Meanwhile, at the Supreme Court:
Although the conservative majority’s decision was unsigned and ran just four pages long, it radically altered the law of religious liberty. Since 1990’s Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court has not interpreted the First Amendment’s free exercise clause to require religious exemptions to laws that don’t discriminate against religion. In Tandon, however, the majority effectively overturned Smith by establishing a new rule, often called the “most favored nation” theory. Under this doctrine, any secular exemption to a law automatically creates a claim for a religious exemption, vastly expanding the government’s obligation to provide religious accommodations to countless regulations. In Tandon, for instance, the Supreme Court held that California had to let people gather indoors for Bible study because it allowed them to gather indoors to get a haircut, eat, or take a bus; if Californians can get pedicure, they must also be permitted to spend hours in close quarters discussing the Bible. And the Supreme Court created this sweeping new rule through its shadow docket—those cases decided with minimal briefing and no oral argument outside the court’s normal procedure.
A solid analysis, and expect more of it to come, but I am begging everyone, please stop calling the Supreme Court majority “conservative.” They are anything but. They do not care about precedent or stare decisis, they do not care about stability or preserving the current order, none of the things with which the word conservative have previously been associated.
They, and the current Republican party, are neither conservative or reactionary, because they are not actually reacting to anything in reality. They are regressive radicals intent on creating a new society and new social order that never existed anywhere at any time other than in their heads. Refusing to acknowledge this and labeling these lunatics as conservative normalizes them. There is NOTHING normal about these guys. Their beliefs are an amalgamation of the know-nothing party, Birchers, gun nuts, and theocrats, but there is NOTHING conservative about them.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
laura
It’s the Gilead Court.
Spanky
“Radical Right” has just as many syllables as “Conservative”, plus it’s alliterative. Use it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve been listening to Ari Berman’s Give Us the Vote on my walks, and besides giving so much back story to Roberts, and his relationship with Rehnquist, yesterday’s covered the Shelby County decision. I had to keep stopping the audio to take deep breaths. Fuck everybody who told me in 2000 that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference, and double fuck everybody who told me the same thing three years after Shelby. And everybody who told me in 2020 that Biden needed to give them a reason to vote….
Jeffro
Ok, noted.
My religious-right mom has, twice now, tried to throw out there that “…we can go shopping at the mall but we can’t go to church!”
This despite the fact that (as Cole references in his post) a) these are two very different experiences, proximity/time-wise and b) she surely has gone to church, just in the parking lot or virtually.
Anyway, we will get past this very, very stupid Court. I’m not sure how, but we’ll get past them.
Ksmiami
Am I bad that I don’t care if these idiots suffer and die because I’m out of fucks to give?
NotMax
Attendees at retrograde school.
debbie
For being such smart people, they’re fucking stupid idiots for their twisted distortion of the First Amendment.
I apologize to regular fucking stupid idiots everywhere.
Spanky
@Ksmiami: Nah. It’s a pretty big club you’ve joined.
MattF
There’s a real temptation to think ‘seriously, now, it can’t be that bad’. But it is. We’re getting into the endgame now.
mrmoshpotato
@Ksmiami:
Others will suffer and die due to COVID because of these selfish idiots. (Yes, I know there are vaccines, but we’re not through the pandemic yet.)
Ten Bears
An ideologically stacked panel of unelected activist Catholic Illuminatti is not a court.
Ksmiami
@Ten Bears: totally- the Supreme Court no longer is legitimate
Ksmiami
@mrmoshpotato: but less and less every day…
HypersphericalCow
The Grand Old Party is neither grand, nor old, nor really a party. Discuss.
Ksmiami
@HypersphericalCow: Criminal Conspiracy comes to mind…
mrmoshpotato
@Ksmiami:
Yes, but still.
ETA – at this point (vaccines getting into arms at large rates), it seems still banning large gatherings would be saving these slapdicks from themselves.
Yutsano
13 Circuits. 13 Justices. The main reason these shadow dockets exist is that the Supreme Court is as overworked as the rest of the federal judiciary.
rikyrah
Tell it, Cole ???
