Columns, Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics

From Affirmative Action to Andy Warhol: Buckle up for a Wild Supreme Court Term

Below is my column in The Hill on the start of the new Term for the Supreme Court. The column predicts that critics will likely respond to the expected new precedent by attacking the integrity rather than the interpretations of the justices.  I was wrong. The New York Times did not wait for any new decisions and attacked the integrity of the conservative justices as the “judicial arm of the Republican Party.” Does that make the three liberals justices voting together on the Court the “judicial arm of the Democratic Party”?  Of course not. Justices are only partisan to the degree that you disagree with their jurisprudential views.

Here is the column:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, “It’s hard not to have a big year at the Supreme Court.” That is, of course, manifestly true for the highest court in the land.

Some years are bigger than others, however. That certainly was the case in 2021-22, with historic decisions on abortion, gun rights, climate change and other issues.

On Monday, the new term will begin with a lineup that promises another historic series of rulings — and even greater levels of rage directed at the court.

The last term showed that a stable 6-3 majority has taken hold on the  court. Even with the addition this term of Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson, and possible swing votes from Chief Justice John Roberts or others, there are five conservative justices who have brought clarity to long-contested areas characterized by 5-4 divisions. That is likely to continue this term.

Here are just two of the “matinee” cases that could have a huge impact on both precedent and politics:

Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College

This case on the use of race in college admissions will be heard with a similar case in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

Since declaring affirmative action in admissions to be unconstitutional in 1978 in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the court has never achieved clarity on the constitutional use of race beyond barring any preference “for no reason other than race or ethnic origin.” Then-Justice Lewis Powell declared, “This the Constitution forbids,” but the court has been unable to say with any coherence and consistency what else it forbids in a line of conflicting and vague 5-4 rulings.

These cases involving alleged discrimination against Asian applicants to gain greater diversity for other minorities could produce that long-sought clarity.

In 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court divided 5-4 on upholding race admissions criteria used to achieve “diversity” in a class at Michigan Law School. (On the same day, the court ruled 6-3 to declare Michigan’s undergraduate admissions unconstitutional in the use of race in Gratz v. Bollinger.)

In Grutter, then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stressed that the court “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” That was 21 years ago, and the question is whether time has run out for race-based admissions. Justice Jackson, who served on Harvard’s board of directors, has recused herself from the Harvard case but is expected to vote in the North Carolina case.

303 Creative v. Elenis

There often are cases that generate exhaustive coverage over a potential major shift in precedent that only peter out as justices divide and the majority takes an exit ramp. That was the case in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in 2018, in which a baker was found to be in violation of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to his religious objections.

303 Creative has the makings of not just Masterpiece Cakeshop 2.0 but everything that the earlier case failed to achieve. For years, I have argued that these conflicts between discrimination laws and religious values should not be resolved under the religious clauses but under the free speech clause. Notably, this case involving Lori Smith, a graphic artist who declined on religious grounds to provide services to couples celebrating same-sex marriages, was brought to the court under both the religious and free speech clauses. However, the court accepted the case only to argue the free speech grounds — raising the likelihood of a major free speech case in the making.

The court’s new docket also is populated with other major cases that are standouts:

  • Moore v. Harper involves a challenge to the authority of state courts to set aside congressional maps in North Carolina. Some have argued that such judicial review is unconstitutional under the elections and electors clauses because it refers solely to “legislatures” in setting such rules or districts.
  • Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2012, the Court allowed the Sacketts to challenge an EPA compliance order concerning navigable waters on their property in Idaho under the Clean Water Act. A new challenge to the Ninth Circuit test could redefine the key meaning of “waters of the United States.” 
  • Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith will ask the court to decide whether a work of art is considered “transformative” for the purposes of the fair-use doctrine when it expresses a dissimilar meaning or message from the original source. The case involves Lynn Goldsmith’s photo of the musician Prince.
  • In Haaland v. Brackeen, the court must decide whether placement preferences based on race under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 violate the Constitution.

Some of these cases are unlikely to track the common narrative of a rigidly ideological court. Indeed, media coverage often exaggerates that narrative. While Chief Justice Roberts is often called “the swing vote” on the court, Justice Neil Gorsuch may be more unpredictable and impactful. Last term, he dissented in key cases, often writing vigorous dissents with his more liberal colleagues.

The liberal justices prevailed in major cases last term with support from conservative colleagues on issues ranging from upholding a Biden administration policy ending the “Remain in Mexico” decision to upholding Health and Human Services’ mandatory vaccine rule for health care workers.

Moreover, 29 percent of the cases were decided unanimously. While that is a decline from other years, it still reflects almost a third of the cases brought before the court. While Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh voted most often together (95 percent of the time), Justice Elena Kagan voted almost half of the time (48 percent) with Roberts.

That does not mean familiar ideological divides will not continue to define key cases — or fuel some anger. Last term’s decisions led Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, to denounce the conservative justices as “partisan hacks.” Yet, the six conservatives are no less partisan than the three liberal justices voting predictably together in dissent on such cases. They are all maintaining views of jurisprudence that fulfill their oaths to faithfully follow the Constitution.

None of that is likely to quell hate directed at the justices, rage that led to an attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh in June. As a new majority brings its own clarity to long-disputed areas, additional cases will be overturned. Such shifts have occurred on changing courts in the past with rejections of long-standing precedent. Yet, every overturned precedent likely will be treated as sacrosanct and inviolate despite years of conflicted rulings. It will not be the interpretations but the integrity of the justices that most likely will be attacked.

When it comes to the court and the overturning of precedents, we have learned to hate the way described by Queen Margaret in Shakespeare’s “Richard III” — “Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were; And he that slew them fouler than he is.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

156 thoughts on “From Affirmative Action to Andy Warhol: Buckle up for a Wild Supreme Court Term”

  3. What the court really needs is a case to revisit Marbury v. Madison and a judgement that puts the court back in its constitutional role. Marshall should have returned Marbury to a court with original jurisdiction and allowed the decision to be made on the facts in dispute, rather than arrogating to the Supreme Court a power not granted in the Constitution. This would be extremely helpful to our republic, even if it leads to unemployed lawyers. Surely they can learn to code.

  5. Conservatives practice some “legalese” also. Conservatives invented the “Citizens United” ruling, which I’ll try to decipher:

    Conservatives came up with a legal theory that harms corporations by piercing the “corporate veil”.

    Any corporation is two “persons” – a human person (owner/shareholders) and a non-human person (fictitious named company). For most of American history this model protected the human owner/shareholder from lawsuits, bankruptcy and liability. If a business owner lost his business or got sued, his personal home and personal assets were protected.

    Conservatives changed this model, claiming “non-human persons” (company) had religious views and a religious right to discriminate and every other right under our Bill of Rights. Unlike humans, the corporations had none of the responsibilities of human-persons. Owners and shareholders have always had religious rights, non-humans have never had constitutional rights.

