(AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
We the Constitutional have spent large swaths of the last fifteen years wondering just what the heck Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is doing.
Republican President George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 in part because We the People like having judges enforce the Constitution – not rewrite it. The next year, he appointed Roberts Chief Justice.
At the time, we were more than a little pleased. Ever since, not so much. Because he has issued an incessant cavalcade of really awful rulings.
Most recently, he was so far out there every one on the Court ruled the correct way – except him.
When either behaves badly – it is devastating to We the People.
When both behave badly – it is cataclysmic for We the People.
As of July 2020, here’s the US smart phone marketshare data. There are three colors available on the chart. One for Apple, one for Google and one for all other smart phones combined. You can not see the third color at all.
That’s probably because as of May 2020, the data is Apple 52.4% and Google 47%. For a duopoly grand total 99.4%. That is some serious market domination.
So when Apple and Google both decided last Friday to remove Parler’s apps from their respective app stores – Parler was instantly rendered a digital nonperson. (Sunday night came the
Most notoriously, Roberts saved the exceedingly unconstituional and awful Obamacare by asserting a “The mandate is a tax” argument its proponents barely made.
Most recently, Roberts joined with six other Justices in deciding not to take Texas’ case against several presidential-election-stealing states. The Court’s ridiculous decision ridiculously means a state that cheats in a national election – which screws everyone in the nation – is the only entity that is allowed to do anything about it. Which is asinine. Which is saying the only person who can prosecute a murder – is the murderer.
But Roberts can do some good. And has. To wit: This just happened.
(Win McNamee/Pool via AP)
There is a subset of the Comment-ariat who make their living watching the courts – and specifically the Supreme Court.
And humans being human – this subset likes to hazard guesses as to how the Big Nine (for now, anyway) will rule.
Largely predicated upon the behavior of the Big Nine during hearings. What questions were asked, how they were asked, etc.
My joke for many years was the evenly divided Court would rule to the Left or Right depending upon what Justice Anthony Kennedy – aka Flipper – had for breakfast that day. This was also true – to a lesser extent – with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.