The fascist shadow docket attack on democracy and the rule of law

Yikes! Much unrighteous truth suppressing is going on

so presumably that will be followed by much smiting

in some form of another, e.g., lightening bolts maybe?

(Hm, seems there's a lot of versions of Romans 1:18)

The fascist Republican Party (FRP) has ramped up its attacks on democracy and the rule of law, in part by avoiding accountability using a legal tactic called the shadow docket. This is a legal tactic that FRP courts use to side step normal due process, attention to decisions and especially legal reasoning they want to keep hidden from the American people. The recent Supreme Court 'decision' on the devastating Texas anti-abortion law (discussed here yesterday) was an example.

The New York Times writes: 

A process intended to help the court deal with emergency petitions and routine matters has grown into a backdoor way of making major policy decisions.

Most of the time, the Supreme Court appears to the public like a cautiously deliberative body. Before issuing major rulings, the justices pore over extensive written briefs, grill lawyers in oral arguments and then take months to draft opinions explaining their reasoning, which they release at precisely calibrated moments.

Then there is the “shadow docket.”

With increasing frequency, the court is taking up weighty matters in a rushed way, considering emergency petitions that often yield late-night decisions issued with minimal or no written opinions. Such orders have reshaped the legal landscape in recent years on high-profile matters like changes to immigration enforcement, disputes over election rules, and public-health orders barring religious gatherings and evictions during the pandemic.

The latest and perhaps most powerful example came just before midnight on Wednesday, when the court ruled 5 to 4 to leave in place a novel Texas law that bars most abortions in the state — a momentous development in the decades-long judicial battle over abortion rights.

The court spent less than three days dealing with the case. There were no oral arguments before the justices. The majority opinion was unsigned and one paragraph long. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the case illustrated “just how far the court’s ‘shadow-docket’ decisions may depart” from the usual judicial process and said use of the shadow docket “every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent and impossible to defend.”

Unreasoned, inconsistent and impossible to defend. That sounds like how the FRP has to operate because it has lost too much public support. Demographic and social changes run against the modern FRP. It cannot operate on the basis of real facts, true truths and sound reasoning. If it did so, it would lose significant power and relevance. Instead, the FRP has no choice but to operate on the basis of divisive, polarizing lies, falsehoods, irrational emotional manipulation and crackpot motivated reasoning, i.e., dark free speech.

Other examples of shadow docket action[1] for the FRP include striking down a California Covid-based restriction on in-home gatherings on the ground that it interfered with religious practice in violation of the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. This trend started before the ex-president was elected. For example, in February 2016 the Supreme Court blocked an important Obama-era environmental rule without any hearing arguments or issuing a formal opinion. A recent FRP shadow docket decision lifted the federal ban on COVID-related evictions.

During the ex-president's time in office his administration was granted shadow docker relief over 35 times on various issues that the FRP wanted to be kept as quiet and unexplained as possible. So far the Biden administration has asked for shadow docket relief once, but that was denied. In that case, the court rejected the Biden administration’s plea for a reprieve from a district-court order requiring it to reinstate a Trump-era immigration policy called the “remain in Mexico” policy. That policy requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for a decision on their asylum claims.

Questions: Is it reasonable to believe that the FRP, specifically the six radical Christian nationalist fundamentalists on the Supreme Court, will use this means to hide truth from the American people? Is it reasonable to expect that the current Supreme Court will generally be hostile to Biden administration shadow docket requests, while remaining generally open to pleads from the FRP?

Footnote: 

1. An influential law journal article from January of 2015 commented about opacity and some "lightening bolts" that emanate from the shadow docket:

The 2013 Supreme Court Term provides an occasion to look beyond the Court’s merits cases to the Court’s shadow docket — a range of orders and summary decisions that defy its normal procedural regularity. 

I make two claims: First, many of the orders lack the transparency that we have come to appreciate in its merits cases. Some of those orders merit more explanation, and should make us skeptical of proposals to depersonalize the Court. 

Second, I address summary reversal orders in particular. As a general matter, the summary reversal has become a regular part of the Supreme Court’s practice. But the selection of cases for summary reversal remains a mystery. This mystery makes it difficult to tell whether the Court’s selections are fair.  

I catalogue the Roberts Court’s summary reversals and suggest that they can be grouped into two main categories — a majority that are designed to enforce the Court’s supremacy over recalcitrant lower courts, and a minority that are more akin to ad hoc exercises of prerogative, or “lightning bolts.” The majority, the supremacy-enforcing ones, could be rendered fairer through identification of areas where lower-court willfulness currently goes unaddressed. We may simply be stuck with the lightning bolts.