    By weakening the protection of corporations, it opens up potential future lawsuits making it easier to go after a business owner’s personal assets.

    If any corporation wants to discriminate on religious grounds, they can transform their company into a “sole proprietorship” model. How can anyone oppose Affirmative Action while supporting legalese like “Citizens United”? Conservatives were very liberal when it comes to the law!

    1. Citizens United is not invented.

      Do individuals lose there rights when they act in groups ?
      That is nonsense.

    2. The corporate veil has nothing to do with Citizens United.

      Corporate personhood and the corporate veil are judicially created constructs

      Corporate personhood is a convenience for the courts. It just means that the court chooses to treat a corporation as a single individual represented by its management rather than deal with the complexity of being owned by each of its shareholders.
      This had nothing to do with CU.
      Whether you pretend for convenience that a corporation is a single person or deal with the reality that it is a collection of people – what you can not do is deprive those people of their rights because they chose to act in a group.
      The corporate veil limits the liability of shareholders to the value of their shares, and precludes holding the managers of a corporation personally liable so long as they act within the corporate bylaws.
      Atgain this has nothing to do with CU

    3. Conservatives did not change anything.
      You have entirely inverted all of this.

      There has never been a restriction on corporations – people acting in groups, holding religious or other views.
      Nor of their acting on them.
      Nor would your idiocy that people in groups – corporations must somehow be religiously or politically neutral have passed muster with our founders.
      Churches are corporations, Greenpeace is a corporation.

      The nonsense that was rejected – actually rejected so thoroughly that it was not even considered with CU was the idiocy that when people get together to act in groups that they LOOSE all their rights and that groups are NOT permitted to have religious or other views.
      That is bat$hit crazy – and has NEVER EVER had even a toe hold in the law.

      Many businesses wisely choose to be apolitical, apathetic, to stay as far from politics and religion as they can.
      They are not and never have been obligated to. Plenty of corporations exist whose sole purpose is religious, political or issue advocacy.

      Long before CU, others on the left or right have attempted to push other businesses into our out of advocacy.
      Consumers – pushed by issue advocacy groups have boycotted businesses for the purpose of getting them to act or advocate consistent with a particular view.

      Right now the left has taken over institutions – the academy, the media, big tech, entertainment and through them engages in issue advocacy.
      The ideas being pushed are often stupid, they are often inconsistent with the values of those institutions, and in some instances they may prove self destructive. But it is all perfectly legal. Disney can protheltise for the church of latter days saints or for the sexualization of toddlers.
      It is perfectly free to do so – and always has been. And disney’s customers can decide based on that or anything else whether to provide disney with their patronage.

      There is absolutely nothing in CU that was new or unique.

      1. “ Conservatives did not change anything.
        You have entirely inverted all of this.”

        Yes they did. Because this has no historical precedent and it is not in the constitution. It’s not even a good argument from an Originalism point of view.

        “ There has never been a restriction on corporations – people acting in groups, holding religious or other views.”

        Republicans held that view with almost religious zealousness until corporations became “woke”. Suddenly they are not entitled to the basic rights that SCOTUS opined in CU.

        Texas and Florida passed laws punishing them for not publishing views or banning people who violated their policies. Censoring content and banning individuals are their right. Republicans and conservatives are upset that they can do that despite claiming they have that right and now they want to take it away because they don’t like that they are being subjected to corporation’s rules and legal right to censor others.

        1. “Yes they did. Because this has no historical precedent and it is not in the constitution.”
          Please read the 7th amendment.

          “Republicans held that view with almost religious zealousness until corporations became “woke”. Suddenly they are not entitled to the basic rights that SCOTUS opined in CU.”

          I am not here to defend the right – though I am not aware of the right arguing what you claim.

          If a corporation wishes to “go woke” – that is fine.

          Any corporation may advocate on issues however the please. And consumers who value that position can respond with more support if they please.
          And those who do not value that position can reduce their business with that corporation.

          “Texas and Florida passed laws punishing them for not publishing views or banning people who violated their policies.”
          Correct – this is not about the corporation speaking with their own voice.
          This is about the corporation silencing the voices of others.

          “Censoring content and banning individuals are their right.”
          Nope.

          “Republicans and conservatives are upset that they can do that despite claiming they have that right”
          But they did not claim they had that right.
          CU is about the right to speak, not the right to censor.

          “and now they want to take it away because they don’t like that they are being subjected to corporation’s rules and legal right to censor others.”
          Please cite the right to censor in the constitution ?

          Look personally I do not share the views of the right here.
          Social media should be free to censor should they wish.
          But if you excercise editorial control over speech – you are subject to the same defamation provisions are all other editors.
          Further you are always subject to defamation claims for your OWN speech.
          When you censor something saying that it is false – you had damn well better be correct.
          Whatever your rules are, you must make those rules clear and public and you must follow them – otherwise you are violating the contract with your users and defaming them. Contract provisions that are not clear are null and void.

          While I do not fully agree with Conservatives here, it is still true that legitimate application of the law as it exists would prohibit much of what is going on.

          Government censorship is strictly prohibited – this is not even a close call.
          There is no loophole for private censorship directed by government.
          Apparently Goggle just censored millions of conservative fundraising emails at the behest of the government.

          The left ranted because purportedly Russia ran a few stupid political adds after the election was over.

          The one party absolutely forbidden from acting in an election is our govenrment.
          And yet that is clearly happening.
          Govenrment is not allowed to participate in censorship at all – much less political censorship during an election.

          Nor is that the only link between government and the censors in social media.
          Government is constitutionally barred from intefering with anyone’s speech – either directly or though private agents.

          Yet that is occuring.

          As to purely private censorship by social media – though some of that should be subject to defamation claims,
          ultimately that is a self correcting problem.

          Twitter’s stock value is tanking. As is FaceBooks, and Netflix, But for Billionaires propping them up much of the left wing nut media would be bankrupt today. If those billionaires are prepared to lose money that is their business. I do not care.
          But the market does. 9 of the top 10 news shows today are on FOX.

          Those in the media – Foax, CNN, WaPo, Twitter, FB, Amazon, Google can decide if they want to make money or be woke.
          They can chose as they please.

          The principles of the free market assure is that if you place your values above those of your customers – someone else will eventually move in and take your market.

          1. “ Texas and Florida passed laws punishing them for not publishing views or banning people who violated their policies.”
            Correct – this is not about the corporation speaking with their own voice.
            This is about the corporation silencing the voices of others.”

            Wrong, This IS about corporations speaking with their own voice. You said it yourself Corporations are a group of individuals and they have free speech rights as well. Texas and Florida are punishing PRIVATE corporations for exercising their free speech rights to express their views, censor speech they don’t agree with, because they are NOT bound by the prohibitions of the 1st amendment, and because they have a right to control the content of THEIR platforms as they see fit. Their TOS is also a legal agreement between users and the PRIVATE corporation that allows them to control what users can and cannot do on the platform. Even Truth Social does this. The CAN silence the voices of other if they choose to according to their TOS which EVERYONE agrees to the second they hit the “I AGREE” button upon signing up. Users essentially and stupidly give away their rights the moment they click on that button.

            “ Censoring content and banning individuals are their right.”
            Nope.”

            Yes, because the constitution’s prohibitions apply ONLY to government. NOT private companies or individuals. The solution to avoiding that problem is the simplest of them all. Don’t join a social media platform that does it. Even Turley’s blog censors users who violate the TOS despite Turley’s adamant defense of free speech that is utterly offensive. He relies on the excuse that his blog is managed by a third party and he has no control over who is banned or censored. I personally don’t buy that since Darren is a moderator he has control over what or who can be posted. He keeps reminding people and EDITS content when more than two hyperlinks are included in a post. That shows that he is MODIFYING content and ALLOWING it to post. WordPress isn’t doing that. Darren is. This is why Turley’s protests about free speech being attacked by “big tech” is as hypocritical as it gets.

            “ Republicans and conservatives are upset that they can do that despite claiming they have that right”
            But they did not claim they had that right.
            CU is about the right to speak, not the right to censor.”

            Yes they did, because it is part of their right. Free speech is not only about the right to speak. It’s also about the right from government FORCING them to speak.

            1. You seem to be confused.

              There is a constitutional right to free speech.
              Yes, the prohibition against censorship only applies to government

              But there is no right to censor.

              The left keeps telling me that whatever is not a right can be regulated.
              TX and FL are regulating censorship – which is not a right.

              This is YOUR view of the world and the powers of government.

              I would separately point out that government is not merely prohibited from directly infringing on rights – it ca not do so indirectly.
              It can not use others as agents to do what it can not do directly.
              It can not do so even if they are willing.

              Not only can TX and FL regulate censorship – especially by banning it.

              But no government federal, state or local can participate in private censorship.
              Free speech is a right, censorship is not.

            2. There have been many claims that Turley censors – beyond the WP filter and restricting posts of copyright material beyond what fair use allows.

              The former is part of WP’s spam filtering. Is there someone here who wishes to argue that WP’s filtering which is trivial to get arround is so heinous that we should all drown in SPAM ?

              The latter is a legal requirement. Turley is liable for the copyright infringement of posters.

              We hear many claims that Turley(darren) is banning people willy nilly. But no one has offered credible evidence so far.

              Posts do get deleted if they are children of posts that must be removed for copyright violation.

              I would prefer that were not so. But Turley is not obligated to rewrite wordpress to deal with a rare flaw.

              I see no evidence of viewpoint censorship – your posts are here. Nutacha’s are. It is not like there is a shortage of left wing nuts.
              And I do not hear anyone not on the left complaining about getting censored.

              So what is it that you are claiming ?

            3. This is not about what you buy.
              It is about what you can demonstrate.

              I have asked repeatedly for evidence of a post that was deleted that should not have been
              The best we have so far is the childern of deleted parents.
              That is not evidence of viewpoint censorship.
              Just repost what was deleted.

              I will join you in pleaded for viewpoint neutral moderation – when you demonstrate we do not have that.

            4. “Yes they did, because it is part of their right. Free speech is not only about the right to speak. It’s also about the right from government FORCING them to speak.”
              I have no idea what you mean.
              No one is being forced to speak by the CU decision.

              There is a right to speek freely.
              There is a right to silence.
              There is no right to compel speech
              There is not right to compel silence.

            5. Yes Darren is taking posts that WP rejects and in some instances making very minor changes so that they can post.

              That is not censorship, that is anti-censorship.

              But I am sure that if you demand that Daren not modify a post of yours that WP blocks Daren will likely just let your post be blocked.

              You are free to demand your own censorship.

          2. “ and now they want to take it away because they don’t like that they are being subjected to corporation’s rules and legal right to censor others.”
            Please cite the right to censor in the constitution ?”

            That’s the point. The constitution’s prohibitions are limits that ONLY apply to government. Not private companies or individuals. They have their own rules and when they have agreements that others sign and agree on in exchange for using their platforms or services they legally CAN censor and ban users that violate THEIR terms. The 1st amendment doesn’t NOT apply to them. They literally can’t violate the 1st amendment’s prohibitions on censoring speech because those prohibitions are specifically created to limit government not private individuals, companies, or corporations.

            “ When you censor something saying that it is false – you had damn well better be correct.
            Whatever your rules are, you must make those rules clear and public and you must follow them – otherwise you are violating the contract with your users and defaming them. Contract provisions that are not clear are null and void.”

            That is the problem. Their rules ARE clear and public. Their TOS explicitly makes it clear that YOU the user agree to the microsecond you click on that “I agree” button. John Oliver had a segment on this very issue and pointed out that the vast majority of users mindlessly give away their rights without ever reading the entirety of the TOS and every time they update the TOS.
            It’s only when they find out they are being censored or banned that they get upset and cry foul and claim their free speech rights are being violated without knowing that they willingly or ignorantly agreed to the terms in exchange for the PRIVILEGE of posting on THEIR platforms.
            Texas and Florida are punishing social media for exercising THEIR free speech rights and the constitution prohibits government from infringing on THEIR rights.

            1. “That’s the point. The constitution’s prohibitions are limits that ONLY apply to government. ”

              Correct, but government can not circumvent constitutional prohibitions by acting through private actors.
              Government may not censor.
              It may not recomend private companies censor.
              it may not make it easier for private companies to censor.
              Government can not get within 10,000 miles of censoring.

              The constitution is not a list of limits on government intended to be gamed.

            2. With respect to SM companies specifically, you ignore numerous factors.
              And misapply the actual law.

              The relationship of a user to a service is contractual. the contract a user agreed to when they joined the service is a standard and binding two way contract. The representations of social media companies to entice people to join their services, are typically considered part of that contract – even when the contract excludes them. the alternative is they are Fraud.
              Social media – particularly Twitter promised free speech – real free speech, until its employees became dominated by left wing nuts. That promise is binding. It is probably revocable – but not easily, and not merely by changing the TOS.

              Constantly changing Terms of Service are a contract of adhesion – a kind of legal version of bait and switch, and they are pretty universally interpreted against the authors. Any ambiguity goes to the user. Vague terms are just void.

              If I hire you to replace the brakes on my car, and I deliver the car and you fix the brakes and will not return my car claiming a new TOS requires that I pay for an oil change when I change the brakes – that will be voided – possibly with prejudice by the courts.

              You left wing nuts like to pretend that we have not had thousands of years to work out contracts and how they work.

            3. “That is the problem. Their rules ARE clear and public. Their TOS explicitly makes it clear that YOU the user agree to the microsecond you click on that “I agree” button”

              Not even close to true. I would further note that private actors are more strongly bound to apply their rules consistently.

              Lets try and example.

              What is the basis for which SM was able to censor Hunter Biden Laptop stories ?
              Find an item in FB’s TOS that covers censoring the truth ?

              Why was the laptop stories censored – no actually russian disinformation, while the collusion delusion was not – actual russian disinformation ?

              Oops we screwed up, does not fly.
              NYPost likely has a damages claim. That story would have been much more popular and the Post would have made lots of advertising revenue from it.

              I would further note that the TOS can not waive some rights and responsibilities.
              It is unlikely I can agree to allow you to defame me.

              there is a huge difference between a factory saying – no political discussions on the shop floor.
              And Twitter saying – we have fact checked your post on Ivarmectin and it is wrong and dangerous.
              Frankly if they are WRONG in censoring health information they could potentially face a class action suit from people who might have acted differently had they gotten the truthful information that was supressed.

            4. John Oliver is partly right. But you and he are also both wrong.
              TOS’s are contract’s of adhesion. The legal standard for reading them is radically different.
              All ambiguity will be interpreted in favor of the user.

              The fundamental issue is NOT that users blindly click through – it is that they have two choices, agree of lose something that they previously had.
              No contract is infinite, and Twitter is not bound to its original contract forever.

              Further after the fact contract changes that are necescary or do to factors outside twitters control, or primarily neutral will not likely pose problems.

              But TOS changes that fundimentally change users rights – if not automatically null and void, will atleast be viewed with scrutiny.

              Further, Twitter has no compelling need to modify its contract. They did not lose a massive data center, or get hit by a huricane, or lose a lawsuit. Changes in TOS that are arbitrary or serve no obvious purpose. Will and should be viewed dimly.

              If I am employed in a factory, and one day the management announces that employees can no longer wear brown shoes.
              and there is no basis for that restriction – it is highly unlikely that restriction will be treated as binding.
              Conversely if they say all workers must wear safety glasses – that will.

              It Twitter marketed itself for years as the social media site for the woke – it could get away with throwing the woke off.
              Conversely if it marketed itself as the free speech forum of the internet (which it did) it probably can not get rid of Richard Spensor so long as his posts are similar to those of say antifa members they allow to remain.

              I would further note that no one really buys you lefties new found respect for the autonomy of corporations.
              We have had centuries of left wing nuts fighting against employers termination of at will employees.

              Is there anyone that doubts that if AOC or Biden were thrown off of Twitter tomorow – you left wing nuts would be ranting about free speech and the constitution ?

            5. “Texas and Florida are punishing social media for exercising THEIR free speech rights and the constitution prohibits government from infringing on THEIR rights.”
              Already been through this. Whether you like it or not there is no recognized constitutional right to censor.

              YOU are the ones who have claimed that government can regulate everything.
              Well TX and FL are regulating Social Media.

              Mostly I think this is a bad idea. The right answer is for SM to quit censoring and fight for free speech.

              That is the most defensible position.
              TX and FL are not the only places trying to control censorship.
              So is China, so is the EU.

              It is possible that SM might prevail against TX and FL – though I doubt it.
              But SM has already capitulated to China, and will .certainly lose or capitulate to the EU.

              China is not looking for free speech – just to force their own censorship.
              The EU is not looking for Free speech either.

              In the end Twitter is going to have different rules for what it can and can no do throughout the world.

              They already have a huge problem. Their content filtering works almost entirely in english.
              What you call the rules that we have all agreed to do not apply to posts not in english throughout the world.

              Regardless, you are making a mess.
              Have fun

          3. “ Those in the media – Foax, CNN, WaPo, Twitter, FB, Amazon, Google can decide if they want to make money or be woke.
            They can chose as they please.”

            They sure can. HOWEVER, they can’t be punished by government for choosing to do so and that is what Texas and Florida did with social media and in Florida punishing Disney for expressing their view on the governor’s policy.

            Every company has had issues s with the value of their stock. This is not a problem exclusive to Twitter or Facebook. In fact Truth Social is in a much worse position than those two platforms. They are failing and recent attempts to merge with other companies for much needed financial support have failed precisely because the free market AND the public are not satisfied with their product. Twitter and Facebook have an advantage of being much larger and more established than Truth social and most of the other conservative social media platforms. It shows two things, They are not as popular as they claim to be and it shows the true size of the base. It’s much smaller than it is purported to be. It also doesn’t appeal to the majority of the population as it does for Twitter and Facebook.

            1. “They sure can. HOWEVER, they can’t be punished by government for choosing to do so and that is what Texas and Florida did with social media and in Florida punishing Disney for expressing their view on the governor’s policy.”
              I am not familiar with the details of the FL and TX laws, and the details matter. From what little I know, I suspect I would oppose them. These problems will sort themselves out – censorship always results in the destruction of trust and government failure.

              But addressing what I do know – you are mischaracterizing the laws badly.
              There is an open constitutional question as to whether censorship is a first amendment right, or whether it is a first amendment violation. The courts have split. I do not think the answer is clear. but I lean towards censorship probably being a right.
              A bad one, but still a right. I am libertarian. I support people doing stupid things like injecting fentanyl. Censoring others is nearly always stupid. Though I am still iffy here because censorship harms others, Shooting fentanyl harms you.
              As I said the answer is not clear.

              Regardless with respect to your claim – all censorship punishes someone – so YOU clearly are not opposed to punishing people.
              All Government regulation punishes people – atleast in the way you are using the word punish.

              Regardless the only difference between punish and regulate is YOUR subjective judgement regarding intent.

              In YOUR world it is ok to punish/regulate CO2, but apparently not censorship.
              I can not see how YOU using your purpoerted values can oppose regulating censorship.
              All you seem to have is that you WANT Social Media to censor – if and only if they are doing so favorably to you.
              That is not much of a basis for favoring or opposing legislation.

              With specific respect to Disney – FL never should have given Disney preferential treatment in the first place.
              I thoroughly oppose government providing preferences to anyone for any reason.
              No special tax breaks, no use of eminent domain for private actors.
              So removing Disney’s special status is ending a bad choice, that government never should have done.

              “Every company has had issues s with the value of their stock. This is not a problem exclusive to Twitter or Facebook.”
              FB stock lost almost half its value all at once in Mar. Twitter lost 30% this year, Microsoft has lost 15% all year.
              Everybody is not seeing the same problems.

              TMTG’s fundimental problem is political interferance from the Biden admin – which really better be very careful and the extent of the abuse of power for political purposes they are engaged in is frightening and increasing obvious to even the blind.

              I would note that Rumble which is mirroring TMTG has successfully completed its merger with a Trump SPAC.
              My guess is the SEC figured they could not delay two Trump SPAC’s concurrently.

              “In fact Truth Social is in a much worse position than those two platforms.”
              False. TMTG is a startup, it is as to be expected highly volatile, but it is actually up 78% in 2022, But way down from its high.

              “They are failing and recent attempts to merge with other companies for much needed financial support have failed precisely because the free market AND the public are not satisfied with their product. ”
              Nope the problem is the SEC and Idiotic DC grand Jury’s
              “Twitter and Facebook have an advantage of being much larger and more established”
              Absolutely – startups always have it harder.

              “than Truth social and most of the other conservative social media platforms. It shows two things, They are not as popular as they claim to be and it shows the true size of the base.”
              No it just shows the problems with startups, and how difficult it is to take on dominant incumbents.
              It has 15M users now according to Similarweb.

              I pay very little attention to Truth. Maybe it will turn into something, maybe it won’t. I do not use Twitter at all,
              I use Facebook marketplace, as well as as a login tool, but I would not dream of posting on FB, or following anyone else.
              And Twitter has devolved to spittle fights am among toddlers.
              Parler just successfully completed Series B financing – despite being targeted by Amazon, Youtube, and Twitter.
              Parler has not yet recovered from the damage done – they should have received a multibillion tortuous interferance and breach of contract award.

              “It’s much smaller than it is purported to be. It also doesn’t appeal to the majority of the population as it does for Twitter and Facebook.”
              You are somewhat correct that those sites that are offering actual free speech, are growing slowly.
              That does not mean that Twitter and FB have not seriously damaged their brand.
              One part of what appears to be occuring – at this time, is that people are moving controversial topics off of Twitter and FB,
              But FB as an example remains a platform for non-political engagement.

              We will have to see if that holds.

              Regardless, you seem to think that I require Freemarkets to produce specific results – immediately.

              My argument is that free markets will ultimately resolve these issues. Not that they will do so in the way I prefer.

              I highly doubt that FB or Twitter will fail – though anything is possible. It is not like major companies have not faded.
              It is far more likely that FB and Twitter will change as they grasp they face trouble down the line.

              Your left wing nut nonsense is not all that popular. As I noted 9 of the top 10 news shows in the US are on Fox.
              CNN is actively engaged in trying to move out of its left wing bubble – it must do that to survive.
              NYT and WaPo would have failed already if they needed to profit.

              If as seems unlikely I am wrong and woke leftist news, entertainment and social media are truly popular – then so be it. The market speaks.

              Personally I think Republicans are way behind on critical technology shifts. Not behind Democrats.
              but behind where they need to be. Part of that is that some of what they need to do is unpaletable to them.
              Republicans arenot used to being in the position of being supressed by others as opposed to doing the suppression.

              Republicans need to embrace things like Crypto, and web services that are distributed and divorced from the established institutional players. This is uncomfortable for them as this is the world of hackers, porn, and drugs.
              But it is also the domain of freedom, and where technology is best protected from censorship.

              Globally we are in a financial war over Cyrpto. The value is indisputable. There is zero doubt that crypto is the financial future.
              It is just by far the most efficient way to clear funds. there are also many many other things crypto can do – such as provide clear title to an asset. Much of the value add for crypto is a harder sell for the west – as those features already exist in the west in inferior forms. but the less developed countries are leapfrogging the West in some areas. the chinese completely skipped credit and debit cards and went to smartphone based payment systems. The US is lagging there.

              The weakness of fiat money in underdeveloped countries is driving crytpo there. But displacing credit cards, and ATMs’s in the west is going to be much harder. But it is inevitable, the technology is far superior.
              The big fight will be over the adoption of the cypherpunk crypto vs whatever banks and governments come up with.
              or whether the cypherpunks will capitulate to government regulation. This is a real david vs goliath battle.
              It is also a very important one. Banks just want to win and control things, and make money. but they are intrinsically beholding to government. Government does not want crypto and if they have to have it they want it as similar to the existing financial fabric – where they can control it subpeona it, monitor it, ….. The core problem is that crypto is inherently unamenable to what government wants. Banks will probably be able to create crypto currencies that governments like. But they will be inherently insecure.

              Regardless crypto is a massively anti-censorship tool. The govenrment has strong armed several credit card vendors to specially code gun and ammunition purchases. That will drive those buyers to cash, or crypto.
              Gun owners are insanely paranoid about government – and the left goes way way way out of their way to prove their paranoia is justified.

              Each little step like this slowly damages current institutions.
              And it is unlikely they will be reversable.

              The number of SM users not on the majro platforms may be small, but they are not coming back.
              The number of crypto uses may be small – but they are not coming back.

          4. “ There is no loophole for private censorship directed by government.
            Apparently Goggle just censored millions of conservative fundraising emails at the behest of the government.”

            You’re gonna have to cite the source for that claim.

            “ The left ranted because purportedly Russia ran a few stupid political adds after the election was over.”

            A foreign government trying to get involved on OUR election is a different problem. They DID run ads and they DID interfere in our election thru social media.

            “ Nor is that the only link between government and the censors in social media.
            Government is constitutionally barred from intefering with anyone’s speech – either directly or though private agents.

            Yet that is occuring.”

            No. Government doesn’t directly tell social media that they should censor speech. That grey area is when government POINTS OUT to social media platforms that THEIR own rules are being violated by conservative or even liberal activists. That in itself is NOT illegal or unconstitutional, but it merits honest debate. As long as a TOS is violated and ANYONE including government points it out a social media platform is the sole entity that can decide what to do about it. Even Trump’s Truth Social is subject to that.

            1. I do not have to do anything.
              I am sorry that you are getting your news from a bubble that does not cover anything that might challenge your left wing nut ego.
              https://arxiv.org/pdf/2203.16743.pdf

              A complaint is being filed with the FEC regarding the 2022 election.

              1. John B. Say, you made a claim without evidence. You say that google censored millions of emails at the behest of government without evidence. If you don’t want to cite evidence of your claim that is your choice. That leaves us with the fact that your claim is just a baseless assumption.

                1. “That leaves us with the fact that your claim is just a baseless assumption.”
                  False that is not how credibility works.

                  Something is not baseless because YOU do not know its base.

                  When support is not provided ONE factor is the credibility of the poster.
                  I am rarely wrong – because whether I provide sources, I check them.
                  And because I correct my errors.
                  You may not trust me – your choice.
                  But I have earned the trust of others.

                  Conversely if an unsuported claim from an anonymous poster – would be presumed baseless – anonymous can not establish a reputation.

