For those who might not realize, I’m writing about Samuel Alito, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Excuse me, after writing that previous sentence I need a moment….
Ok, that’s better. It was the “Associate Justice” bit that got to me.
I have resorted to calling Alito “Sam the Sham” since at least 2012. I’m not trying to be glib. I believe that “sham” is an appropriate label for Alito. Miriam Webster defines “sham” as “false,” “feigned,” “hoax,” and “hypocritical.”
Synonyms include “joke,” “travesty,” “caricature,” “mockery,” and “farce.”
I take some pains to defend my use of “sham” because Alito fancies himself something of a wordsmith, dissecting the meaning of words found in our constitution. This week’s opinion in the case Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Ass’n, finding the funding mechanism for the CFPB to be constitutional, is a case in point.
The holding of this case depended on the definition of the word “appropriation” as used in the Constitution. Decided by a 7-2 majority, only Alito and Gorsuch dissented. And once again demonstrating how poor a sport he is, Alito wrote a 28-page dissent. And to add sauce for the goose, the majority opinion was authored by Alito’s (former?) bestie on the Court, Clarence Thomas.
It seems that Alito was upset that Thomas and the majority used dictionaries to arrive at the definition of “appropriations” as understood in 1787. Evidently Alito thought the voices in his head should’ve been used as persuasive authority.
The genesis of the case was the CFPB’s issuance of “three major changes” (i.e., combatting predatory lending practices and listing medical debt on consumer credit reports) to existing consumer protection law. In other words, Alito’s pissed that the CFPB is doing its job, just like every other regulatory body.
I suppose it might be indelicate to wonder if his friend, billionaire hedge fund manager and ardent CFPB opponent Paul Singer, had any influence on Alito’s thinking. After all, Singer was a primary benefactor to Alito’s $100,000, and unreported, Alaska fishing trip. And that ignores the various speaking gigs at the right-wing Manhattan Institute that Singer chairs.
But as Alito has said, he and Singer are mere acquaintances and Alito is totally ignorant of Singer’s business interests. Right.
It’s almost like the Alitos are competing with the Thomases. Unfortunately, there’s no contest. The Alitos will really need to step up their game to match the tricked out $250,000 RV gifted to the Thomases courtesy of Harlan Crowe.
I have long thought that The Sham had no philosophical core. I assert that he is not an originalist, or a textualist. It’s often difficult to find any coherent or consistent legal philosophy whatsoever. Instead, he appears to advance a reactionary rightwing regressive political agenda that would bring us back to the 1940s, if not the 1840s.
Alito’s approach is the polar opposite of former Justice Breyer’s “pragmatic” analytic approach to applying constitutional principles to modern day issues.
We could once again go over his Dobbs opinion where The Sham and the majority of the Court stripped over one-half of our population of a very important liberty interest. We could revisit his McDonald opinion in which he incorporated the Second Amendment to the states, and his support of Bruen’s holding that the only permissible gun control legislation must have an antecedent prior to 1791.
It’s makes me think that The Sham is really uncomfortable in his 21st century skin.
Oh, and he also hates democracy.
Bear with me here. In October 2020, between the passing of Justice Ginsburg and the ascension of Justice Coney Barrett, the Court voted 4-4 (CJ Roberts and the three liberals opposed) to fast tracking an appeal from Pennsylvania’s decision to accept mail in ballots for three days after the presidential election. Thomas and Alito, along with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, favored the fast track, but because there was no majority the petition failed.
In November 2020, Alito in a speech delivered at a Federalist Society convention (Leonard Leo, another of The Sham’s chums) arguing that the “left” (hey, that’s ME!) posed a threat to free speech and democracy.
On January 6, 2021, in spite of an attempted insurrection, the electoral counts were certified. One hundred thirty-eight representatives and 7 senators voted against the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes. The congressional clown show failed.
