Why Is Alito Like This
Added 2024-05-20 08:29:46 +0000 UTCOA 1034
With the recent news that a sitting Supreme Court justice was publicly displaying support for Trump’s attempted coup in the days between January 6, 2021 and Joe Biden’s inauguration, it’s time to ask: Is Samuel Alito actually worse than our very low opinion of him? Also who could have possibly known that a hard-right Reagan/Buckley conservative who has been publicly advocating for ending abortion rights since 1985 would turn out to be the ultra-right Trump/Scalia conservative who ended abortion rights in 2022? We take these questions on after a quick look at the latest low point in Rudy Guiliani’s long, steep, and often hilarious fall from grace. (N.B.: there’s so much more to talk about here than we could possibly fit into an hour, we didn’t even get to his awful decisions on the death penalty, among many other things.)
Finally, we learn the answer to last week’s T3BE question and consider the multifarious liabilities of stocking a private lake full of piranhas.
Alito’s 1985 memo with strategies for overturning Roe v. Wade
Doe v. Groody, 361 F.3d 232 (3rd Cir. 2004)(Alito dissent in qualified immunity case involving strip search of a 10-year-old girl)
A Tiger on the Court: Sam Alito ‘72 at Princeton, Princeton Alumni Weekly (March 8, 2006)
Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads its Readers, Wall Street Journal (6/20/23) (Alito op-ed)
Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court’s Plain-Spoken Defender, Wall Street Journal (7/28/23) (editorial drawn from 4 hours of interviews with Alito)
Comments
Alito is unironically correct, what is a right and what is constitutional is what a majority of SCOTUS justices say it is. Any law, any amendment, any principle, any precedent is absolutely meaningless and nobody should pretend otherwise. As despairing as it is we should also find it liberating, there is no reason why we shouldn't expand the court and pack it with devout progressive partisans and order them to rewrite the constitution from the nightmare Alito has made it into the nightmare Alito fears. Being rich? Unconstitutional. Homophobia? Unconstitutional. Shitty dudes? Illegal. Universal health care? Yes, and confiscated churches are all gender transition centers. Woke college students and environmental scientists are the only ones allowed to serve in Congress. All we unimaginative rubes wanted in 2015 was a gay ole time but Alito, the great man, the visionary, our chosen one, opened the real door to defeating capitalism and establishing luxury gay space communism and throwing off the shackles of the proletariat.
Apple Ventus
2024-05-22 00:37:13 +0000 UTCNot saying it makes any sense in that context either, but it seems more likely than being any sort of actual legal argument.
Frito Pendejo
2024-05-21 16:46:37 +0000 UTCY'all are trying to find the legal basis behind Rudy's stupid tweet... But I kind of read it as a (very clumsy) joke regarding electoral deadlines? Like, "hurr hurr, we couldn't prove election fraud before December 15 so iT DiDnT HaPpEn and this is the same thing lololol catch me if you can"
Frito Pendejo
2024-05-21 16:46:03 +0000 UTCSorry to distract, but I am dumbfounded by this podcast episode I have linked here and cannot fathom how anyone could think this was okay. https://pca.st/episode/1b7f7d5a-f0fc-4b82-ada6-72975cc66041
Bryson King
2024-05-21 15:34:50 +0000 UTCPotentially doing a dramatic reading of the Alito dissent in Obergefell
Tonei Glavinic
2024-05-21 12:53:58 +0000 UTCSorry, what? No idea what this means.
Opening Arguments
2024-05-21 05:59:44 +0000 UTCnot here to tell you how to podcast but personally I’m not sure I can bring myself to listen to y’all explain why I shouldn’t have civil rights for comedic effect, regardless of how unhinged it is
Tonei Glavinic
2024-05-21 05:16:38 +0000 UTCEquity! That's a supreme compliment, ty
Matt Cameron
2024-05-21 03:21:31 +0000 UTCBeware of Fraud Fish; He Hates Everything
Ian Dimayuga
2024-05-21 01:48:26 +0000 UTCI'm sorry, Thomas. The dad in me was having such a whale of a time that I couldn't help but jump the shark. Okay, I'm done.
I am a philosophical hole
2024-05-21 00:46:01 +0000 UTCNo offense Thomas but my ears were so pleased to have my name be read by the cool, crisp, clean voice of Matt ... It's the audio corollary to typography's Equity font
Vehicular Man's Laughter ... Oh I just realized it's 'car' from WTW ... he's so good at Codenames he can play it blind
2024-05-20 22:39:41 +0000 UTCIt makes me reflect on pre-civil rights cases … “you know just because the judge was an admitted KKK member doesn’t mean he couldn’t be fair to blacks.”
