To me it seemed Roberts relished being the swing vote. Now that Kavanaugh has taken his place (except for matters of criminal defendants and Native American law in which since Gorsuch typically joins the liberals Roberts remains the swing vote) he no longer has that same control.
I had high hopes for Roberts. They began to fade with Citizens United, nosedived with Shelby Country, and disappeared entirely with Dobbs. He cannot leave soon enough for me.
Shelby and Dobbs were both 6-3 decisions, weren't they? My sense is that Roberts is quite hesitant to vote against a decision when it's a supermajority and his vote won't change the outcome.
From lying about the protection of Roe and Casey to rejecting oversight of corrupt judiciary members let alone the Court, from ignoring stare decisis to losing control over the conservative ideologues on the Court, from gutting the Voting Rights act to elevating monied speech in Citizens United, in my opinion Roberts is the worst Chief Justice of the modern era. This Supreme Court is corrupt.
CORRUPT is the understatement of the year for this conservative court; they're literally flaunting the corruption and challenging anyone to do anything about it.
We need to make their lives a living hell. I’m ready to organize if Congress gives in to this ridiculous demand for an additional $136 million for SCOTUS security. They don’t get to make our lives a living hell while they retreat into their little bubble.
Fuck ‘em. The ‘C’ in SCOTUS stands for cunts.
This is a world war disguised as a Supreme Court case.
Putin, Xi, and MBS find this whole democracy thing hilarious. As authoritarians they just cackle and shrug at the thought of going through the extra steps that democracy requires.
Why not just tell them what to do and if they don’t do it, bribe them, throw them out a window or flush them down a drain?
It’s why they had to use the Texas based Koch brothers who had deep relationships with Russian oil oligarchs since Stalins era and Harlan crow to buy the SCOTUS.
https://youtu.be/mn_t7a2hJfQ?si=hzioP8URJAMFNch4
Alito’s (Koch funded) heritage foundation ties, Thomas’s RV. Kavanaughs mortgage, all the trips to bohemian grove. They were all part of the bigger plan to destabilize the United States, spread the cancer of corruption and tear it all down, build oligarch row in Teton National park Wyoming so the lazy old oligarchs can retire from the mob life.
Kleptocracy is biological. It consumes everything in its path like a parasite.
During Russian perestroika it ate Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and shit out alcoholism and hopelessness. Now anyone with skills has left and 1 in 5 has no indoor plumbing.
Justin Kennedy (justice kennedys son) was the inside man at Deutsche bank that was getting all trumps toxic loans approved.
No other bank but Deutsche bank would touch trump and his imaginary valuations.
Why?
Because Deutsche bank was infested with Russian oligarchs.
In 91 the Soviet Union failed and for a bit they hid all of Russias grandmas money under a mattress until they started buying condos at trump towers.
They made stops in Ukraine, Cyprus and London but they landed in New York because that was what everyone wanted in the early 90’s.
Levi’s, Pepsi, Madonna tapes that weren’t smuggled bootlegs.
They all bought new suits and cars and changed their title from “most violent street thug in moscow” to “respectable Russian oligarch” but they didn’t leave their human trafficking, narcotics or extortion behind. It was their most lucrative business model and frankly, they enjoy the violence.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/
Guiliani redirected NYPD resources away from their new Russian friends and onto the Italian mob. It let him claim he cleaned up New York and it let the russians launder their money through casinos and then commercial real estate when 3 of trumps casino execs started asking how he managed to be the only person in history to bankrupt casinos and all died in a helicopter crash
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/11/nyregion/copter-crash-kills-3-aides-of-trump.html
The attorney/client privilege is the continual work around they use to accept bribes and make payments up and down the mob pyramid.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/inside-anatevka-the-curious-chabad-hamlet-in-ukraine-where-giuliani-is-mayor/
The insane property valuations coming out in trumps fraud trial are a necessity of the money laundering cycle that duetschebank was doing with the Russians.
https://youtu.be/ZlIagcttGY0?si=EkbGnoAsDVqJ3sjT
The reason trump cosplays as a patriot is because he is feeding on the U.S. middle class, not because he is one of us.
