTUS; it’s not like they’re his old high school buddies. He’s accepted these gifts, he’s failed to report them as he’s required to do, and he’s ruled on their cases. That’s some serious grifting, right there.

Then, of course, there’s all the awful shit his wife has pulled. I’m talking about her encouraging and promoting the January 6th Insurrection, which is truly bad its ownself. And when her shit came up before SCOTUS, did Clarence recuse himself like any ethical jurist would? Nope. He not only sat on the case, he was the ONLY justice on the bench that voted in a way that protected his wife.

There is absolutely no sustainable argument for Clarence Thomas to remain an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. I mean, there are other assholes on SCOTUS we could do without, but Clarence is the bull goose grifter and the most obvious and deserving candidate for impeachment.

I can say, with absolute confidence and mathematical certitude, that if Clarence had been appointed by a Democrat and had been writing liberal decisions, the Republicans would have held a decade worth of hearings by now. If Congressional Republicans are willing to impeach Mayorkas over bullshit, why aren’t Democrats willing to impeach this grasping, covetous bastard? What in the stonewashed fuck is wrong with Democrats? Why won’t Democrats at least TRY to do what’s right?

You don’t have to answer that. The answer is pretty obvious (SPOILER: they’re comfortable political cowards who’ll mewl and grizzle about how unfair it all is, but won’t fucking act).

Look, I’m not asking Democrats to act like Republicans. I mean, they’re assholes. They’re willing to lie, fabricate, mislead, obfuscate, and deceive in order to score petty political points. Democrats don’t need to do that. They can just present verifiable facts to support a legit impeachment inquiry.

Seriously, the US would be better off if Democrats would just TRY to impeach this asshole. It would be a worthy effort even if the Senate failed to convict him. So c’mon, give it a shot, Democrats. What have you got to lose?

scotus / minority report

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Hey, you guys. Remember when Tom Cruise made a movie about a government bureaucracy that allowed police in the future to arrest murderers BEFORE they committed any actual murders, based entirely on the “psychic impressions” of three weird bald folks floating in a tank? Remember that? Wasn’t that cool?

Tom Cruise ain’t got a thing on the Supreme Court of the United States! SCOTUS is now making Constitutional rulings based on FUTURE EVENTS THAT HAVEN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET! I am NOT making this up.

SCOTUS Minority Report consultants

There’s this woman in Colorado, Lorie Smith, who is right now being told that IN THE FUTURE she’ll be forced to design wedding websites for some icky gay folks who will IN THE FUTURE want to get gay married. And SCOTUS has decided that she shouldn’t be forced against her will IN THE FUTURE to do this thing that she hasn’t been asked by any actual real person to do…YET.

In her defense, Lorie Smith has said she was contacted THE DAY AFTER SHE FILED HER LAWSUIT by a guy named Stewart who was totally gay and he told her, that he and Mike (also totally gay) “…are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.” But on account of her firmly held religious Christian beliefs, Ms. Smith firmly told totally gay Stewart that she would firmly NOT design any wedding website for icky gay people when they ask her to IN THE FUTURE.

Sure, IN THE PRESENT Stewart claims he’s not gay at all, and that he’s been married to a woman for like 15 years, and that he’s never asked Ms. Smith for a wedding website celebrating his icky gay marriage to this Mike person who he doesn’t even know…YET. But obviously, IN THE FUTURE Stewart will discover he’s actually completely gay and will fall in love with Mike (also gay) and they’ll decided to get icky gay married and will IN THE FUTURE ask Lorie Smith to make them a website.

But now she won’t have to do that, because Minority Report SCOTUS has consulted those bald folks in the pool and they said “Nuh uh.”

“So you’re saying Stewart will…what? Dump his wife??!!”

Ain’t science great? Unless, you’re Stewart and Mike, who won’t get to have a Lorie Smith designed website for their icky gay wedding. Also, tough beans for the current Mrs. Stewart, who’s gonna get stone dumped at some point, poor thing.

and speaking of guns…

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Two separate incidents in different states, each of which reveals a different facet of how massively fucked up our firearm legislation is.

