You always wonder what goes on behind closed doors with the Alitos and the Thomases of the world. Justice Thomas has sworn publicly that he never discusses politics with his wife Ginni, a full-time right-wing political operative and activist infamous for having cheered on the insurrection that tried to overturn the 2020 election in texts and emails to the likes of Mark Meadows and others. Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, has been in the news recently for displaying at the Alito’s two homes two flags flown at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but Alito writes off her obvious activism and support of insurrectionists with, “My wife is fond of flying flags. I’m not.”
Jun 11·edited Jun 11Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
I was raised a Catholic and educated by them, they taught me how to think, in the classical sense, and what I think is up to me. I don’t participate with them anymore but I remember much that I learned from them, especially the Jesuits. I don’t get this Christian nationalism, we have religious freedom, but no state sponsored religion, our founders could see hundreds of years of European religious wars and knew that they didn’t want to go there. These people are smart enough to know why. What you believe or don’t believe matters not the slightest to me, as long as it’s impact stays out on the street. I can see why a lot of people are pissed off at Catholics with Leo and his ilk, I don’t like it as well.
In 1959, Dolan earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics and philosophy at Brooklyn College in New York. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University in 1969.
John Dolan began teaching at the University in 1971. He taught in many areas, including law, philosophy and medicine. He continued to teach medical ethics classes at the University Law School until his retirement.
He also taught a seminar at the Law School with professor David Bryden. The seminar covered abortion, animal rights, capital punishment and a range of other ethical issues.
“First, he was enormously well-informed about issues concerning human life and had strong opinions about those issues, and that combination made him a very dynamic teacher and a very provocative teacher,” Bryden said.
I retired from Georgetown University after 13 years with the Jesuits. I was brought up Southern Baptist and became Episcopalian many years ago. My association at the end of my career with the Jesuits was my best work experience.
That’s true, but it’s interesting how many fanatical opponents of abortion, among them many Catholics, are perfectly comfortable with capital punishment.
I saw this earlier today. I hope I don't die of fury. People better wake up. This is as terrifying as it gets and it affects all of us. These are not godly people as they purport to be. They are the worst of the worst. They are taking away voting rights, women's rights, everyone not rich and powerful and Alito is not a smart man, just a very very powerful one.
I am beginning to think the real villain in the Supreme Court is the totally ineffectual John Roberts. The Roberts Court has become a disaster with both Thomas and Alito leading the troops, walking over their Chief Justice.
It is hard to figure out Roberts. On the one hand, his ineffectuality may be a pose to hide the fact that he is fine with Alito's and Thomas's corruption. After all, Roberts' wife is engaged in "shady financial dealings," according to The New Republic. On the other hand, The New Republic reports that Lauren Windsor tried to trap Roberts too, but "Roberts pushed back when pressed on whether the court should right the U.S. onto a 'moral path,' and pointed to the perspectives of 'Jewish and Muslim friends' when presented with the idea that the country is a 'Christian nation.' He argued that it wasn’t the Supreme Court’s role to lead the country with any religious bearings. 'It’s not our job to do that. It’s our job to decide the cases the best we can,' Roberts said." It's anybody's guess whether Roberts believes that or is smarter than Alito and knows when to keep his trap shut.
Jun 11·edited Jun 11Liked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Roberts oversaw the Court and personally voted for that abomination, Citizens United: Government Of the Money, By the Money, For the Money. Does anything else need to be added for a moral evaluation of John Roberts?
Roberts wrote the opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, eviscerating the Voting Rights Act. He said that the only way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Because of racism or stupidity or both, he thinks that attempts to remedy discrimination against Black people are the equivalent of discrimination against Black people.
Dick Durbin must step down from the Senate Judiciary Committee and Sheldon Whitehouse must become the chair. The Committee must hold hearings immediately on Supreme Court corruption and on Alito's outrageous statements, and the justices have to be subpoenaed and forced to appear. If they refuse to do so they should be held in contempt of Congress and referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. Somehow pressure must be put on Alito and Thomas to resign - recusal is not good enough. This cannot be allowed to go on. What kind of country permits blatant and brazen sedition and malfeasance to permeate the highest court in the land? I am in despair.
Durbin is a weak and useless "centrist" who is afraid of his own shadow and lives in the past when that fabled and mythical "bipartisanship" supposedly existed. He will never take any action; Schumer needs to grow a spine and pressure him to step down as chair of Judiciary.