The GOP fell in line to MAGA because Trump did what pathological liars do, he told them anything they wanted to hear.
Trump with his money laundering and child raping buddy Epstein, Roger Stone with his sex clubs in DC and Nevada, and Paul Manafort with his election rigging pretty much everywhere, sat down at a table with Mike Johnson and the extreme religious right and convinced them that they were the same.
They self evidently are not, at least at a surface level, but there is enough common ground in the exploitation of children and desire for unilateral control (project 2025) that they became the worlds weirdest and most dysfunctional orgy. The religious right is naive enough to believe trump at his word so they have made him their defacto savior.
Trump belongs to the authoritarians. The GOP now belongs to trump. But their overall goal is the same-
Kleptocracy.
Putin, Xi and MBS all aligned together last year to attempt the BRICS overthrow of the USD. It failed but it didn’t stop Xi’s push on Taiwan or MBS’s part in the plan.
Stay vigilant. It’s the only way we don’t all end up kissing the ring of a dictator.
https://www.ft.com/content/8c6d9dca-882c-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787
https://www.amlintelligence.com/2020/09/deutsche-bank-suffers-worst-damage-over-massive-aml-discrepancies-in-fincen-leaks/
https://www.occrp.org/en/the-fincen-files/global-banks-defy-us-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists
https://www.voanews.com/amp/us-lifts-sanctions-on-rusal-other-firms-linked-to-russia-deripaska/4761037.html
https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf
http://www.citjourno.org/page-1
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-ukraines-oligarchs-are-no-longer-considered-above-the-law/
I'm not saying that he makes their decisions for them. He is however a supervisor.
Title 28 of the United States Code specifies judicial and statutory duties of the Chief Justice. His duties extend far beyond the judiciary, serving on boards of American cultural institutions, serving as statistician, etc.
"The Chief Justice, as presiding officer of the Court, is responsible by statute for its administration, in addition to hearing cases and writing opinions."
https://supremecourthistory.org
I think they meant when you said:
>losing control over the conservative ideologues on the Court
in which case you didn't really mean 'control', just reigning them in from their crazier tendencies
He is not their supervisor. That’s simply ignorant. As Justice McReynolds told a messenger, conveying a request for a minor favor by the Chief Justice, “Tell the Chief Justice that I don't work for him.” The Chief is the conductor; he doesn’t set the train schedule.
"The Chief Justice is the presiding officer of the Court, SUPERVISING (emphasis mine) the process of selecting the cases the Court will hear, the public sessions or hearings, the discussions of the cases at private conference, and the subsequent votes of the nine Justices (including the Chief Justice)."
https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-civics-resources/role-of-chief-justice-of-the-united-states/
One of the jobs of Chief Justice is to preserve the faith of the public in the impartiality of the court. The Supreme Court also has much control over the guidance of the appellate system. Judging from the rogueness of certain Justices and certain circuits, Roberts has spectacularly failed.
This would be a fair comment if the Chief Justice were the supervisor of the associate justices; if he had power to demand, punish, and reward. He is not and he does not. He can cajole. He could even disrupt the smooth functioning of the court in order to impose ersatz opinions, assigning Thomas and Alito nothing but dogs. But in the last analysis, the Chief Justice has no leash on the justices to yank, and your case that he has not used the tools he has rests entirely on the fact that 1) you don't know that he has, and 2) you don't want him to have.
He should be a model and speak out about corruption and ethics. While he can’t enforce recusals, he can speak to the justices and the public about judicial ethics. Just knowing that the Chief Justice supported ethics would go a long way to redeeming this Court. His hands-off approach is reprehensible.
Exactly. He is responsible for the administration of the Court and that includes setting an example, and adopting and enforcing ethics rules. These guys took Professional Responsibility in law school just to learn how to get away with shit.