BSR
If they actually stood for something other than “winning by changing the rules” we could have a discussion about what they stood for. As it is….FOAD!
Baud
Smith didn’t involve Christians.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I co-sign your fuck everybody list.
Patricia Kayden
I almost feel angry enough to say “Let the idiots bundle up in churches and get sick” but I’m not that evil. SCOTUS is dooming people to painful deaths with these dangerous decisions.
guachi
All these rulings do is further cement in Americans’ minds that religion in America means a radical conservative version of religion. It’s why Christianity is collapsing in the United States.
mrmoshpotato
This might be old, but on the subject of being an I-should-get-to-do-whatever-I-want asshole during a pandemic.
cain
We absolutely need to make sure that we do not label these people whether the GOP or the SCOTUS – they are neo-liberals and the complete opposite of conservatism.
We really need to start figuring out how to deal with misinformation and everything else – the security of this country is at stake.
Ksmiami
@mrmoshpotato: eh eventually Darwinism takes care of the terminally stupid…
Mallard Filmore
Can I be a religious nudist? The sect I want to join requires it! Do I get these protections and privileges?
Ksmiami
@cain: Fascist works for me… and it fits
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden:
I’d argue that SCOTUS is giving people permission to be selfish morons who decide to do things that can currently endanger their lives. But they’re still deciding to be selfish morons of their own free will.
Ksmiami
@mrmoshpotato: In the old days, government tried to protect even the less informed but if they want to go out of their own accord
mrmoshpotato
@Mallard Filmore:
Smart. Keeping costs down by keeping clothes off.
Cassandra (fka mostly a lurker)
This!!!!
Mary G
?
I’m guessing the city manager doesn’t get the due process the cop is entitled to?
Chief Oshkosh
Cole giving a TED Talk? Best feckin’ idea I’ve heard all day!
NotMax
@Mallard Filmore
Barely.
:)
Geminid
@Spanky: “Radical” is very appropriate. It describes well the goals of the tea party “populists” and evangelical dominionists who have combined to dominate the Virginia Republican party. My Congressman, Bob Good (VA-5), is a good example.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
Do the TED talk people have a bleeping machine?
WaterGirl
@Baud: I think you meant to say fucking bleeping machine, didn’t you?
Redshift
I don’t entirely agree, because the definition of conservatism has always involved longing for an imagined perfect past that never existed. But I do agree that the extremism of the current crew needs to be highlighted, and people are entirely to complacent about what’s under the umbrella of the conservative label.
jnfr
@mrmoshpotato:
Yeah. I admit I wouldn’t worry about themselves, but the healthcare workers and other innocents they will harm and kill through their actions don’t deserve this.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I honestly don’t know anything about the sex life of bleeping machines.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I meant the other fucking.
Jay
People are being turned away from vaccine sites because they don’t have the “white” id.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
There once was a man from Racine
Who invented a bleeping machine:
Concave and convex,
It could serve either sex,
Entertaining itself in between.
:-)
Mary G
Needle phobic housemate husband has appt Wednesday for first Moderna shot at a Sam’s club near his work. Wife housemate going to make sure needle goes in his arm. They asked for ID insurance saying insurance if you have it will cover their administration costs and there is a special reimbursement fund for uninsured people? Wife and I weren’t asked just for ID.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G:
Free 5-gallon bucket of chili with each vaccination?
KrackenJack
I believe “revanchist” works. It has the benefit not implying any ideology, just grievance.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I did not know that you are married. How did I miss that???
Brachiator
This is fucking nuts. But it follows from the Court’s bizarre ruling about Covid-19, which put going to church on the same level as going to the store or something equally ridiculous.
Yeah, this is not a conservative court. This is a court of religious resentment.
I think in the future they will end up giving blatant preference to Christian worship and practice, while saying that other religions can pound sand.
With the Orange Beast, we had to fight off autocracy. Now with Amy Simpleton McJustice and crew, we will have to fight off theocracy.
Or is that theo-crazy.