Navi Girl
2024-05-20 22:33:26 +0000 UTCReally well and succinctly put💯💯 Ive been trying to consolidate to communicate that same observation but its not always one of my strengths. TY!
Reese
2024-05-20 18:50:03 +0000 UTCI see it as part of a larger power struggle over the direction of our culture and society writ large. The forces pushing for that, want a particular type of hierarchical structure built around various forms of dominance. White supremacy, cops being immune to consequences, the ability to dictate how YOU live YOUR life (but never have their own lives be dictated), it's all of a piece, and ultimately it's about a very simple, but broad-reaching concept: We rule over you, and you shut up and take it. We're in charge, you obey. That underlying belief can be found in all of this. It's in the anti-democratic aspects, it's in the anti-trans stuff, it's in the reproductive health stuff, it's in the qualified immunity stuff, the immigration stuff, etc., etc., etc. It all comes back to "We rule, you obey." Alito loves that notion, provided he's one of the rulers. I suspect it's how he views the world, anyway: you're either a ruler, or a peon.
Philly Basement Bar is back open, and isn't taking this shit lying down.
2024-05-20 18:32:53 +0000 UTCI second the Bsky request.
Philly Basement Bar is back open, and isn't taking this shit lying down.
2024-05-20 18:26:48 +0000 UTCThere's a longer answer in all of this, but the very brief answer is (1) we need to start looking at the law AND the judiciary as explicitly political and part of politics because, duh, it is and always has been; and (2) we need to start looking at the political structures and procedures around us and recognizing that nothing is written in stone, and everything is human-created, and thus we can simply choose to ignore it altogether. If we want to, if we, as a society collectively, just decide "Yeah, time to move on from this nonsense." In normal contract law, the state -- via the judiciary -- is the ultimate enforcer. In other words, if the contract is breached, SOMEONE is in a position to compel enforcement or award damages and apply penalties and/or injunctive relief. In social contract theory, there is no higher authority. WE are the authority. The people. And that means if the contract just isn't working anymore, WE hold the authority and the power to change it.
Philly Basement Bar is back open, and isn't taking this shit lying down.
2024-05-20 18:26:24 +0000 UTCI am horrified. I am also befuddled. I cannot understand the "why". I can understand good ol' corruption. You get stuff and you do shitty things. I can understand interest. You are in powerful position and you want to hold and consolidate that power. I can understant greed. I cannot understand how such a large part of a population, irrespective of education or sex, would consider it is a good idea to put a tag on what women do with their stuff. What is there to gain? Is it all smoke and mirrors by a greedy elite to distract? Seems too big for that. What has a Supreme Court judge to gain -can he/she just be so oblivious of facts and lacking in self-awareness? They are supposed to be smart people, how can they even reconcile the cognitive dissonance?
Maria Kladaki
2024-05-20 17:50:44 +0000 UTCHe's basically judge Tucker Carlson -- a privileged guy who spends every waking moment agonizing over the fear that the less-priviliged might improve their lot even by a hair.
Gmork
2024-05-20 15:54:32 +0000 UTCOh wow! Thanks to Matt for the puns to put a smile on my face after a tough show!
KeepingThePlatesSpinning
2024-05-20 13:47:01 +0000 UTCOne of my proudest moments as a lawyer: upsetting Alito enough for him to write a 9-page dissent to the denial of a writ of cert. (challenging a transgender rights' win by my office in the Fourth Circuit). With Thomas joining, of course. Sheriff Kincaid v. Kesha Williams. Stay on Twitter if you must, but come share some of the wealth with the law nerds on Bluesky!
Katie Herrmann
2024-05-20 13:35:50 +0000 UTCThe Steve Vledeck interview is even more depressing listening to this. It feels like there is no justice since we have nothing we can do to right this situation. Other than vote and cross our fingers while we get dragged backwards in time.
KeepingThePlatesSpinning
2024-05-20 13:32:42 +0000 UTCI hate to defend Scalia or Alito in anything, but the reasoning in Obergefell (based on "dignity") was terrible. The outcome was right but should have been promised on rational basis review.
Gmork
2024-05-20 09:47:41 +0000 UTCMajor cringe 15:28 mark
FraudFishy
2024-05-20 09:24:52 +0000 UTC