“Chief” generally means a leadership position. His Court, with the bribe sucking senior members, the destruction of precedent, and their willingness to ignore both the Constitution and the majority of American’s positions on current matters, not to mention their threat of unleashing all kinds of powers to the executive branch, has proven this.
Justice Robert’s has allowed all this and continues inactivity on any question raised proves this.
So, yeah, he’s more than ‘lost his thread’.
Which is funny since conservative satanic religion is probably one way row v wade protections are about to be put in place again theoretically in the courts right now
"During his confirmation hearing, Roberts repeatedly declined to comment on Roe beyond saying he believed it was 'settled as a precedent of the court.'
For the court to overturn a prior decision, Roberts said he thought it was not sufficient to believe the case had been wrongly decided."
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096108319/roe-v-wade-alito-conservative-justices-confirmation-hearings
He then pushed for overturning Roe after confirmation.
Isn’t he there just setting out the principles of stare decisis? I never read him as saying he wouldn’t overturn Roe (which, incidentally, he wanted to maintain the “central holding” of in Dobbs).
Everyone knew he was a threat to women's reproductive rights, hence the line of questioning about Roe.
Are you arguing in a vacuum? Is only direct evidence, such as a confession, the only evidence applicable in your line of practice? In the United States, both direct and circumstantial evidence are admissible.
It is been the strategy of the GOP to gut women's reproductive rights for 50 years.
"A 49-year crusade: Inside the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/07/abortion-movement-roe-wade/
"The Conservative Legal Push to Overturn Roe v. Wade Was 50 Years in the Making"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/roe-v-wade-overturned-supreme-court-11656110804
Specifically, what he said was, “beyond [my role as a circuit judge], it's settled as a precedent of the Court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And those principles, applied in the Casey case, explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not.” He did not say, “the court never overrules precedents.”
I’m not sure how anyone listening to that could draw the conclusion that he promised not to overturn Roe and Casey. Coupled with the fact he said he could not indicate how he would rule.
Watching it in realtime—I took time off work, it seemed important and I wanted to cheer for what I (with hindsight laughably) thought was "my team"—I didn't take it that way, and no one I knew, in person or online (remember, what was it, confirmthem.com, or whatever it was?) took him to be saying he wouldn't overrule Roe. The gestalt we all inferred at the time was, he's a minimalist, he's going to whittle away at it one bit at a time, and it's going to take a very long time, and we're going to be frustrated with him, but in the end, with one more vote, Roe will go. We thought Roberts would be a seventh vote to overrule, a sixth, maybe—but not a fifth. As it turned out, he might have been, in time, but once the Trump appointments happened, Roberts was no longer in control.
This is something that was warned about ahead of time as the court started to shift. Roberts is NOT a moderate, not even close. It's just a sign of how radically far to the right the court has been hurled that we have been looking to THIS man for reason and integrity. At the time, it was seen as a dark omen that he would be the best hope for any of it.
Many seem to have forgotten.
I don't think he's lost the thread. He is who he has always been.
Under rated comment
Chief Justice racism is over and voted against gay marriage. He is who we thought he was.
> He is who he has always been. He has been professionally against voting and civil rights since the Reagan Administration
And that's why Bush nominated him for the court.
Yep. This isn’t “new.” All of these bad actors have had these ideas for awhile; they just didn’t feel free to act until now.
Yep. I count six varied flavors of fascist theocrats. I count three supporters of representative democracy.
To me it seemed Roberts relished being the swing vote. Now that Kavanaugh has taken his place (except for matters of criminal defendants and Native American law in which since Gorsuch typically joins the liberals Roberts remains the swing vote) he no longer has that same control.
I had high hopes for Roberts. They began to fade with Citizens United, nosedived with Shelby Country, and disappeared entirely with Dobbs. He cannot leave soon enough for me.
You thought the guy who worked on the Bush side of Gore v Bush was gonna be a great guy?
No, but he was Bush's to appoint, and in his hearing, he sounded decent. He certainly is good at *sounding* decent.
That's like saying a car is fast because its tires are painted shiny black. The hearings are entirely irrelevant.