God: Take that, you fibber and hider of truth

Fibber & hider: Ouch! Cut that out! That one stung!

God: My mistake, sorry. In future I'll stick to blasting 

Democrats and deep state lizard people. Forgive me.

Fibber & hider: OK, fine. But just be damn sure it doesn't happen again 

you careless boob.

More fascist Republican lies and deceit: Keeping Americans disinformed, polarized and divided

Good thing that Jesus saves -- we need saving

The fascist Republican Party (FRP) continues to rely heavily on lies and deceit to emotionally manipulate people into false beliefs, and irrational distrust and intolerance. Lies and deceit about the end of the Afghanistan war is being used ruthlessly. The Washington Post writes in an article,
GOP douses Afghanistan withdrawal with misinformation:

The Afghanistan withdrawal has gone poorly enough for the Biden administration, and it did itself no favors with its faulty predictions about how it would be carried out.

But even in the midst of the worst stretch of the Biden presidency thus far, the lure of misinformation has proved irresistible to its GOP critics.

They’ve trafficked repeatedly in recent days in false, misleading or unproved allegations involving the Taliban hanging someone from an American helicopter, President Biden skipping a ceremony for 13 Americans killed last week, military dogs being left behind, and $80 billion in military equipment being left for use by the Taliban. With the assistance of some high-profile conservatives and even congressional Republicans, these reports have proliferated on social media.  

The process really kicked into gear over the weekend when conservatives accused Biden of skipping the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

The problem was that when the allegation was lodged, the plane bearing the service members’ remains had yet to land. And when the ceremony began the next day, Biden was there. But the likes of Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, former Trump administration acting director of national intelligence Ric Grenell, a California GOP congressional candidate and others promoted the claim that Biden had been absent. They have since deleted their tweets.

Note that they have since deleted their Tweets. That is called lies of omission. Hide the truth and the lie goes away. That is a standard FRP tactic when a lie(s) is too blatant to stand on its own.

In a related article, A legal setback for Donald Trump Jr. on false claims — as he spreads more of them, the WaPo writes:

It was a telling moment in the GOP’s continual descent into a post-truth party in the Donald Trump era. Even though multiple fact-checkers debunked a claim that the Taliban hanged a man from a U.S. helicopter left behind in Afghanistan, many Republicans who promoted the claim refused to back off it. And Donald Trump Jr. ultimately went so far as to replace the banner on his Twitter page with a mock Biden campaign logo featuring an illustration of the supposed helicopter hanging.

The same day, though, this same strategy landed Trump Jr. some legal problems — and earned him a rebuke from a judge.

For the past two years, a GOP Senate candidate in West Virginia has been suing Trump Jr. for defamation. At issue is Trump Jr. claiming during the 2018 campaign that Don Blankenship, whom Trump and his allies opposed in the primary, was a “felon.” Blankenship was charged with felonies related to an explosion at a mine he ran, but he was convicted only on a misdemeanor count.

Trump Jr.’s lawyers sought to have the case dismissed, but U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver Jr. rejected that Wednesday and said the case could move forward. 

The reason? It’s because he believed there was substantial evidence that Trump Jr. might have known the claim to be false and said it anyway.

Given the mess that the withdrawal from Afghanistan turned out to be, there are plenty of things that the FRP could use against Biden and the Dems without resort to dark free speech (lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation, partisan motivated reasoning, etc.). Nonetheless, merely attacking Biden's misfortune with truth is not good enough for the FRP cause. The FRP feels a need to keep painting false realities that make a bad reality appear to be worse, so it does just that.  

What cause does the FRP fight hard and dirty for? Attacking democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, while advancing demagogic fascism, radical Christian nationalist fundamentalist theocracy and plutocratic kleptocracy. That is the FRP cause. 

Questions: 

Is the FRP cause really mostly anti-democratic or not? If not, why such heavy reliance on dark free speech, the forever tactic of choice for all or nearly all demagogues, tyrants, theocrats and kleptocrats? 

Because minds don't change, is it pointless or even counter productive to keep pointing out FRP lies and deceit and arguing that the dark free speech is in service to some form of an anti-democratic kleptocratic tyranny-plutocracy-theocracy? 

Are those brass knuckles in that 

righteous glove of discipline?

Abortion update: The Supreme Court chooses to let states gut access to abortions, leaving Roe nominally intact

Their bodies just got banned on real hard

Another civil liberty bites the dust, thanks to the

fascist Republican Party

The Supreme Court to leave standing the Texas law that guts abortion rights. The New York Times writes:

The law, which prohibits most abortions after six weeks and went into effect on Wednesday, was drafted by Texas lawmakers with the goal of frustrating efforts to challenge it in federal court.