At this time, when the first president in our country has been convicted of a crime and in the middle of an election year, what you propose might blow the country apart.
To do nothing and to permit this horror to continue would be to admit that the fascists are in effect untouchable and have won, and that would do irreparable and permanent damage. We simply cannot afford to close our eyes to this nightmare.
Reminds me of Professor Bart Ehrman's observation that what turns religious scholars into agnostics or even atheists, is studying for advanced degrees in theology! The sheer reasoning about what they encounter almost inevitably produces skeptics, if they approach the texts honestly with their reasoning faculties fully engaged.
I read the headline on this story and couldn't wait to read it, thinking "there is NO way in hell THAT'S even possible! WRONG. Next time there's a SC confirmation hearing, let's do it with the nominee strapped to a polygraph. 🤔🤔
The funny thing is, Zealots like Alito have done the most to cause me serious doubts about the version of a God that I was raised on. The Gnostics may have been on to something, they believed that Satan had convinced everyone that he was God. It is getting easier and easier to believe that with the likes of Alito, Trump, Matt Gaetz, Noem, Greene, DeSantis etc. I feel like they have stolen faith from me, I'm sad and I'm pissed.
the Gnostics were on to a lot of very interesting stuff. ever read the St Thomas Gospel? the Demiurge thing is one of a great many things the folks who decided what the canon was going to be wanted to get very far away from.
fortunately, I was born without The God Gene, so all of this stuff is just fun for me. I can understand why people not so lucky are having conniptions over these scumbags.
Mandaeans (Arabic: المندائيون al-Mandāʾiyyūn), also known as Mandaean Sabians (الصابئة المندائيون al-Ṣābiʾa al-Mandāʾiyyūn) or simply as Sabians (الصابئة al-Ṣābiʾa),[b] are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They may have been among the earliest religious groups to practice baptism, as well as among the earliest adherents of Gnosticism, a belief system of which they are the last surviving representatives today.[24][25]: 109 The Mandaeans were originally native speakers of Mandaic, an Eastern Aramaic language, before they nearly all switched to Mesopotamian Arabic or Persian as their main language. ****** [More, goes into their extensive history over several thousand years, and the current diaspora]
Btw I reached the point - as a kind of "one more stage in this intellectual quest" that started in a Jacobean and Caroline Drama tutorials with Thomas Berger Winter-Spring 1971- where I had to go BACK to reading Lear and critiques of the play, as I was watching a BBC version with Olivier as Lear, so the staging you recommended back in October is next after that, David! Fact!
Edit: King Lear definitely has the power to become a kind of obsession, at least in my case, and I can't believe I am the only one.
It should not be his political views that do him in as a Justice, unless those views are supportive of violent overthrow of legitimately elected leaders and his expression of those views show bias and partiality to one political side. In those circumstances he has abandoned the rule of law to serve instead political goals. That is not what a Supreme Court Justice - any judge - should, or be allowed, to do. Therein lies grounds for impeachment.
I think that a justice is entitled to hold any political views he or she wishes, including support for the violent overthrow of legitimately elected leaders. What justices are not entitled to do is to decide cases on the basis of their political or religious views, whatever they may be. That is what the Court's six Republican politicians (they don't act like justices) do in many cases, and for that they should be impeached.
I agree, everyone has personal bias, it is in the withholding that bias a juror or supreme court judge holds the system together. Our system and democracy are being dismantled brick by brick by trump and religious zealots.
Windsor also recorded Martha-Ann Alito as saying: "I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month." What a foul piece of work.
Not to get too Neo-Freudian about it, but hammer enough severe, completely unnecessary psycho-sexual repression into people and this what you get!
Society requires some degree of repression, sure, but this is nearly a form of mental illness, and she's unconscious enough about how weird it is, she blurts it out.
So Alito claims he was helpless to persuade his wife to take her flags down and then a woman nabs him just in the nick of time before he tells a reporter at this function how he wants America to be ruled by religious zealots. Do I have that right?? To me, it looks like he is just fine with hiding behind women when it is in his favor but also wants to deprive women of control of their own bodies. Talk about a user. Sheesh.