                  An unsupported post be you would be presumed baseless, you are constantly wrong, and never correct.

                  Credibility is something you earn.

                2. Federally backed censorship machine raises separation of powers, election meddling questions

                  “I just need to find out how many people I need to name on lawsuits and the social media companies,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says regarding DHS-supported partnership’s possible actions against her campaign. Elections expert says censorship could “absolutely” qualify as in-kind contribution.https://justthenews.com/government/congress/federally-backed-censorship-machine-raises-separation-powers-election-meddling

                  1. The one and only group that should be absolutely forbidden to have anything to do with elections, beyond printing ballots and counting votes is government.

                    Never never never should the people in office have anything to do with who will be in office after an election.
                    Completely independent of government being forbidden to directly or indirectly participate in censorship,.
                    They are also forbidden to influence elections.

                4. consortium of four private groups worked with the departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to censor massive numbers of social media posts they considered misinformation during the 2020 election, and its members then got rewarded with millions of federal dollars from the Biden administration afterwards, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News.

                  https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/biden-administration-rewarded-private-entities-got-2020-election?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter#article

            2. “A foreign government trying to get involved on OUR election is a different problem.”
              A completely unsolvable one.
              the US meddles in elections throughout the world.
              The Ukrainian Ambassador to the US put up Anti-Trump screeds on the Ukrainian embassy web site in 2016.

              There is one and only one person, group, institution that may not speak in US elections – that is the US governmnt.

              You can complain about foreign interferance all you want. So long as it is in the form of speech you can not preveent it.

              I would further note the purported Russian interferance was not by Russia, but by a private company in Russia – that is funded By oligarchs. Putin uses it to influence Russian elections, as well as spew Russian propoganda world wide.
              Again something you can not stop.
              This company rant a tiny number of really bad adds, mostly AFTER the election. The adds were for Bernie, Trump and Clinton in about equal numbers – and they were really really bad. No one was “influenced” by any of these.

              Not that it matters – because you can not stop people from engaging in influence – persuasion.

              Did anyone – from Russia or anywhere – threaten, coerce, or bribe a voter ?

              We heard those of you on the left repeatedly tell us that Electing Trump would destroy our relations with other countries.
              Where did you get that from ? Did you make it up out of thin air ? Or did some other person with no reason o know tell you that ?

              The only means by which you could say such a thing and have it be credible is if foriegn leaders or their staff told others that.
              That would be “influencing” our elections.

              The EU openly interfered in the recent Italian election – threatening consequences for Italy if the elected the supposed far right candidate. Isn’t that foreign interferenace ?

              The US constantly meddles in foreign elections – are you saying that we can do it, but others can’t ?

              During US elections – John Oliver voices his political views – he is not american – is that foreign interferenace ?
              The Guardian and the Daily mail attack US candidates left and right – is that foreign interference?

              You can not and should not stop anyone anywhere from speaking about pretty much anything – including foreigners regarding US elections.

              “They DID run ads and they DID interfere in our election thru social media.”t

              Lets presume Putin ran billions of SM adds, lets say they were really really good – far better than US adds.

              SO WHAT ? Did Putin go into the voting booth with anyone, hold a gun to their head and tell them how to vote ?
              Did he give them money for voting a specific way ?

              The FACT is what you are alluding to was non-partisan, mostly after the election and so bad it had no effect.

              But even if it did – So what ?

              The US press and Social Media Killed the TRUTH about the Hunter Biden laptop, and the Biden families corrupt dealings in Ukraine during the 2020 campaign. there is ZERO doubt that actually flipped the election. It was fraud, it was immoral.

              Ultimately there is one and only one party that can not attempt through speech to influence US elections – and that is the US government.

              1. “ You can complain about foreign interferance all you want. So long as it is in the form of speech you can not preveent it.”

                Actually PRIVATE companies can. Individuals can.

                “ During US elections – John Oliver voices his political views – he is not american – is that foreign interferenace ?”

                Actually he is a U.S. citizen.

                “ The US press and Social Media Killed the TRUTH about the Hunter Biden laptop, and the Biden families corrupt dealings in Ukraine during the 2020 campaign. there is ZERO doubt that actually flipped the election. It was fraud, it was immoral.”

                You have no credible evidence of those claims. You can lie all you want and that is your right. It would serve you better to include credible evidence of your claims.

                1. ““ You can complain about foreign interferance all you want. So long as it is in the form of speech you can not preveent it.”
                  Actually PRIVATE companies can. Individuals can.”
                  Double false.
                  First that really can not be done practically. One of the reasons that FB and twitter are accused of being arbitrary and capricious is that it is beyond their ability to engage in the scale of censorship you want.
                  Next, private actors control their property. They do not control the world.

                2. “You have no credible evidence of those claims. You can lie all you want and that is your right. It would serve you better to include credible evidence of your claims.”

                  Of course I do. Are you actually still trying to argue that the Hunter Biden laptop is russian disinformation ?

                  Or is it your claim that dozens of pols are wrong ?

                  The election hinged on 45,000 votes – out of about 20M.
                  Flipping it would require 23000 Biden voters to vote for Trump or 45000 to stay home.
                  6% of democrat voters polled said they would have changed their vote had they known the laptop facts.
                  Biden only won the popular vote by 4% – if all those democrats are telling polsters the Truth it would have been a Trump landslide.
                  If only 1 in 100 of those democrats who claim they would change their votes did – that would flip the election.
                  You do not realize how close this election was.

                3. Svelaz.
                  I know it is hard to beleive – given that is the norm with lefties.
                  But I do not make things up.
                  Lots of people here know that.

            3. “No. Government doesn’t directly tell social media that they should censor speech.”
              This is already very well documented, and with certainty far more will come to light over time.
              It is unlikely we have seen more than the tip of the ice berg.

              The FBI came to Zuckerberg during the 2020 election looking to push FB into censorship.

              “That grey area is when government POINTS OUT to social media platforms that THEIR own rules are being violated by conservative or even liberal activists.”
              No there is no grey area. The ONLY instutions or people that MAY NOT participate in censorship – is government.
              The only institutions or people that MAY NOT influence elections in anyway is government.

              There are no grey areas. Further Government is the one institution that does NOT have a free speech right.
              Government has no rights, only powers.

              The SOLE purpose of government is the protection of rights – not influencing anyone regarding anything.

              “That in itself is NOT illegal or unconstitutional”
              Except that it is.

              “but it merits honest debate”
              Nope. Government has no free speech rights.
              and may not even participate in censorship.

              “As long as a TOS is violated and ANYONE including government points it out a social media platform is the sole entity that can decide what to do about it.”
              Nope. You make multiple claims here.

              First TOS are contracts of adhesion – they must in all instance be read in favor of the user. All ambiguity must favor the user.
              The only fully binding contract is the one you agreed to and the terms you agreed to at the time you signed up.