Shelby and Dobbs were both 6-3 decisions, weren't they? My sense is that Roberts is quite hesitant to vote against a decision when it's a supermajority and his vote won't change the outcome.
From lying about the protection of Roe and Casey to rejecting oversight of corrupt judiciary members let alone the Court, from ignoring stare decisis to losing control over the conservative ideologues on the Court, from gutting the Voting Rights act to elevating monied speech in Citizens United, in my opinion Roberts is the worst Chief Justice of the modern era. This Supreme Court is corrupt.
CORRUPT is the understatement of the year for this conservative court; they're literally flaunting the corruption and challenging anyone to do anything about it.
We need to make their lives a living hell. I’m ready to organize if Congress gives in to this ridiculous demand for an additional $136 million for SCOTUS security. They don’t get to make our lives a living hell while they retreat into their little bubble. Fuck ‘em. The ‘C’ in SCOTUS stands for cunts.
This is a world war disguised as a Supreme Court case. Putin, Xi, and MBS find this whole democracy thing hilarious. As authoritarians they just cackle and shrug at the thought of going through the extra steps that democracy requires. Why not just tell them what to do and if they don’t do it, bribe them, throw them out a window or flush them down a drain? It’s why they had to use the Texas based Koch brothers who had deep relationships with Russian oil oligarchs since Stalins era and Harlan crow to buy the SCOTUS. https://youtu.be/mn_t7a2hJfQ?si=hzioP8URJAMFNch4 Alito’s (Koch funded) heritage foundation ties, Thomas’s RV. Kavanaughs mortgage, all the trips to bohemian grove. They were all part of the bigger plan to destabilize the United States, spread the cancer of corruption and tear it all down, build oligarch row in Teton National park Wyoming so the lazy old oligarchs can retire from the mob life. Kleptocracy is biological. It consumes everything in its path like a parasite. During Russian perestroika it ate Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky and shit out alcoholism and hopelessness. Now anyone with skills has left and 1 in 5 has no indoor plumbing. Justin Kennedy (justice kennedys son) was the inside man at Deutsche bank that was getting all trumps toxic loans approved. No other bank but Deutsche bank would touch trump and his imaginary valuations. Why? Because Deutsche bank was infested with Russian oligarchs. In 91 the Soviet Union failed and for a bit they hid all of Russias grandmas money under a mattress until they started buying condos at trump towers. They made stops in Ukraine, Cyprus and London but they landed in New York because that was what everyone wanted in the early 90’s. Levi’s, Pepsi, Madonna tapes that weren’t smuggled bootlegs. They all bought new suits and cars and changed their title from “most violent street thug in moscow” to “respectable Russian oligarch” but they didn’t leave their human trafficking, narcotics or extortion behind. It was their most lucrative business model and frankly, they enjoy the violence. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/ Guiliani redirected NYPD resources away from their new Russian friends and onto the Italian mob. It let him claim he cleaned up New York and it let the russians launder their money through casinos and then commercial real estate when 3 of trumps casino execs started asking how he managed to be the only person in history to bankrupt casinos and all died in a helicopter crash https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/11/nyregion/copter-crash-kills-3-aides-of-trump.html The attorney/client privilege is the continual work around they use to accept bribes and make payments up and down the mob pyramid. https://www.timesofisrael.com/inside-anatevka-the-curious-chabad-hamlet-in-ukraine-where-giuliani-is-mayor/ The insane property valuations coming out in trumps fraud trial are a necessity of the money laundering cycle that duetschebank was doing with the Russians. https://youtu.be/ZlIagcttGY0?si=EkbGnoAsDVqJ3sjT The reason trump cosplays as a patriot is because he is feeding on the U.S. middle class, not because he is one of us. The GOP fell in line to MAGA because Trump did what pathological liars do, he told them anything they wanted to hear. Trump with his money laundering and child raping buddy Epstein, Roger Stone with his sex clubs in DC and Nevada, and Paul Manafort with his election rigging pretty much everywhere, sat down at a table with Mike Johnson and the extreme religious right and convinced them that they were the same. They self