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Jan 10, 2022·edited Jan 11, 2022Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV

We've seen this sort of judicial hocus-pocus nonsense before. In 1905, the Supreme Court decided Lochner v. New York, which was for that time the apotheosis of the doctrine of 'freedom of contract'. It took some time for the Supreme Court to recognize the error of its ways, and tailor its decisions to the realities of living and working in a multifaceted world. The court's conservative majority is still trying to rewrite history and pretend that the New Deal never occurred. The spurious arguments and hypothecations by the conservative justices during oral argument, pretending that coronavirus can be reined in by state political boundaries is patently perverse. These are essentially stupid people playing make-believe with other people's lives because they abhor the necessity of a national government taking charge of a pandemic that threatens everybody, simply because we are all interconnected. The Supreme Court's notion that the states can control these outbreaks of disease might be arguable if we go back to the 1830s, before the invention of the steam locomotive and the railroad. Even then, there arguments would've been a giant step into fantasyland, given our collective experience with plague and other communicable diseases. Each of those so-called conservatives deserves to be impeached for dereliction of duty, and for ignoring the stark realities that are facing a world in which a lethal virus can spread itself worldwide simply by hopping on an airplane.

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Why are we surprised at this? This is what the Federalist Society has wanted for decades and groomed these justices to carry out its will.

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The Court seems to want to take us back to a loose confederation of states. That didn’t work in the 1780’s and it won’t work now. It will lead to the end of the United States as we know it

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I would expect, at the very least, that a filing regarding vaccinations would include a list of the known risks associated with receiving a vaccination with more authority than the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (a.k.a. VAERS) which does not require verification. So Justice Alito is -- by his own admission -- a "vaccine skeptic" who does not require evidence. Can you say "Judicial Malpractice"? I knew you could.

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Sheer hypocrisy when you consider that LAWYERS, JUDGES, POLITICIANS are ALL practicing medicine without a license while refusing to acknowledge advice from actual health practitioners…Does this mean that the Supreme Court has designated the science and practice of Public Health as illegitimate ? Talk about overreach!

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How useful or effective is state government at all? People treasure sports rivalries, I get it, but it strikes me that most of our structural political problems can be ascribed to the fact that smaller and sparsely populated states have wildly disproportionate political power when compared to the more populated states. State government is as useful to this country’s actual governance as student council is to the operation of a school district. “States’ Rights” has always been French for segregation anyhow; time to call bullshit and reorganize.

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Bannon must be ecstatic. In case you forgot, his goal when running the country while Trump figured out his tv cable options was the "destruction of the administrative state."

Getting the Supreme Court to assist him must be orgasmic. Talk about unintended consequences...we are royally fucked!

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Note that this has also been SCOTUS's approach to voting rights since Shelby v. Holder: No need to monitor the Jim Crow states anymore, they've learned their lesson, yadda yadda yadda. Then Jim Crow climbed up on his elephant and went to town.

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I hope there is some way to get Lucian's message to all members of the Supreme Court, the trouble is the logic being used to allow each individual state to make its own safety rules means they are not bright enough to see the logic of a universal federal rule as Lucian so well points out. What is next, let states decide whether or not to mandate safety belts in cars? Besides no worker is being forced to get a vaccine, they can opt to get tested weekly instead. The point is to not jeopardize the health of fellow workers. This certainly would ve critical in hospitals but important everywhere, As far as the argument about more possible danger from the vaccine adverse cases is extremely rare, besides, as mentioned before the relatively few who are worried can opt for the weekly test, Voting procedures, mail in ballots for old people and others should be universal. l, r least for federal elections. , But back to Covid, school mandates have always been normal for all the childhood diseases, why the big uproar over Covid? Don't parents want to keep their kids safe anymore?Why was this made political in Texas and Florida and sine other states? They sure scream for help from the federal government when all their kids as well as the unvaccinated adults get sick and fill up the hospitals. A problem they caused themselves by playing down vaxx's and mask wearing and pushing quack cures.

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Damned timely article! And right on the nose. If we go back some 18th century idea of self-governing states, we might as well pack up the federal government cause it will be every state for itself. Might as well formally declare them independent nations. This could be one way we're heading. De facto secession that slips in via judicial fiats and legislative maneuvers. This could also pave the way for new regional confederations to emerge. A sovereign West Coast nation; a sovereign New England. Et cetera. These events could take place peacefully, or with violence. Just one of the many scenarios when commentators speak (as they are more and more frequently doing) about a coming "new civil war."

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when I repeat, doubtless tiresomely, that I'm terrified, it's because of this. and that, then THAT, then this, another that, etc. it just feels like there's this confluence of horrible things happening all at once to the extent that even thinking about our politics feels like an endless round of whack-a-mole. the new voter suppression laws, the horrible Shelby decision, the even-more-horrible Citizens United decision, the decision you discuss here, the laws you've also mentioned here, the laws and decisions and hubristic insanity you haven't mentioned here but have elsewhere....I don't think I need to continue enumerating. on a lot of days, it feels like one could easily spend a day or two just listing the things to be afraid of. now, in this case, we have another of the many good reasons that something needs to be done about the SCOTUS, and quickly. adding seats doesn't feel like it could gather a whole lot of support because many, many voters have been trained to look upon "court packing" as being dirty pool and they will tell you in a heartbeat that it's some kind of partisan "tampering with the Constitution," which brings us back to the eternally recurring fact that people being trained in "Civics" just isn't that important to the folks who determine what schools need to be teaching; if it's not math or "English Language Arts" it ain't nothin'. so if certain "news" sources tell their readers (actually, it's more likely they're VIEWERS) that court size (or the filibuster or any number of other issues) is mandated by the constitution, they'll believe it. I'm thinking that ending the lifetime appointments thing is just a better solution all around. I read somewhere in the past few days (probably a Times op-ed) that we have the only country in which appointments to that country's highest court are made for life. I also less recently read that, prior to the twentieth century, the average length of time that justices served was something like seven or eight years; they might have been able to serve until they died but chose not to do so. maybe it got boring after awhile. or maybe they wanted to get a lot richer in some top-tier firm. or maybe they just generally felt like they had better shit to do. but it's obvious that something has to be done about the Court. and then, there's everything else that these scumbags are getting done in plain sight, not breaking any laws as such, but taking huge dumps on the existing ones. I saw on the news today that McCarthy (the guy who obviously spent his English classes sniffing glue in the boys' room) is promising that, if the House flips, he'll relieve some very significant Democrats of their committee assignments. which is my long-winded way of saying that there are some excellent reasons for being terrified, and that they just keep multiplying.....

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Shithole country?

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A succinct and clear commentary on an utterly depressing topic.

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Bad behavior defeats itself again and again. It might take a bit of time but defeat always comes because humanity figures out the bad behavior and makes amends. Jim Crow lasted about 60 years and it was repealed by a better court. Right now the Federalist Society holds sway, but more and more members of society are getting wise to the plan. Perhaps John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch will back up and rule with the three moderates.

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Shades of the Articles of Confederation.

Two and a half centuries after the Constitution replaced them, we still struggle with the concept of “the common good”—the interests and institutions, the environmental and material resources we share, and a common cultural identity we cannot seem to recognize.

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THIS! EXACTLY. sadly

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