Dan B
It’s concerning to me that we don’t know how far this court will go with their radical Christianism. It is likely they’ll spit out some legal pretzels to provide a foundation for promoting their version of Christian. Will it progress to putting LGBTQ people in their place and eliminating rights for women? Are there other rights that will be undermined?
Raven Onthill
I am left thinking that if Jesus were brought before this Court he would be handed over to Pilate.
In general, the goal here seems to be to set religious law above secular, in clear contradiction to both the First Amendment and the expressed intent of the Framers. These decisions (there are four now, the previous three were Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, Harvest Rock, and South Bay United.)
As I wrote after Harvest Rock and South Bay United,
It seems the Supreme Court has become the High Court of the Kingdom of Gilead.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: I think you’re parsing incorrectly.
mrmoshpotato
@Brachiator: “The Supreme Court is on the ballot.” -Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, 2016
geg6
They are radicals. Period.
MagdaInBlack
@SiubhanDuinne: Very nice ?
Ksmiami
@Raven Onthill: we can destroy the Supreme Court if need be…
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Gender fluid limericks. Who knew?
Ksmiami
@Ksmiami: how many military divisions does Roberts command?
debbie
@Mary G:
A health system here charges for the injection, but not the vaccine. They’re the kind of system that would steal the proverbial pennies from a dead man’s eyes.
SiubhanDuinne
@MagdaInBlack:
Not original — it’s something of a classic, in fact — but it seemed apt.
frosty
@SiubhanDuinne: How the bleep is it that I never heard this before? And if the reason is that you just wrote it, I am in awe.
ETA I see you didn’t write it. But you should be proud that I thought you could have!
Brachiator
@Ksmiami:
If only this were so. There may even be some evolutionary advantages to being stupid, otherwise it would have been selected out a long time ago.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Mary G:
Can you find a J&J one-shot spot for the needlephobe?
Steeplejack (phone)
@WaterGirl:
Housemate‘s husband.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mrmoshpotato:
Yup.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Ah, thank you. I see that now on the 3rd reading.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (phone):
I’m a needlephobe, too, and have been trying for weeks to find a J&J location somewhere fairly near me.
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
If they were endangering only their own lives, I would say we should let them. But contracting a contagious disease also endangers the people around you. We call it public health for a reason.
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty:
Ha! Thank you, that’s a nice compliment. I learned that one when I was quite young, and promptly committed it to memory knowing it would come in handy sixty years later.
karensky
@Ten Bears: Snap!
Craig
@Baud: They had Sarah Silverman one time, so no bleep machine. Of course that talk has been memory holed.
Villago Delenda Est
They are reactionaries desperate to repeal The Enlightenment, The Renaissance, and return our society to feudalism. Fuck them all.
Villago Delenda Est
@HypersphericalCow: Sort of like the Holy Roman Empire was.
The Pale Scot
Hear Here!!
schrodingers_cat
OT: News out of India with respect to COVID-19 is harrowing.
Mary G
@Steeplejack (phone): They are out of the J&J locally due to shipment or supply problems right now. Almost everyone I know in my area has had a choice of Moderna or Moderna. She had made an appointment for a week from now for the teen to get the J&J and got a notice that it might have to be postponed.
raven
@Steeplejack (phone): My buddy had a REALLY bad reaction to the J&J.
guachi
Creationism will be legal to teach. Only a matter of time.
Mary G
@schrodingers_cat: India looks almost as bad as Brazil; I hope they can get it under control. Are they discriminating what groups get the shot? Israel brags about how well they’re doing but gave none to the Palestinians who finally got their first shipment this week. So stupid to leave a vast pool of unvaccinated people next door to incubate new variants.
Gravenstone
@Mary G: Doesn’t have a union backing them up, in all likelihood.
natem
Well, you know, in 2016 Dems put Neo-liberal Warhawk Killary KKlinton on the ballot, so I had no choice to sit it out, because revolution, baby!