Hoist by his own pedard, as they used to say back in Evidence class. At least Roberts was smart enough to avoid making any similar comment and rejected the premise entirely. Alito is either incredibly dumb, or arrogant, likely both, and knows no one can do anything about it. It must be great to be King, but the fall can be a long way down.
Not sure complex theological and cosmological arguments are exactly comparable to the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, but yeah. When they take their theological conclusions and shoehorn them into judicial decisions it's disastrous.
About the Supreme Court Historical Society -- is it a PAC? Do people, organizations, and attorneys with cases before the court buy tickets for the SCHS dinner and every other event? Do the Justices know who buys tickets and who doesn't? Are tickets limited to certain causes and individuals? Is the SCHS just another way to buy justice at SCOTUS? Way easier than having to travel with Thomas or Alito!
I wonder if his wish to kill everyone on death row is driven by his religious views, as well.
I am so sick of miserable people in high places.
Of COURSE, he wants to save every fetus, while killing fully developed, thinking, feeling humans.
Best not be born with this bunch
The Catholic Church is against the death penalty because a consistent moral stance on the sanctity of life requires it.
Reading history it’s taken them quite a while to get here. Sorry, the hypocrisy of the Church just elicits this response.
I was raised a Catholic and educated by them, they taught me how to think, in the classical sense, and what I think is up to me. I don’t participate with them anymore but I remember much that I learned from them, especially the Jesuits. I don’t get this Christian nationalism, we have religious freedom, but no state sponsored religion, our founders could see hundreds of years of European religious wars and knew that they didn’t want to go there. These people are smart enough to know why. What you believe or don’t believe matters not the slightest to me, as long as it’s impact stays out on the street. I can see why a lot of people are pissed off at Catholics with Leo and his ilk, I don’t like it as well.
What you're missing about "Christian nationalism" is the white part.
I was fortunate enough to have a mentor in the U's philosophy department educated by the Jesuits, he burned his draft card in 1967....
https://mndaily.com/235772/uncategorized/ethics-professor-dies-cancer/
In 1959, Dolan earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics and philosophy at Brooklyn College in New York. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University in 1969.
John Dolan began teaching at the University in 1971. He taught in many areas, including law, philosophy and medicine. He continued to teach medical ethics classes at the University Law School until his retirement.
He also taught a seminar at the Law School with professor David Bryden. The seminar covered abortion, animal rights, capital punishment and a range of other ethical issues.
“First, he was enormously well-informed about issues concerning human life and had strong opinions about those issues, and that combination made him a very dynamic teacher and a very provocative teacher,” Bryden said.
*****
I retired from Georgetown University after 13 years with the Jesuits. I was brought up Southern Baptist and became Episcopalian many years ago. My association at the end of my career with the Jesuits was my best work experience.
My mother always said Catholic school education was on a par with good private schools.
All things change and evolve.
Or devolve and rot. "Everything Trump Touches Dies."
True that!
Eventually, slowly.
Someone should tell him.
That’s true, but it’s interesting how many fanatical opponents of abortion, among them many Catholics, are perfectly comfortable with capital punishment.
Accurate, but their church is not comfortable with their inability to understand the morality of a consistent belief about life.
I saw this earlier today. I hope I don't die of fury. People better wake up. This is as terrifying as it gets and it affects all of us. These are not godly people as they purport to be. They are the worst of the worst. They are taking away voting rights, women's rights, everyone not rich and powerful and Alito is not a smart man, just a very very powerful one.
I totally agree that he is actually not very smart.
Legal scholars studying his decisions written for the SCOTUS have plenty of evidence to support that view!
And especially his in the Roe case.
Amen
I am beginning to think the real villain in the Supreme Court is the totally ineffectual John Roberts. The Roberts Court has become a disaster with both Thomas and Alito leading the troops, walking over their Chief Justice.
It is hard to figure out Roberts. On the one hand, his ineffectuality may be a pose to hide the fact that he is fine with Alito's and Thomas's corruption. After all, Roberts' wife is engaged in "shady financial dealings," according to The New Republic. On the other hand, The New Republic reports that Lauren Windsor tried to trap Roberts too, but "Roberts pushed back when pressed on whether the court should right the U.S. onto a 'moral path,' and pointed to the perspectives of 'Jewish and Muslim friends' when presented with the idea that the country is a 'Christian nation.' He argued that it wasn’t the Supreme Court’s role to lead the country with any religious bearings. 'It’s not our job to do that. It’s our job to decide the cases the best we can,' Roberts said." It's anybody's guess whether Roberts believes that or is smarter than Alito and knows when to keep his trap shut.