The Supreme Court refused just before midnight on Wednesday to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions, less than a day after it took effect and became the most restrictive abortion measure in the nation.

The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s three liberal members in dissent.

The majority opinion was unsigned and consisted of a single long paragraph. It said the abortion providers who had challenged the law in an emergency application to the court had not made their case in the face of “complex and novel” procedural questions. The majority stressed that it was not ruling on the constitutionality of the Texas law and did not mean to limit “procedurally proper challenges” to it.

NPR reported this morning that as of today, abortion providers in Texas were turning patients away. The Texas law backed by fascist Texas Republican legislature forces women outside the time limit will be forced to either carry to term and bear a child she does not want, or leave the state to gat an abortion.  

Other fascist Republican state legislatures will no doubt rush to copy and pass the Texas law in their states. If that scenario turns out to come true, then the good news is that abortions will still be legal in states that do not oppose abortions. It seem likely from the way the decision is worded that abortion provider will try to make a better case. That seems futile, but time will tell. Those Christian nationalist judges are hell-bent on getting rid of abortion come hell or high water.

It is a puzzle as to why Roberts voted as he did. My guess is that he wants to pretend to be a judge, instead of a radical Christian nationalist politician who wears a black robe as his work uniform. In his dissent, Roberts wrote that he would have blocked the law while appeals moved through the courts. He wrote this: “The statutory scheme before the court is not only unusual, but unprecedented. The legislature has imposed a prohibition on abortions after roughly six weeks, and then essentially delegated enforcement of that prohibition to the populace at large. The desired consequence appears to be to insulate the state from responsibility for implementing and enforcing the regulatory regime.”

The law allows for Texas citizens to report on violations of the law. Yehaw! Here come them law and order snitches! Rat 'em out!

Note: The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to an anti-abortion law from Mississippi this term. That decision will probably come down by June 30, 2022. If the court decides to get rid of Roe v. Wade and make abortions illegal in all states, that is the case where Roe kill decision will come from.

Question: Why would anyone want to live in Texas, low taxes, great climate, deregulated electricity, no abortions and/or something(s) else?

Words and Phrases that, are like, you know, tiresome!

 Like, whatever!

Then there are all those "Commies, Fascists, Socialists" and other political terms that are SO evident on the internet and in political conversations, it is like, well umm, you know, like - tiresome.

Personally man, whatever just ruffles my feathers. And saying "man" is like, SO 70s man.

What about you? Got any words or phrases you like excommunicated from every day lexicon?

Like Biden always saying "Look....."?

Or "SO?"

or "Thoughts and Prayers?"

or "No worries?"

or how about "I know, right?"

or calling everyone you disagree with a "SNOWFLAKE?"

SO - MAN (and Ladies) - Like, pick your medicine, or whatever floats your boat, or tickles your fancy, or makes you see "red", and give us a list of words AND phrases that need to be exterminated.

For the People Act

One of my U.S. Senators, Republican Rob Portman, thinks we cannot afford a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure investment.  From Twitter:

Rob Portman

@senrobportman

18h

Democrats' $3.5 trillion tax and spending bill will send inflation soaring, raise taxes on American families, and undermine economic growth for years to come.  More in my op-ed for the Dispatch Alerts

Michael Moore thinks otherwise (view time 6:38): 

Link here

Portman’s claim is another example of what I call Capitalism Gone Awry: a perverted viewing of Capitalism as a personal big money maker, the greater society be damned, rather than an engine that drives a free economy to prosperity for virtually all, not just the few "already haves."

So, who is right?  Moore or Portman?  Make your case.

The Michael Moore full interview here:

Fascist Republicans in congress issue direct threats

Yesterday, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) issued a direct threat to telecom and social media companies that comply with the January 6 committee records request.

For emphasis, McCarthy's threat includes this unambiguous threat: "a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law."

So, the obvious questions are (1) whether Democratic records requests are illegal, and (2) whether companies who comply with those record requests are illegal. Apparently, McCarthy’s office could not cite a federal statute that a states company would be in violation of it if they complied with a duly empaneled congressional committee because no statute exists. Because of that, one can reasonably believe that McCarthy's threat is empty under existing law. Nonetheless, given the ambiguities and complexities of corporate laws, vengeful fascist Republicans in congress can find things to go after companies for. Intimidation like that is something companies will pay attention to.

Questions: Is McCarthy's threat (i) just a minor kerfuffle and of no real importance, (ii) not a threat at all, (iii) a significant (fascist) attack on democracy and the rule of law, and/or (iv) a Republican Party attempt to obstruct justice because the records request are legal and have to be complied with?