On February 22, 2021, the Court held that it would not hear the appeals from Pennsylvania. Thomas wrote a dissent that seemingly argued for issuing an advisory opinion (which federal courts don’t do) and Alito echoed Thomas’s concerns: “A decision in these cases would not have any implications regarding the 2020 election...But a decision would provide invaluable guidance for future elections…” So much for cases in controversy.
In between the January 6th and February 22nd events, it seems that Alito showed his true colors. In a report last week in the New York Times, on January 17, 2021, a flag on Alito’s property was raised upside down. Flags raised upside down are an international distress signal, but more to the point it was a symbol of the Trump/MAGA “stop the steal” movement.
Being the stand-up guy that he is, Alito blamed his wife Martha Ann.
Here’s the official version. It seems that Martha Ann got into a dispute with a neighbor (or two) about a “F@#$ Trump” sign in the neighbor’s yard. I mean, c’mon! It’s Arlington Virginia! Who hasn’t uttered an occasional “F@#$ Trump” once in a while?
In my city, there’s a guy who flies a “F@#$ Biden” flag in his yard. To my knowledge nobody has attempted to knock the guy’s flagpole down. I mean, get a grip!
As it turns, Martha Ann did get a grip on the ropes of her flagpole and hoisted the upside-down colors. This from CNN: “Alito said that a neighbor had posted a sign saying ‘F**k Trump’ near a school bus stop and then a sign attacking his wife, Martha-Ann Alito. On a walk, the justice told Fox (like who else would he tell.), the Alitos got into an argument with the neighbor, who used the term ‘c**t’ at one point (we don’t know to which Alito the epithet was directed). His wife then flew the inverted flag.” (Parentheses mine)
Let’s ask some questions: was the neighbor’s property near the bus stop? If so, how close? And a sign attacking Martha Ann (What The F@#$)? Why?
But to me, here’s the part that just doesn’t ring true to me. “On a walk…” Really? At a time fraught with tension, with SCOTUS and its justices under increased scrutiny and criticism, eleven days after the insurrection at the Capitol, the justice with the most despicable affect and possessing the Court’s most punchable face takes his wife and goes for a neighborhood walk? Without security?
And then on this walk they got into an argument with the neighbor, who then drops the “C” bomb on Martha Ann? And what does The Sham do? Anything? Nothing? I’ll bet he gave the neighbor “mean eyes.”
And then, what happens? Not Alito, not Alito and his wife, but Martha Ann – by herself? – hoists the distress colors. Way to represent Sammy! You guys sure showed the neighbor what happens when they mess with the Alitos and their idol.
Like much of The Sham’s jurisprudence, this story no doubt consists of cherry-picked “facts” and just made-up bullshit. For example, the initial statement from Alito’s office did not indicate any knowledge of the inverted flag, and then later acknowledged only that his wife did it, without his knowledge or, dare I say, consent.
Like so much of his jurisprudence, The Sham only uses “facts,” real or imagined, to reach a predetermined goal. The goal could be establishing a modern-day Margaret Atwood dystopian Gilead. OfSamuel, I mean Martha-Ann is happy to take the rap.
And yesterday, May 21, it’s reported that Justice Alito in 2023 dumped his stock in Anheuser-Busch during an anti-trans campaign directed against Bud Lite. It seems the boycott of Bud Lite was over the company’s selection of spokespersons. It’s been decades since I’ve imbibed any alcohol and years before that when I even tasted Bud Lite, but when I heard of the boycott, I thought it was organized by people who had actually tasted the beer. My bad.
This is one more “red flag” regarding Alito’s political and cultural positions on any number of issues. What he does with his money, or his neighborhood relations, or even what sports teams he likes are his business. When all of these seeps into his Court opinions, then that’s our business.
[Sidebar: it seems Alito is an avid fan of the Philadelphia Phillies, a national league baseball team. One Phillies fan in a van drove around Philadelphia recently with a sign on the siding of the van wondering if Alito could be traded to the Atlanta Braves! No word as yet from Atlanta.]