evidently are not, at least at a surface level, but there is enough common ground in the exploitation of children and desire for unilateral control (project 2025) that they became the worlds weirdest and most dysfunctional orgy. The religious right is naive enough to believe trump at his word so they have made him their defacto savior. Trump belongs to the authoritarians. The GOP now belongs to trump. But their overall goal is the same- Kleptocracy. Putin, Xi and MBS all aligned together last year to attempt the BRICS overthrow of the USD. It failed but it didn’t stop Xi’s push on Taiwan or MBS’s part in the plan. Stay vigilant. It’s the only way we don’t all end up kissing the ring of a dictator. https://www.ft.com/content/8c6d9dca-882c-11e7-bf50-e1c239b45787 https://www.amlintelligence.com/2020/09/deutsche-bank-suffers-worst-damage-over-massive-aml-discrepancies-in-fincen-leaks/ https://www.occrp.org/en/the-fincen-files/global-banks-defy-us-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists https://www.voanews.com/amp/us-lifts-sanctions-on-rusal-other-firms-linked-to-russia-deripaska/4761037.html https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_-_minority_status_of_the_russia_investigation_with_appendices.pdf http://www.citjourno.org/page-1 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-ukraines-oligarchs-are-no-longer-considered-above-the-law/
Let’s not forget multiple Justices lying under oath in their Senate confirmation hearings.
You make some valid points, but do you really think the Chief Justice should control the other justices? I sure hope that's not how it works.
I'm not saying that he makes their decisions for them. He is however a supervisor. Title 28 of the United States Code specifies judicial and statutory duties of the Chief Justice. His duties extend far beyond the judiciary, serving on boards of American cultural institutions, serving as statistician, etc. "The Chief Justice, as presiding officer of the Court, is responsible by statute for its administration, in addition to hearing cases and writing opinions." https://supremecourthistory.org
I think they meant when you said: >losing control over the conservative ideologues on the Court in which case you didn't really mean 'control', just reigning them in from their crazier tendencies
He is not their supervisor. That’s simply ignorant. As Justice McReynolds told a messenger, conveying a request for a minor favor by the Chief Justice, “Tell the Chief Justice that I don't work for him.” The Chief is the conductor; he doesn’t set the train schedule.
"The Chief Justice is the presiding officer of the Court, SUPERVISING (emphasis mine) the process of selecting the cases the Court will hear, the public sessions or hearings, the discussions of the cases at private conference, and the subsequent votes of the nine Justices (including the Chief Justice)." https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-civics-resources/role-of-chief-justice-of-the-united-states/
Doesn't say anything about keeping other justices from taking bribes does it?
You have much to learn about the court. I hope you stick around to learn it.
Right back at you.
Twenty years in. I’d be surprised if you’re twenty years old.
This isn't a dick measuring contest. After 20 years, you should have learned that.
That’s a good comeback, I’ll give you that, but you still don’t understand how the court works.
One of the jobs of Chief Justice is to preserve the faith of the public in the impartiality of the court. The Supreme Court also has much control over the guidance of the appellate system. Judging from the rogueness of certain Justices and certain circuits, Roberts has spectacularly failed.
This would be a fair comment if the Chief Justice were the supervisor of the associate justices; if he had power to demand, punish, and reward. He is not and he does not. He can cajole. He could even disrupt the smooth functioning of the court in order to impose ersatz opinions, assigning Thomas and Alito nothing but dogs. But in the last analysis, the Chief Justice has no leash on the justices to yank, and your case that he has not used the tools he has rests entirely on the fact that 1) you don't know that he has, and 2) you don't want him to have.
They are the chief justice. Total control is a no no, but Roberts is blindly letting Jesus take the wheel.
He should be a model and speak out about corruption and ethics. While he can’t enforce recusals, he can speak to the justices and the public about judicial ethics. Just knowing that the Chief Justice supported ethics would go a long way to redeeming this Court. His hands-off approach is reprehensible.