I agree.The Robert’s court is totally corrupt.Any ruling that they make on the Trump Immunity case is compromised no matter which way they rule.
Roberts oversaw the Court and personally voted for that abomination, Citizens United: Government Of the Money, By the Money, For the Money. Does anything else need to be added for a moral evaluation of John Roberts?
Roberts wrote the opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, eviscerating the Voting Rights Act. He said that the only way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. Because of racism or stupidity or both, he thinks that attempts to remedy discrimination against Black people are the equivalent of discrimination against Black people.
Cutesy and utterly ignorant, Roberts' line in his decision. Made him a culture war hero, though.
Dick Durbin must step down from the Senate Judiciary Committee and Sheldon Whitehouse must become the chair. The Committee must hold hearings immediately on Supreme Court corruption and on Alito's outrageous statements, and the justices have to be subpoenaed and forced to appear. If they refuse to do so they should be held in contempt of Congress and referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution. Somehow pressure must be put on Alito and Thomas to resign - recusal is not good enough. This cannot be allowed to go on. What kind of country permits blatant and brazen sedition and malfeasance to permeate the highest court in the land? I am in despair.
yeah...like, wtf is the deal with Durbin?
Durbin is a weak and useless "centrist" who is afraid of his own shadow and lives in the past when that fabled and mythical "bipartisanship" supposedly existed. He will never take any action; Schumer needs to grow a spine and pressure him to step down as chair of Judiciary.
All these “musts” and “have to’s!” Unfortunately, they don’t pay any attention to such imperatives.
At this time, when the first president in our country has been convicted of a crime and in the middle of an election year, what you propose might blow the country apart.
To do nothing and to permit this horror to continue would be to admit that the fascists are in effect untouchable and have won, and that would do irreparable and permanent damage. We simply cannot afford to close our eyes to this nightmare.
For this, and a myriad of other reasons is why I've been a recovering catholic for 48 years.
Reminds me of Professor Bart Ehrman's observation that what turns religious scholars into agnostics or even atheists, is studying for advanced degrees in theology! The sheer reasoning about what they encounter almost inevitably produces skeptics, if they approach the texts honestly with their reasoning faculties fully engaged.
Said of the U of Chicago Divinity School: “where atheists teach Christianity to Jews.”
Good one.
LOL, there's obviously some truth in that!
I read the headline on this story and couldn't wait to read it, thinking "there is NO way in hell THAT'S even possible! WRONG. Next time there's a SC confirmation hearing, let's do it with the nominee strapped to a polygraph. 🤔🤔
The funny thing is, Zealots like Alito have done the most to cause me serious doubts about the version of a God that I was raised on. The Gnostics may have been on to something, they believed that Satan had convinced everyone that he was God. It is getting easier and easier to believe that with the likes of Alito, Trump, Matt Gaetz, Noem, Greene, DeSantis etc. I feel like they have stolen faith from me, I'm sad and I'm pissed.
the Gnostics were on to a lot of very interesting stuff. ever read the St Thomas Gospel? the Demiurge thing is one of a great many things the folks who decided what the canon was going to be wanted to get very far away from.
fortunately, I was born without The God Gene, so all of this stuff is just fun for me. I can understand why people not so lucky are having conniptions over these scumbags.
From The Guardian a few days ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/09/iraq-mandaean-religion-michigan
"Iraqi Mandaeans thrive after being uprooted from Middle East to midwest
This ancient gnostic religion has put down new roots across the globe, but the community faces broader challenges in the US"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeans
Mandaeans (Arabic: المندائيون al-Mandāʾiyyūn), also known as Mandaean Sabians (الصابئة المندائيون al-Ṣābiʾa al-Mandāʾiyyūn) or simply as Sabians (الصابئة al-Ṣābiʾa),[b] are an ethnoreligious group who are followers of Mandaeism. They believe that John the Baptist was the final and most important prophet. They may have been among the earliest religious groups to practice baptism, as well as among the earliest adherents of Gnosticism, a belief system of which they are the last surviving representatives today.[24][25]: 109 The Mandaeans were originally native speakers of Mandaic, an Eastern Aramaic language, before they nearly all switched to Mesopotamian Arabic or Persian as their main language. ****** [More, goes into their extensive history over several thousand years, and the current diaspora]
Btw I reached the point - as a kind of "one more stage in this intellectual quest" that started in a Jacobean and Caroline Drama tutorials with Thomas Berger Winter-Spring 1971- where I had to go BACK to reading Lear and critiques of the play, as I was watching a BBC version with Olivier as Lear, so the staging you recommended back in October is next after that, David! Fact!
