Adam Serwer: By Attacking Me, Justice Alito Proved My Point

[Nevilledog]

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Adam Serwer 🍝
@AdamSerwer
Here is my response to Alito, who demands to be seen as apolitical while acting politically, who demands civil discourse while he smears his critics, and who describes the press as sensational for rejecting his mischaracterizations of verifiable facts.

By Attacking Me, Justice Alito Proved My Point
If he wants the public to see the Court as apolitical, he should try meeting that standard himself.
theatlantic.com
11:03 AM · Oct 12, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/alito-supreme-court-texas-abortion/620339/


Last month, Justice Samuel Alito insisted that the Supreme Court’s critics are wrong. The Court is not “a dangerous cabal” that is “deciding important issues in a novel, secretive, improper way, in the middle of the night, hidden from public view,” he said. Reading aloud from a piece I wrote in the aftermath of the Court’s recent ruling on an abortion law, Alito insisted that it was “false and inflammatory” to say that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision had been nullified in Texas.

Alito’s speech perfectly encapsulated the new imperious attitude of the Court’s right-wing majority, which wants to act politically without being seen as political, and expects the public to silently acquiesce to its every directive without scrutiny, criticism, or protest. (As if oblivious to the irony, Alito’s office set ground rules barring media outlets from transcribing or broadcasting in full the speech at the University of Notre Dame, in which he delivered his complaint.)

Last month, that conservative majority allowed Texas’s most recent restrictions on abortion to go into effect. Without exceptions for rape and incest, the Texas law bars abortions after six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant, and deputizes citizens to sue those who “enable” abortions after that period for a $10,000 bounty. At midnight on the day after the law took effect, the Republican appointees on the Court, except for Chief Justice John Roberts, insisted that a procedural scheme adopted by anti-abortion activists for the precise purpose of avoiding judicial review had tied their hands.

This success by anti-abortion activists, who nullified a constitutional right merely by outsourcing its enforcement to private citizens, naturally drew scrutiny. The Court’s ruling appeared on its “shadow docket,” the emergency orders that the Court issues outside the regular process of review with limited briefing and without oral arguments—and thus without the typical degree of attention from the public or the justices themselves. In his speech, Alito said there was “absolutely nothing new about emergency applications,” and complained of “all the media and political talk about our sinister shadow docket.”

*snip*

[madaboutharry]

1. In my opinion, Alito is the worst of the justices.

He has always been driven by politics. There has never been a case I can think of in which he did not come down on the side of the hard right and then proceed to twist himself into a pretzel to find a way to make it align with some “reasonable”constitutional interpretation.

What is most galling to me are those who forget where they came from. Alito is one of those people. They will always be the most bereft of integrity.

[jcgoldie]

2. Thats a high bar

Considering Clarence Thomas hasn't been awake for deliberations in 20 years and still manages to vote the same way.

[blm]

5. I see Alito as more sinister in his intent.

[spooky3]

4. Agree. Scalia was similar. And as Serwer points out, Alito's arrogance

is linked to the lack of accountability.

[Ocelot II]

6. I agree. He's even worse than Scalia ever was.

Thomas, Alito's Mini-Me, is just about as bad.

[people]

8. Alito

Agree, absolutely, he is the worst.

[spooky3]

3. This is an amazingly good critique of exactly what is wrong with the USSC "conservatives."

And I thought this:

"This is the closest a Supreme Court reporter for a major outlet gets to saying, “Although the justice insisted the liquid was rain, chemical analysis shows the composition to be identical to urine.”"

was reminiscent of Judge Judy's saying "don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."



Thanks for posting.

[Jakes Progress]

7. alito's denial reminds me of nixon"s "I am not a crook" speech.