-from my iPhone 12 Pro
Jeffro
OT but conservative twitter seems to be mortally, MORTALLY offended that Jen Psaki mentioned the various ways that the Administration is trying to reach out to ‘white conservative communities’ and get them to
quit being toddlersgo get their vaccinations.Psaki literally said, “We realize we might not be the best messengers” (to which I object, it’s not the messengers who are at issue, it’s the fucking moron MAGAts) “…so we are reaching out to evangelical leaders, running PSAs on ‘Deadliest Catch’ and with NASCAR, etc”. And of course our desperate little RWNJ snowflakes are like, “HA! I haven’t watched ‘Deadliest Catch’ in years, liberal scum!!”
Just fucking jump off a cliff already, trumpies, and take your damn virus with you.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat:
@Mary G:
the whole world’s going to be sick for a long, long time if we don’t hustle up and get everyone vaccinated, then get ‘em booster shots this fall (and next year? And next?) and then keep going.
Mary G
@WaterGirl: Dog forbid; I have been divorced for years. My three housemates are a married couple and the teen, who is the wife’s son by her first husband. I don’t like to use their names, so I call the teen the teen and when I say housemate I usually mean her, as he works 24/7 care a lot and is not usually home except on Sunday*
ETA: *Which he spends working on the garden and the honey do list we have saved for him. He has saved me a lot of money on handypeople.
BeautifulPlumage
Thank you, John, for putting it so succinctly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“they are still going to default to the belief….”
The Pale Scot
@guachi:
Fundamentalist, not conservative. with the emphasis on “mental”. All this crazy shit comes out from the evangelical “Great Awakenings” that burned back and forth thru the East Coast rural regions of America providing entertainment for people out in the sticks bored out their fucking minds. What with the lack of Aristocrats , lawyers and Cossacks to keep them on their toes like they would of if they were in Old World,. All these educated men uselessly theocractizing about Jehovah’s true intentions because the Gospels are just too bloody an inconvenient source when it comes to how to live a life in society. Ceaselessly hammering away at the rockpile looking for reasons to hoard, discriminate, treat others with disdain, to maintain a hierarchy that advantages the ones sharing the “good news”.
Oy, mishigas
Mary G
@Jeffro: Biden should put out commercials telling them not to get the shot.
I do hope that once we get most of our populatio vaccinated we can buy more and ship them overseas in boxes covered with American flags.
Brachiator
@guachi:
Fixed. //s
DonnaK
“Reactionary” is the proper word for the modern American right, but too many people incorrectly use it when they mean “reactive.”
Tenar Arha
I saw red earlier today while listening to reports re the recent Harvard speech by Justice Breyer, talking about if we do go so far as to enlarge the Court, it may endanger its “legitimacy.”
The Court is currently not remotely legitimate w the thief, the assaulter, & the fanatic additions by TFG, McConnell, & the Federalist Society. And I’ve realized in the past few years it’s been illegitimate since December 2000 & Bush v. Gore. But it really lost all credibility since Shelby County & Citizens United were decided. That Breyer apparently doesn’t understand that the Court’s “legitimacy” has been gone for a long time, plus that he doesn’t seem to comprehend that every day he waits to retire he’s risking it becoming even more radical and dangerous, now also makes me concerned about his judgement too.
cmorenc
@Redshift:
But such a place does exist – in Mayberry with Andy and Barney and Opie and Aunt Bea. OK, so that’s a fictional TV show, but that’s the sort of image conservatives have of ideal America.
The Pale Scot
@Mallard Filmore:
I’d settle for the Rastafarians getting green lighted, I always had a soft spot the Emperor Haile Selassie.
Steve in the ATL
@Mary G:
@Gravenstone:
members of management aren’t allowed to be in unions
The Pale Scot
@mrmoshpotato:
Which pretty much describes the last 14 months. I have like two shirts I can properly fit into
Brachiator
@Mary G:
India is a huge country and is central to vaccine production. They have to vaccinate a billion people. From BBC News:
It is a huge task, and they have to work against shortages and the spread of variants.
cain
In other news – Lawmakers in Idaho want to create a “Greater Idaho” taking land from most of Oregon elaving only the blue area of Portland and Salem while rest becomes some meta state. It’s the meta-gerrymandering!
Most of Oregon survive from the huge amount of tax income coming from Portland and the metro area.
Even if the legislature in Oregon was all red, nobody is going to want to give up land. That would be fucked up – they would rather make their own state.
Gvg
@cmorenc: no it isn’t. Andy was actually a good policeman who was always de esculating that foolish over aggressive deputy Barney who had issues with judgement and courage. Those writers must have seen a few things. Mayberry actually sounds like an improvement to me. I can’t remember the racial aspects of it as it was old when I was a child, but Our current “conservatives” would hate it.
Jay
Gin & Tonic
@Jay: Data security is hard work.
James E Powell
@mrmoshpotato:
The Bernie Bros and the True Left were just not going to let that bother them. See also, Gore in 2000.
Jeffro
@cain: there is clearly no limit to the contortions and distortions that the RWNJs are willing to embrace in order to cling to power/pwn the libs/keep the guy in the cardboard box next door from having a sparrow to roast.
So…knowing that…expanding SCOTUS and adding a few states and starting to talk about eliminating the EC (hell, eliminating the Senate) seems like some equally good creative thinking on our part, thinking that we ought to be doing out loud.
They want ‘Western Oregon’? Sounds good! I propose Arlington Co, VA be its own state too. More people and vastly more valuable to the U.S. Don’t like sensible gun safety and wanna insist on the right to keep weapons of war, to open-carry them everywhere? Hmm…I propose we only allow Revolutionary War-era muskets and powder, kept in a central armory, you know, like a ‘well-regulated militia’ would have.
Anyway…
Benw
I switched from “conservatives” to “assholes” years ago
debbie
There was a gun battle in the emergency room of a hospital here. Jesus.
Redshift
@Mary G:
Yeah, I think that’s happening all over, due to the screwups from the Trump-favored company rippling through. Virginia was supposed to get 120,000 J&J doses this week and is only getting 20K, I think.
Bill Arnold
It’s strange; the court majority has essentially added the right to kill random people to the First Amendment protections for religion. What the fuck were they thinking? Are the majority COVID-19 deniers? The dissent is correct.
Anything about freedom of speech on the docket? Will incitement to insurrection (or murder, etc) become protected, perhaps?
prostratedragon
@guachi: Saw Inherit the Wind again last night and was reminded that the play’s just barely satirical.
Villago Delenda Est
Need an NCO with a clipboard overseeing all this, inspecting the weapons for serviceability. Cole or Raven would do nicely in this role, I think.
Villago Delenda Est
Ralph Nader has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: That matches with what I thought I knew. Gin & Tonic explained that I was parsing the sentence wrong, so I figured it out.
p.s. having a helper is awesome.
dmsilev
@Redshift: Also expected to be shortages of J&J next week from what some of the local public health folks have said today. Hopefully things will get back on track soon.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
Distributed Denial of Secrets has been delightfully feisty.
(About)
Jeffro
I just saw some of ol’ Tucker’s latest comments about ‘replacement theory’ and wow is he off the deep end. The lying and misdirection were just amazing – I almost have to wonder who’s advising him/writing his stuff. Flat-out white supremacist/neo-Nazi crap.
WaterGirl
@Redshift: The white house idiot correspondents have been pushing on Biden – why aren’t you sharing with the rest of the world?
You just know that as soon as he shares vaccines that we can use here – with other countries – they are going to jump on him for giving vaccines when we are not fully vaccinated here at home.
Luckily, they are so transparent as to be laughable.
But this J&J clusterfuck is exactly the sort of issue that Biden’s team built into this system. Over-purchase to allow for contingencies and then we can share what’s left once we are good
I am certain that by the end of May everyone here who wants the vaccine will be able to get it.
Bill Arnold
@Villago Delenda Est:
Ralph Nader has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on his hands.
Several orders of magnitude more than that, in the fullness of time. We lost 5-10 years of serious action versus global heating. (Hundreds of millions of lives, or more.)
J R in WV
Lots of religions, historically, believed in sacrificing to their gawds. Aztecs, heck, even Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Aaron, IIRC. Burning bush and all.