              Nor is SM free to do whatever the please. They are bound to the original contract AND to th extent subsequent TOS’s limit the SM company they are bound the the TOS.
              Regardless they are not free to do whatever they want.

              Does your cell phone provider get to monitor your calls and cancel your service if they do not like what you are saying ?

              “Even Trump’s Truth Social is subject to that.”
              Again, not republican. Further I am not familiar with Truth.
              However there are plenty of services that:
              Do not censor political content AT ALL.
              Do not censor “misinformation” AT ALL.
              Censor nothing except content that is ACTUALLY illegal – such as child pornography.

              Recent supreme court decisions have found that there is very little that government can make illegal on social media.

              1. “ No. Government doesn’t directly tell social media that they should censor speech.”
                This is already very well documented, and with certainty far more will come to light over time.”

                if it’s so well documented where is your proof? Cite the evidence.

                “ The FBI came to Zuckerberg during the 2020 election looking to push FB into censorship.”

                False, the FBI was only warning Zuckerberg about potential foreign influence being used thru Facebook. Warning and pushing censorship are two very different things. Your mischaracterization of what the FBI did is deliberate.

                “ No there is no grey area. The ONLY instutions or people that MAY NOT participate in censorship – is government.
                The only institutions or people that MAY NOT influence elections in anyway is government.”

                They are NOT doing that. Government suggesting or pointing out to social media that certain actors ARE violating their policies or TOS is perfectly legal and not a direct influence as you incorrectly assume. This is exactly why it is a grey areas. Your need for an absolute bright line where there is none leads you to make too many assumptions.

                “ That in itself is NOT illegal or unconstitutional”
                Except that it is.”

                NO it’s not. Nothing in the constitution says government has no free speech rights. Can you cite anything in the constitution saying explicitly that government does not have free speech rights?

                1. There are several court cases that have produced plenty of evidence of Biden admin officials seeking censorship from SM.
                  Google is your friend.

                2. The FBI “warns” people to get them to ACT. FB acted in the only way available to them – censoring the NYPOST.

                  This is a big deal. This is election interferance by the FBI.

                3. “They are NOT doing that. Government suggesting or pointing out to social media that certain actors ARE violating their policies or TOS is perfectly legal and not a direct influence as you incorrectly assume. This is exactly why it is a grey areas. Your need for an absolute bright line where there is none leads you to make too many assumptions”

                  There is a bright line. Government may not censor. It may not do so directly. it may not do so indirectly. It may not encourage others who can do so legally to do so. There is no grey area.
                  You really do not know anything about first amendment law. There were numerous instances during Trump’s presidency where Trump said something that implied that something or someone should be censored.
                  The left ranted,
                  In more than one instance Turley ranted.
                  I ranted.
                  The only reason that this was not a bigger issue is that no one DID anything about it.
                  Government may not ask, it may not suggest. it may not hint, that someone should be censored.
                  It may not do so if what they want censored is racist, or obviously wrong.

                  I would note that todate there is no actual evidence of russian disinformation in the 2020 election
                  There is also so far no evidence that the FBI had any foundation for what they told FB.

                4. Government does not have any rights.
                  It has powers.
                  The powers it has are listed in the constitution EXPLICITLY.
                  The first amendment bars govenrment from infringing on the rights of the PEOPLE.
                  There is nothing in the constitution that gives government a single right, much less a free speech right.

                5. Enemies list? Fed-backed censorship machine targeted 20 news sites

                  Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Epoch Times and Breitbart were identified among the “most prominent domains” whose election coverage was cited in tweets flagged by the Election Integrity Partnership and its collaborators.

                  https://justthenews.com/accountability/watchdogs/news-organizations-targeted-fascist-public-private-partnership-stamp-out?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

                  John, Svelaz is useless. He lies and as you say is intentionally obtuse. He has zero credibility.

              2. “ First TOS are contracts of adhesion – they must in all instance be read in favor of the user. All ambiguity must favor the user.
                The only fully binding contract is the one you agreed to and the terms you agreed to at the time you signed up.”

                No, here you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what contracts are. The party issuing the contract is ALWAYS in favor of the issuer, always. Since there is no ambiguity in social media platforms TOS anyone signing up and agreeing to the contrast is voluntarily giving up their rights when it comes to free speech.

                The TOS IS the binding agreement and when they update their agreement it is insured again and users simply click on “I agree” to the new terms . This happens all the time. In their TOS it is explicitly spelled out that they reserve the right to change the terms at any time and the moment you hit “I agree” it means exactly what it says, YOU AGREE to the new terms. People stupidly and willingly in a rush to get back into the platform AGREE to the new terms. They are legally binding.
                Just like Trump found out that the he could only litigate disputes in California courts according to the TOS that he AGREED to.

                “ Nor is SM free to do whatever the please. They are bound to the original contract AND to th extent subsequent TOS’s limit the SM company they are bound the the TOS.
                Regardless they are not free to do whatever they want.”

                Yes they are free to do what ever they want because the original contract and any of their updates include the right to change the contract for anytime for any reason. This is standard in nearly every contract.

                “ Recent supreme court decisions have found that there is very little that government can make illegal on social media.”

                That is correct, but that still allows social media to determine what they won’t allow on their platforms and that includes censorship and banning individuals for stating certain points of view without violating the 1st amendment.

                1. Please go retake contracts.
                  Contracts are ALWAYS read with all ambiguity AGAINST the writer of the contract.

                  I have dealt with contracts all my life – you are full of Schiff.

                  “Fundamental principles of contract interpretation.

                  Construing the contract against the party who wrote it.
                  Sometimes, the parties will disagree as to the meaning of a particular phrase or clause in the contract. It may very well be that each party’s interpretation is a reasonable one.

                  Just as an example, assume the contract states that Party A will make “monthly payments of $1000” to Party B. But, Party A says he meant at the end of each month, while Party B says he intended to be paid at the beginning of each month.

                  Both interpretations are reasonable. But, if Party A drafted the contract, the court will adopt Party B’s interpretation. The rationale is that Party A had the opportunity to make the contract very clear. Because Party A did not do so, the court will interpret the contract in favor of Party B.”

                2. “Contracts of adhession
                  An adhesion contract, also known as a contract of adhesion, is a contract where the parties are of such disproportionate bargaining power that the party of weaker bargaining power could not have negotiated for variations in the terms of the contract. These contracts are prepared by the party with greater bargaining power for use in all similar business transactions and given to customers on a take-it-or-leave it basis. ”

                  https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract

                  While all contracts are read against the writer (contra your claim).
                  Courts have the power to strike parts or all of a contract of adhesion.

                  There is zero doubt that Click to accept TOS’s are contracts of adhession.