First — Back in December of 2020 and January of 2021, Zackey Rahimi of Texas was, according to court documents, “involved in five shootings in and around Arlington, Texas.” Five shootings in as many weeks. First, there was the time he “fired multiple shots” into somebody’s house after selling narcotics to the person who lived there. Then there was the car accident. Rahimi “exited his vehicle, shot at the other driver, and fled the scene.” A short time later, he returned to the scene of the accident and fired a few more shots. That’s three shooting incidents. The fourth time, he “shot at a constable’s vehicle.” The circumstances behind that aren’t discussed in the court’s order. Finally, Rahimi “fired multiple shots in the air after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger restaurant.”

About a year earlier, Rahimi had been subject to a civil protective order after he’d assaulted his girlfriend (and the mother of his child). The court order “restrained him from harassing, stalking, or threatening his ex-girlfriend and their child. The order also expressly prohibited Rahimi from possessing a firearm.”

Clearly, given five shootings in five weeks, Rahimi hadn’t paid much attention to the restraining order. But at least he was eventually indicted for possessing a firearm while under a domestic violence restraining order. Rahimi’s lawyers moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the law in question (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8)) was unconstitutional. The federal district court told him to fuck right off, so Rahimi pleaded guilty.

Later Rahimi appealed his guilty plea. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also told him to fuck right off.

Zackey Rahimi can have his guns

But then SCOTUS decided the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which (in my opinion) was a bugfuck insane decision. The court decided (6-3) that in lawsuits involving federal and states’ gun regulations, courts need to evaluate the regulation not in consideration of the public good, but in light of the “historical tradition of firearm regulation”.

Let me just repeat that. The court should NOT consider the public good, but instead should consider the historical tradition of firearm regulation. So the Fifth Circuit Court took another look at Rahimi’s argument, taking the SCOTUS approach that “greater weight attaches to laws nearer in time to the Second Amendment’s ratification.”

Again, let me repeat that. Courts are now supposed to give more weight to laws written around the end of the 18th century than to modern laws. And guess what. Both Massachusetts and New Hampshire had written laws closer in time to the drafting of the 2nd Amendment, laws that were virtually identical, and those laws stated:

[N]o man . . . [shall] go or ride armed by night or by day, in fairs or markets, or in other places, in terror of the country, upon pain of being arrested and committed to prison by any justice on his view, or proof of others, there to a time for so long a time as a jury, to be sworn for that purpose by the said justice, shall direct, and in like manner to forfeit his armour to the Commonwealth.

Armor includes weapons. You’ll notice something else in that law. Ain’t nothing there about protecting ex-girfriends. And even though the Fifth Circuit agreed that the modern law “embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society…Bruen forecloses any such analysis in favor of a historical analogical inquiry into the scope of the allowable burden on the Second Amendment right.”

The court concluded the law protecting Rahimi’s ex-girlfriend–or anybody seeking a civil protection decree–by removing a violent offender’s firearms was “an outlier that our ancestors would never have accepted.” They overturned Rahimi’s conviction.

Five shooting incidents in five weeks, and the court said the motherfucker shouldn’t be prohibited from owning a gun.

Second — Last Tuesday (2-23-23) in Silver Creek, Indiana (a suburb of Louisville, KY) 23-year-old Devon Lyons was seen running along Highway 31 (a main thoroughfare in town) carrying a rifle. Two nearby schools were put on lockdown.

However, it’s perfectly legal in Indiana for folks to run around with a loaded rifle. The state doesn’t require a permit to carry a long gun. So nothing was done.

Devon Lyons can have his rifle.

It happened again the following day. The Clark County Sheriff sent deputies to monitor Lyons as he ran down the street carrying his rifle. When Lyons got into his car to drive away, he was taken into custody for driving while his license was under suspension.

You can’t operate a car without a license. Guns? Who needs a license for that?

Scottie Maples, the Clark Coutny Sheriff, said this:

“I got a job to do as Sheriff to protect people’s constitutional rights. My daughter goes to that school, a couple of my deputies’ daughters go to these schools so we’re going to take these things seriously but we’re also not going to break anybody’s Constitutional rights.”

We’re not going to break anybody’s Constitutional rights. Children? Battered women? Sorry, very sorry, oh so very sorry, but you’ll just have to take your chances. Because that’s how we do it in these United States.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, then set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea.