Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 28, 2024

To all those who couldn’t bother to vote in 2016: Thank you.

From the outside these look like the sort of decisions your worst enemy would make for America. Hs any agency looked into SCOTUS for any strange interactions with foreign influences or money.

Trump Disciples hate the entire concept of ethics.

They want NO relationship between ethics and the Republican Supreme Court.

Who is that supposed to be on the “king” card? Doesn’t look like the Orange Baboon.

“Stripping women of their rights.” Because, of course, babies deserve the death penalty at will.

How about making nonpartisan Justices more powerful? So that every president will be more strongly motivated to nominate them. You know, the way it used to be. So here’s my minimal fix idea:

“A non-partisan Justice may compel two partisan Justices to recuse themselves from any matter brought before the Court.”

Non-partisan defined as confirmed with a major of the Senators from BOTH parties. Look at the history. That used to be normal. Wikipedia has a convenient list of every nomination. You should be surprised by the last two non-partisans. Now I think those two are regarded as extremists on both sides, but…

A toothless code of ethics has consequences.

What about their recent ruling over Texas?

What’s the world coming to???

If you think SCOTUS is bad now, imagine them with five or six Trump appointees.

BIDEN/HARRIS 2024!

And Clarence got, free RVs, houses, vacations, and tuition (Alito did too).

We’ve dealt ourselves a terrible hand.

Top card is obvious fake. That face belongs on the Joker, the card that is NEVER part of a LEGITIMATE hand.

So the joke here is really just the Supreme Court, right….?

It’s obviously time to get rid of the Supreme Court, as well as the rest of this capitalist government. Thanks, Trudeau. Workers to power.

It’s from before Cheeto Mussolini, but the Roberts court started gutting the VRA just a few months after congress nearly unanimously re-authorized it. Not that I can imagine the republicans of today doing anything so ethical, but over a decade ago… But still.

This “originalist” claptrap they spew as rationalizations (“the executive branch is overstepping it’s borders! Congress has to act!”) is really just setting up scotus to legislate from the bench. I mean they overrode congress on the VRA just after congress re-authorized it.

Alito has said the obvious failure of Citizens United was that he “expected congress to pass campaign finance transparency laws” – which he would have then overturned, I’m sure.

Now, with the Chevron case, scotus is setting themselves up to be the final arbiter of every industrial regulation decision (if they allow any regulation at all).

The code of ethics isn’t a ruling. Mark and Rick still win.

SCOTUS is not allowed to consider the outcome of adhering to the Constitution and the laws as written. They only interpret the laws to reflect the will of the Congress that passed them. If you don’t like the outcomes, address them in Congress. If you think SCOTUS should be guided by their personal opinion of what is wise, you need remedial civics.

There will be a lot of new voters with all the illegals coming in

Slackmeyer has a tell!

Last I was aware, Roland was a republican. as such, his reply to panel six would be to say that the things Mark has mentioned are all good things.

Suicide king… how fitting.

Except their toothless code of ethics allows them to continue to do real world harm. Just not to the court.

The three nominees to the Supreme Court rubber-stamped by Traitor Trump are: (1) a nonentity (2) a criminal (3) a cultist.

Let’s not forget that SCOTUS also ok’d politically drawn election district lines; leaving it to the states to police their own gerrymandering—the very states that drew the gerrymandered districts to start with. The Robert’s court has legalized the unequal and disproportionate voting value of minority voters— voting fraud by any definition.

He said “significant”. Toothless isn’t significant.

We are bearing the consequences of the SCOTUS having no consequences for ethics violations. It will take time to get some degree of ethics back for SCOTUS.

Been reading Doonesbury since Slackmeyer was in college at Walden. What a ride.

Love that he doesn’t know how to hold his cards, and can only see two of them. Surely has some political interpretation, but I’d just like to play poker with him…..

And the evangelicals celebrate electing an adulterer as President because they got what they wanted- this country set on the road to a pseudo-theocracy.

.

Won’t they be surprised to find themselves in Hell.

When former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor passed away recently, a number of testimonials to her service on the court pointed out that she had previously served as an elected official (Arizona state senator, eventually becoming majority leader), something no current member of SCOTUS has ever done. There’s something about having to make your case to the electorate that seems to enhance your appreciation for what actual people really care about.

In a democracy, there will always be a teeter-tottering around the subject of rights. It is important to remember that your vote will affect more than one term of office. Good lesson here.

It’s kind of too bad this forum doesn’t have an IGNORE function. Whenever I’m perusing the good posts, I’m required to see the evil posts as well. Shrug.

Trump is looking increasingly unhealthy. He’s looked like he might keel over any minute for about a year and a half now. But lately, he looks worse every time I see him, and they are having to puff his combover up with Styrofoam or something to make it look like he has hair. I think the thing I like most about Biden’s looks is his honestly bald head. Tells a lot about the difference between the two men. And, I don’t think I would be able to hold up any better under the multiple indictments and court cases Trump is facing. He has to know that he is going to lose enough of them to put him in jail for the rest of his life unless he can find enough money to pay for enough appeals to stay free until he dies. He’s running out of both money and time.

To get real insight into the mindset of the current set of “justices” on the US Subprime Court, there are two essential books:

 • Tyranny of the Minority, by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

 • American Crusade, by Andrew L. Seidel

Yes, ruling against Texas will cause the next civil War

They seem unhappy for some indiscernible reason.

He is not wrong.

Justices aren’t supposed to consider consequences when making a decision; they supposed to decide purely whether a law is or is not constitutional by the letter of the document and the body of common law built up by previous rulings. The Justices aren’t rulers; if the result of a decision is noxious, the legislature and if need be a constitutional amendment is the proper remedy. “Appeal to Consequences” is formally considered a logical fallacy.

The Right doesn’t need Trump anymore. They can use the courts to block any progress.

All the things they gripe about are a bunch of lies. Didn’t restrict voting, just made you have to have an I.D. Roe was illegally passed by lies from Roe, and guns are protected by the 2nd Amendment.

There are t hree people on the Supreme Court whodarned well know they were picked for tehir LACK of qualifications.

if they had any shame, they’d resign. But they were aLSO PICKED FOR THEIR LACK OF SHAME

The Judicial System, thankfully, still has a number of Federal Judges who believe that the purpose of the system is to, “Protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority”. Think of all those Federal Judges (many of them Trump appointed) who nixed DJT’s multiple election lawsuits. Or the Federal Judges in TN who ruled the state’s drag show ban unconstitutional. Hopefully, there will be a majority of Justices who uphold the CO Federal Court’s ruling on if Trump violated the Fourteenth Amendment. If not, Trump will ultimately be convicted of at least some of the multiple felony charges against him. Hopefully, we can keep the White House Democratic, widen our Senate majority and win back the House by January 2025. So, when Thomas and/or Alito either fall ill or retire, we can start to rebalance the SCOTUS. Passing term limits on Justices (though we may have to amend the Constitution for that) would be beneficial too.

Maybe they deserve huge pay raises.

I really, even after all this time, do not GET Roland. Trudeau’s characterization of him has always been wildly inconsistent. Sometimes he’s portrayed as a clueless dunce, other times a rather neutral party, and on rare occasions, someone with genuine biting insight. It’s very weird.