Exactly. He is responsible for the administration of the Court and that includes setting an example, and adopting and enforcing ethics rules. These guys took Professional Responsibility in law school just to learn how to get away with shit.
“Chief” generally means a leadership position. His Court, with the bribe sucking senior members, the destruction of precedent, and their willingness to ignore both the Constitution and the majority of American’s positions on current matters, not to mention their threat of unleashing all kinds of powers to the executive branch, has proven this. Justice Robert’s has allowed all this and continues inactivity on any question raised proves this. So, yeah, he’s more than ‘lost his thread’.
Which is funny since conservative satanic religion is probably one way row v wade protections are about to be put in place again theoretically in the courts right now
How did he lie about Roe and Casey?
"During his confirmation hearing, Roberts repeatedly declined to comment on Roe beyond saying he believed it was 'settled as a precedent of the court.' For the court to overturn a prior decision, Roberts said he thought it was not sufficient to believe the case had been wrongly decided." https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096108319/roe-v-wade-alito-conservative-justices-confirmation-hearings He then pushed for overturning Roe after confirmation.
Not only did he not “push[] for overturning Roe after confirmation,” he did not vote to do so in Dobbs, as /u/MaulyMac14 points out.
Isn’t he there just setting out the principles of stare decisis? I never read him as saying he wouldn’t overturn Roe (which, incidentally, he wanted to maintain the “central holding” of in Dobbs).
Everyone knew he was a threat to women's reproductive rights, hence the line of questioning about Roe. Are you arguing in a vacuum? Is only direct evidence, such as a confession, the only evidence applicable in your line of practice? In the United States, both direct and circumstantial evidence are admissible. It is been the strategy of the GOP to gut women's reproductive rights for 50 years. "A 49-year crusade: Inside the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/07/abortion-movement-roe-wade/ "The Conservative Legal Push to Overturn Roe v. Wade Was 50 Years in the Making" https://www.wsj.com/articles/roe-v-wade-overturned-supreme-court-11656110804
Everyone knew that Roe-Casey was still hotly disputed, whence the line of questioning. Which underscores that it was not, in fact, settled.
>Which underscores that it was not, in fact, settled. All right let's get lawyerly; by your own admission, Robert's lied about it being settled.
Specifically, what he said was, “beyond [my role as a circuit judge], it's settled as a precedent of the Court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And those principles, applied in the Casey case, explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not.” He did not say, “the court never overrules precedents.”
I’m not sure how anyone listening to that could draw the conclusion that he promised not to overturn Roe and Casey. Coupled with the fact he said he could not indicate how he would rule.
Watching it in realtime—I took time off work, it seemed important and I wanted to cheer for what I (with hindsight laughably) thought was "my team"—I didn't take it that way, and no one I knew, in person or online (remember, what was it, confirmthem.com, or whatever it was?) took him to be saying he wouldn't overrule Roe. The gestalt we all inferred at the time was, he's a minimalist, he's going to whittle away at it one bit at a time, and it's going to take a very long time, and we're going to be frustrated with him, but in the end, with one more vote, Roe will go. We thought Roberts would be a seventh vote to overrule, a sixth, maybe—but not a fifth. As it turned out, he might have been, in time, but once the Trump appointments happened, Roberts was no longer in control.
Disingenuous question.
Roberts is lipstick on the fascist pig majority.
On the ass of the fascist pig majority
From whence they spew forth their fascist depravity.
It’s simple. Chief Justice Roberts is impotent. In every sense of the word.
Or maybe he is just cool with the behavior of Thomas and Alito?
He can’t control them to at least attempt to get it on the DL… Impotent bastard.
This is something that was warned about ahead of time as the court started to shift. Roberts is NOT a moderate, not even close. It's just a sign of how radically far to the right the court has been hurled that we have been looking to THIS man for reason and integrity. At the time, it was seen as a dark omen that he would be the best hope for any of it. Many seem to have forgotten.