The current religious minority in America is a feudalist theocratic mob of perverted preachers who want to be in control of their flock’s sex lives, especially the women and children. So many pedophiles and hebophiles in current religious leadership. Power and control is what the Supreme Court wants for their ministry. But not for thee!
And nothing Christian about any of it… all nonsense and control, no helping the others, no support for the poor, none of the rules about debt forgiveness in their holy book are discussed nor followed. If you can’t tithe properly, don’t come back!
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: come sit by me… I don’t want to share the country with these miscreants any longer just foada
BC in Illinois
@Jeffro:
Not so fast! We still have to resolve the issue of whether we’re going to permit the Federal Government to have a standing army.
dmsilev
@BC in Illinois: I propose a compromise, that we allow chairs for the soldiers.
NCSteve
Once again grateful that COVID means I never physically encounter any smug Stein-voting assholes I might be tempted to smack the shit out of every time they rule.
dnfree
@Ten Bears: that nails it.
Jeffro
@BC in Illinois: I’m good with an army standing at the border between Blue SensibleTown and Red Crazyville. It’s fucking ridiculous. It’s like they need an intervention…”Do you realize that we have had elections for 200+ years in this country and ONLY NOW, since your idiot orange emperor LOST, we’re supposed to throw the whole thing over the side? The dude was a FAILED BUSINESSMAN many times over and known con artist!”
catclub
But if the city manager hired the un/badly trained cop….
E.
I’m waiting for them to go after the commerce clause and thus dismantle the entire regulatory state. Thomas has written in favor of this.
catclub
Mississippi is about 20% vaccinated, and there are not enough who WANT it to fill the presently available appointments.
prostratedragon
@Gvg: Check. Though there was a lot that tv couldn’t do back then because of what amounted to the Code (and remember the Blacklist era had just ended, with one way of getting on it was to press for more and better representation of African-Americans), they did manage to slide other things into that show. They had Andy’s character evolve from almost Sheriff Lonesome Rhoads with old-fashioned ideas about women in the beginning to a more liberal, new South figure.
A re-creation of a routine with Don Knotts about the Gettysburg Address.
Another, similar routine on the show concerned the Emancipation Proclamation, and in the a town history pageant there is a reference to the founding of the town having been predicated on an broken treaty with the local tribe.
jonas
He’s wearing a pair of overalls, no shoes, holding a jar of mustard and just letting fucking loose on the bastards with both barrels.
Dan B
@E.: The end of the Commerce Clause is unnerving. Somalia with more guns and a different tribalism. Whee!
There are plenty of people in the Biden administration who see the existential threat the current Supremes pose to them personally. I’m hoping there’s a steady push to adding liberals before 2022.
Bill Arnold
@Dan B:
The court de-legitimized itself quite a bit with the Tandon v. Newsom 5–4 decision. The majority’s argument was absurd.
Matt McIrvin
@Mary G: The feds are recommending a pause in the J&J over the (extremely, extremely rare) clotting reactions. Nate Silver is having a cow over it because the risk is so low compared to the risk from not being vaccinated. In any event, between that and the supply issues, it sounds like nobody’s going to get that one for a while.
Jake Gibson
@Gvg:
Andy only gave Barney one bullet and required him to keep it in his pocket. The one time Barney loaded his pistol, he almost shot himself in the foot.
lee
I wonder if they opened up that you can know claim a religious exemption to any abortion restrictions. I know the Satanic Temple has done so in states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws.
Kosh III
Any time now some Talibangelist “church” will use this decision to bash gays even more.
Frak the Grand Old Posterior, their vassals and duped followers. To quote Aerys II Targaryen: “Burn them all”
LongHairedWeirdo
Indeed. In fact, take note: anyone who has the right to an opinion knows that relaxing public health restrictions, while a deadly virus is circulating (and possibly becoming deadlier), is going to result in more deaths, and *not* just among the bible study/prayer group participants.
You can’t call them pro-life, since they don’t care if people die when they could have lived; but you can call them really flippin’ stupid, because they deliberately made these decisions so if a disease like smallpox starts circulating, the rules are already in place, and require a SCOTUS decision to overturn them. This decision is likely to cost lives, and not just from this pandemic – there will be another.