Edit: King Lear definitely has the power to become a kind of obsession, at least in my case, and I can't believe I am the only one.
It should not be his political views that do him in as a Justice, unless those views are supportive of violent overthrow of legitimately elected leaders and his expression of those views show bias and partiality to one political side. In those circumstances he has abandoned the rule of law to serve instead political goals. That is not what a Supreme Court Justice - any judge - should, or be allowed, to do. Therein lies grounds for impeachment.
I think that a justice is entitled to hold any political views he or she wishes, including support for the violent overthrow of legitimately elected leaders. What justices are not entitled to do is to decide cases on the basis of their political or religious views, whatever they may be. That is what the Court's six Republican politicians (they don't act like justices) do in many cases, and for that they should be impeached.
I agree, everyone has personal bias, it is in the withholding that bias a juror or supreme court judge holds the system together. Our system and democracy are being dismantled brick by brick by trump and religious zealots.
That was my point.
Windsor also recorded Martha-Ann Alito as saying: "I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month." What a foul piece of work.
Not to get too Neo-Freudian about it, but hammer enough severe, completely unnecessary psycho-sexual repression into people and this what you get!
Society requires some degree of repression, sure, but this is nearly a form of mental illness, and she's unconscious enough about how weird it is, she blurts it out.
So Alito claims he was helpless to persuade his wife to take her flags down and then a woman nabs him just in the nick of time before he tells a reporter at this function how he wants America to be ruled by religious zealots. Do I have that right?? To me, it looks like he is just fine with hiding behind women when it is in his favor but also wants to deprive women of control of their own bodies. Talk about a user. Sheesh.
Why is it that the ones who want a "return to Godliness" are te least Godly people around, assuming we equate Godliness to goodness and spirituality?
I didn't see the quote, but I heard that Marjory Taylor Greene was now comparing Trump to Christ!
I rest my case :)
And in an open Trump rally, a stump speech appearance, not in some off-hand remark even she might eventually want to walk back:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mtg-jesus-convicted-felon-like-trump-1235036256/
omg
MTG Says Trump Is a ‘Convicted Felon’ Just Like Jesus
"The man that I worship is also a convicted felon. And he was murdered on a Roman cross," the congresswoman said at a rally for the former president
June 9, 2024
I give you the “Dumb and Dumber” Twinsies:
Alito = Dumb
MGT = Dumber
Hoist by his own pedard, as they used to say back in Evidence class. At least Roberts was smart enough to avoid making any similar comment and rejected the premise entirely. Alito is either incredibly dumb, or arrogant, likely both, and knows no one can do anything about it. It must be great to be King, but the fall can be a long way down.
Both, I vote for "All of the above."
“[E]ven more frightening than it is funny” says it all. Keep up the good work.
One of the critical tests for any judicial position should be an oath that the candidate uphold the separation of church and state. Any religion.
I prefer folks that don't believe in the Tooth fairy
I prefer those who think my not believing is a punishable sin.
What? 🤷♂️
mostly women’s and gay rights.
Not sure complex theological and cosmological arguments are exactly comparable to the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, but yeah. When they take their theological conclusions and shoehorn them into judicial decisions it's disastrous.
About the Supreme Court Historical Society -- is it a PAC? Do people, organizations, and attorneys with cases before the court buy tickets for the SCHS dinner and every other event? Do the Justices know who buys tickets and who doesn't? Are tickets limited to certain causes and individuals? Is the SCHS just another way to buy justice at SCOTUS? Way easier than having to travel with Thomas or Alito!
Whew! I get Lauren Windsor's Action Network news letter and I was quite blown away this morning, I could go on and... but you did it right, Lucien.
FKNST???? Please, people-/don’t assume everyone is in on your acronyms!
Music group. Just type into the search bar and the answer magically appears.
Not in mine, unless it stands for Howard Finster.