Lard, I hate waking up to shit like this. Especially when I’m only really interested in the latest news about the War on Photosynthesis currently taking place in the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. I can’t stop laughing about it! Every new update has me in stitches.
That is some funny shit right there.
But not today. Today, I see this:
A legal error! Well gosh, I wonder which part of their much-touted and specifically-sworn-to U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment our esteemed “Supreme” court will rewrite, strike dead, or pretend not to understand? (Oooh, is Polymarket taking bets on this yet? Asking for a friend…) Because sure as shit, that court is where this “legal error” will end up.
For those who may want a quick refresher, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That part in bold is commonly referred to as the “establishment clause,” though I have always wondered why it isn’t called the “non-establishment clause.”
But hey, I’m no constitutional scholar! And even though I’m a native English speaker (albeit one with a baaaad Philly accent when I get drunk), I may not understand what those English words in that ol’ First Amendment mean. For all I know, they might mean “all laws must respect the establishment of a few approved sects of the roughly 45,000 different versions of the Christian religion, and prohibit the free exercise of anything else.” And the really amazing part is those words will have meant exactly this for the past 250 years! I know, right? The men who wrote it, and all the judges who have taken it more or less at face value for centuries, will all turn out to have been COMPLETELY WRONGHEADED about what the establishment clause means.
Lest you think I’m being a tad histrionic, these same Supreme Assholes have already done this to the Second Amendment. That one says in its entirety:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Just so you know what a hopelessly illiterate dingbat you’re reading right now, I must confess that there was a time, not so long ago, when I actually believed that (omg this is so embarrassing!) the words “well regulated” and “Militia” and “being necessary to the security of a free State” had something to do with… a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State! LOL! I was so confused I thought the aforementioned necessary and well regulated Militia was the context and justification for peoples’ right to bear arms.
Thankfully, the six superior intellects sitting on the nation’s highest court set me straight about that foolishness. I have come to understand that the words of the Second Amendment mean “EVERYONE CAN OPEN CARRY EVERYWHERE AT ALL TIMES.” Not only that, but the Second Amendment has always meant that! For the past 250 years! See, it’s just that in all that time, nobody else had the penetrating insight, encyclopedic historical knowledge, and time-traveling capabilities of our six conservative Justices.
he has sooo much time left to do damage. god i hate those guys so fucking much it’s unreal.
And he’s not even religious. He’d probably be worse if he was.
I was saying to a friend the other day that I remember that I used to hate NO ONE. Ignorance was truly bliss, and my empathy had no limits. I was raised in a conservative family, church and community, with all of the racism, bigotries and misogyny that implies. Conservatives taught me to hate – but not in the way they do.
I was always a curious, creative, questioning kid, and that didn’t exactly endear me to my pastor (or to anyone, really). But as I became more self-reflective and politically aware in my teens and twenties, I found that I disagreed profoundly with nearly everything these people stood for. I understood the pain, harm, and even death their ideas and policies caused, and recognized the hate and fear that animated them. And I discovered that it was normal, natural, healthy and even righteous to hate that which is hateful. I’ve hated them ever since.
(The squirrel thing came later.)
great background story there. love it. i have a very different background that also involved learning to hate the hateful. i don’t love the feeling so these days i spend most of my time on other things, as possible.
Treaty of Tripoli Article 11:
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two nations.”
The treaty was unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate without debate on June 7, 1797, and was signed into law by President John Adams (one of the “Founding Fathers”).
… the words “well regulated” and “Militia” and “being necessary to the security of a free State” had something to do with… a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State!
It seems worth noting, though I can’t spell out precisely why, that this is the only example of an explanatory phrase (what the lawyers call a “whereas”) in the text of the Constitution. It also bears mentioning that “security of a free State”, in context, meant controlling slaves and beating back dispossessed native tribes, and that several states mandated gun ownership and required participation in militias/slave patrols for all white able-bodied males, regardless of expense or other demands on their time. (Squirrel shooting was optional, though ability to nail the little varmints in the head was highly praised.)
@Pierce: yeah, there is virtually no American history without the history of Black people beginning, though hardly ending, with evils of slavery, such as those slave patrols you mention.
I was taught that “Lincoln freed the slaves,” and “the 13th Amendment abolished slavery,” which wasn’t true at the time and isn’t even true today. The 13th:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
In response, much of the country essentially criminalized being Black. We can draw a direct line from the slave trade of yore to today’s overpolicing of Black communities, unequal sentencing of Black defendants, and the unconscionably cheap or free prison labor provided to states, municipalities, and some of the biggest corporations on the planet.
Won’t those fake “originalists” be shocked if we take an originalist view on the place and powers of the US Supreme Court?
The very selective illiteracy of these delusional trolls when it comes to history, law, precedent, and even the Constitution is really something to behold. It takes all of what, a 6th or 8th grade reading level to understand how bonkers their various hot takes are?
Some historical courts had terrible decisions like Dred Scott that were obviously wrong and got overturned later. This court will have no such easily summarized failures because in nearly every case it has decided that reality must bend to the whims of radical pseudo-conservative lawmaking-from-the-bench wishful thinking. Or at least everyone’s perceptions of reality must do so.
Don’t be surprised later if they repeal the law of gravity and insist we all imagine them floating gracefully through the air while some poor beleagured aide trundles them along on a cart or something. From the reactions I see out of legal scholars and lawyers it sounds like this wouldn’t even be the most extreme or absurd thing they’d have done.
lanir, right? And aren’t these types supposed to be all about tradition? Writing radical reinterpretations of the constitution (presidential immunity?) and upending the entire balance of three co-equal branches of government doesn’t sound like upholding tradition – it sounds like doing whatever the fuck they want simply because they CAN.
Yeah… I keep struggling against it but more and more I’m starting to think this Trump disaster can’t really be looked at as an administration. Or a regime. Or even a movement.
The only perspective that actually makes sense of it all is that it’s by far the most expensive mental health treatment in the history of humanity.
It’s mainly focused on Trump of course. Anything involving him has to at least pretend to be primarily focused on him. Sort of like getting a minor gift for a spoiled 2 year old to fool them into thinking a sibling’s birthday party is actually all about them. But Hegseth, Vought, Johnson, Patel, and others are clearly riding high on the idea they can cosplay their fantasies in their normal day to day life.
Maybe we’ll get lucky when this is all over and the MAGA true believers will adopt some mishmash of the Cthulhu mythos and the King Arthur legend. When the stars are right the elder fraud will awaken from his demented dreams down where non-euclidean financing means tarrifs puts money in your pocket and return to lead or maybe just steal from the faithful again.
A legal error? I wonder how they are going to try to explain away the “…make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” part? Not just ignore it and hyper-fixate on the other part like they usually do, but explain it. They can’t just shut down and say nothing like I usually see.
I wish I could get my parents to talk about this evil they’re supporting but they’re shut down and saying nothing while ignoring anything that might contradict what they want to believe. It’s a pattern of behavior that I can’t figure out how to get around other than left-leaning versions of street preachers actively undermining the lies out in public while they are out and about.