And please don’t even get me started on the “Appeal To Heaven” flag that has been flown over Alito’s New Jersey summer house and was carried by the insurrectionists on January 6, 2021. This is a flag associated with support for Donald Trump, the “stop the steal” efforts, and the desire remake the American government on “Christian” terms.
I mean, why not just give America the finger?
In the coming weeks, probably the last week if not the last day of the Court’s current term, the Court will hand down one of the most important holdings of this or any year. Trump v. United States will decide whether a president has any immunity from criminal charges, and if so to what extent he is immune.
This is an issue of great import this year and especially for our future. In my view, any decision that places a president immune from the consequences for any criminal conduct is not only a grievous blow to the rule of law but is one giant step on the road to authoritarianism.
From the tenor of the Justice’s questions during oral arguments, the Court will try to craft a hodgepodge “rule” to be applied to the federal charges against Trump. The Court will try to identify the intersection of official, criminal, and hybrid official/criminal acts. This will be the Court’s version of a mashup – nobody knows what it is, how it’ll be received, or if it’s anything akin to, you know, actual law.
This Court is no stranger to freelancing on legal questions. Take Trump v. Anderson, the Colorado ballot case. Recall that the state of Colorado, pursuant to section 3 of the 14th Amendment, barred Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot due to his participation in the 2021 insurrection.
In an opinion that at best is a head scratcher, the Court unanimously held that Colorado, or any state, could under 14.3 prevent an otherwise “qualified” candidate for federal office from appearing on the ballot. Claiming to have researched the history of the 14th Amendment, the Court found that section 3 was not self actuating (by the way, that makes section 3 the only section not self actuating). One suggestion was that any state seeking to bar a candidate for federal office would first need to get congressional approval.
Overlooked or ignored was the fact that section 3 already provides a mechanism to remove the electoral disability from an insurrectionist. Also overlooked or ignored was that fact that all elections are conducted at the state level.
One might think that The Sham believes that voters should be given the opportunity to express their views through the electoral process to vote for candidates in their communities. Of course, you’d be wrong. In today’s ( May 23) Supreme Court decision, Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, authored by Alito, the Court’s 6-3 majority held that while racial gerrymandering is constitutionally impermissible, political gerrymandering to jerry rig voting districts to ensure the perpetuation of one political party’s power is just fine with them.
The short version is the South Carolina state legislature, pursuant to the 2020 Census (which should be determinative in drawing district lines), found that the Census indicated a population shift in two of the state’s seven congressional districts. The legislature, in an attempt to ensure a Republican majority in District 1, adopted district lines to ensure that goal. This involved moving voting age blacks from on district to another, thus diluting their voting impact in both. Blacks tend to vote democratic.
By moving a portion of one minority group from one district to another, ensuring the political dilution of that group’s electoral impact, would appear to be a facial exercise in racial gerrymandering. The federal district and circuit courts thought so, but not Alito.
The Sham indicated that it was difficult to separate racial from rank political motivations for drawing the redistricted lines, so he ignored the racial component and stuck with the political exercise of manipulating voting districts in order to perpetuate the political party’s power.
So even if this is the case, what the Court said was redistricting to screw minority groups is bad; redistricting to screw democrats is okay if not actually good.
And here we thought our votes were valued to express the community’s will in free and fair elections. That’s not what happened here. The artificial drawing of electoral lines smacks of totalitarianism. Maybe fascism with the Court’s imprimatur. Whatever it’s called, it sure ain’t democracy.
The blood chills thinking about the upcoming immunity decision. In the context of our current political/cultural/societal climate, any decision emanating from the Court where five members have ethical clouds hovering over them will be suspect at best.
Clearly, there is a crying need for Conflict-of-Interest regulations applicable to the Court’s Justices, administered by an independent body, with real consequences to malefactors. If the Court can’t come up with these regs on its own, then it’s up to Congress to enact legislation.
But Alito says, no doubt in his legal opinion, that Congress has no authority over to the Court. So, here’s some advice for The Sham: go to as many dictionaries as you want and look up “appropriation;” and then go to Article I, sections 8 and 9 and then get back to me.
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