                  The only contract with less force than a contract of adhesion is no contract at all.

                3. A contract that specifies that you can change any term at any time for any reason – is not a contract.

                  Whether you like it or not modifying the terms of a contract after the initial agreement is legally VERY HARD.
                  It requires the FREE consent of the other party. Free meaning they have the right to say NO and STILL maintain their rights under the original contract.

                  Lets say I write a lease. That lease says you pay me rent of $100/month each month for a year and you get the right to occupy the apartment.
                  Lets say given your claim that I include a term that says – and I can modify the lease at anytime.

                  You pay the deposit, first month and move in.
                  You are there 3 months and I send you a lease modification that says Rent is now $1000/month and if you do not agree you are evicted.

                  Do you actually think this will hold up in court ?

                  Not a chance.

                  I write new leases for existing tenants all the time. To get a new lease that is legally binding I MUST give them something they do not already have, AND they have to be able to say no and return to the original lease.

                  An example I agree to NOT evict a tenant who is 2 months behind on their rent, if they agree to catch up with additional payments of over the next 6 months, and agree to a rent increase. Or agree to a default judgement if they fail to meet the new terms.

                  I can not modify the lease of a tenant without their agreement, and that agreement is only valid if they can say no and retain the original lease.

              3. Government is NOT prohibited from saying whatever it wants. It has free speech rights as anyone else. However it is the only institute restricted from speech of others.

                When the government puts up a monument is it exercising it’s free speech rights? What about when it removes it? Is it censorship? This is why there ARE grey areas.

                1. People have rights
                  Government has powers.
                  Free speech is not a power granted to government in the constitution.

                  There is a difference between free speech and Speech.
                  No one said government must stand mute.
                  Only that it can not speak beyond what is necescary for the execution of its powers.

                  As a libertarian I would argue that few if any monuments are the business of government.

                  Regardless, I can see the Vietnam war memorial as a legitimate exercise of government power.

                  Political speech of any kind is NOT,
                  Those in the government are not government actors 24×7.
                  A senator is free to speak of politics – when he is a politician not a senator.

            4. We are having some problems because you do not seem to grasp the difference between immoral, illegal, and unenforceable.

              Restrictions on the speech of foreign actors in a political campaign, may be immoral, it may be illegal, but it is completely unenforceable.

              Aside from pointing out to you that most Russian social media adds sucked, were after the election, and were evenly distributed between Sanders, Clinton and Trump,

              the major point is – you can’t do anything about this.

              The EU significantly tried to influence the recent italian election and failed miserably.

              With respect to the US govenrment it is ABSOLUTE barred from taking any role beyond the actual administration of the election in elections.

              It is unconstitutional for the US government to engage in censorship, directly or through agents, further political speech has the HIGHEST degree of constituonal protection.
              What the US government is doing is immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional and should be enforceable.

              Much of what the press and social media are doing is immoral, but it is not illegal.

              Finally I find it very odd that you are deeply offended by a tiny number of stupid social media adds by Russians,
              But perfectly OK with the absolute supression of truthful information by social media companies.

              You have a very warped sense of morality.

              1. “ Finally I find it very odd that you are deeply offended by a tiny number of stupid social media adds by Russians,
                But perfectly OK with the absolute supression of truthful information by social media companies.”

                I’m not offended at all. You assume too much. As for the “absolute suppression” of “truthful” information by social media? You think it is truthful however the “truthiness” of that information has not been clearly verified and according to SM it’s entirely within their prerogative NOT to publish what they can’t verify as true or deem misinformation. You deem what they do as immoral because you don’t like the fact that they have control of the narrative free from government intervention. They ARE private entities and they CAN do as they please regarding what they consider true or false. The wonderful thing about the free market you keep forgetting in these arguments is that there are literally hundreds of other sources that you can put out that information. That’s why Truth Social and other conservative SM sites exist. The only problem is they don’t get the kind of leverage the bigger and better established SM platforms wield. Trump tried to counter it by creating his own and as usual when it comes to business management it’s becoming an abject failure.
                That is why Trump would prefer to be back on twitter or Facebook because it’s already established and has access to a much larger audience in which he can spew his own lying and misinformation. Unfortunately he still has to abide by THEIR rules.

                1. That is correct – according to social media information that is TRIVIALLY verifiable is purportedly not verified.
                  You make my point.
                  Every single thing in the NYpost article was verifed independent of the laptop.
                  Real journalism is not that hard.
                  Was X where the laptop says he was at some date and time ?
                  Do the others on an email confirm the authenticity of the email ?
                  On and on.

                  Today 10;s of thousands of documents and photos from the laptop have been verified.
                  Exactly ZERO have been found to be russian disinformation.

                  I would note that SM allows billions of statements of fact that have not been verified every day.
                  They allow millions that are FALSE.

                  They actually used CDC press releases to fact check world class doctors, scientists, reseachers,
                  and at the end of the day – CDC ended up being WRONG nearly always and those censored right.

                  If SM is going to censor alleged facts – it is doing an abysmal job.

                  Most people grasp – SM is not censoring false information, they are censoring viewpoints, and worse truth they do not like.

                2. Maybe Trump will be back on FB or Twitter.
                  So far he has said he will not.

                  So you are trying to tell us what Trump thinks ?

                  I think Trump would perfer Twitter and FB to crash and burn and Truth Social to replace them

            5. I have no desire to regulate SM.
              I would strip S230 immunity if a company censors anything that is not illegal.

              But I do not want regulation of SM companies – that just ends badly.
              Nor do I really think the way to “regulate” them is through torts.

              The marketplace will sort all this out eventually.

              The positions you take are wrong and do not work, and the market will ultimately sort that our.

              We are already seeing collapses of share prices in SM and entertainment companies that engage in censorship or other conduct that most people find offensive.

              Covid was a massive wakeup call. It was a massive institutional failure.

              We are not happy that our government our public health experts do not have a magic wand to make it all go away.
              But what is worse is that the lied about that. They effectively promised what they could not deliver if we obeyed them
              and then they were wrong about what they told us to do, and our institutions – the press, social media, … covered from them suppressing dissent.

              Better lessons in the fallibility of experts and the need for uncensored free speech are hard to come by.

              Trust in our institutions is at an all time low.

              that is a good thing. Our institutions should not ever be trusted, and worse they have proven untrustworthy.

    4. The point of CU is that owners and shareholders continue to have constitutional rights when they act in groups rather than as individuals.

      Corporate personhood is not a real thing. It is a judicial convenience to simplify legal consideration of the constitutional rights of all shareholders.

      Do you honestly beleive that people acting in groups lose their constitutional rights ?

      Can we restrict the free speech rights of Greenpeace or the ACLU or the catholic church because they are people acting as a group ?

      The CU decision was the only possible outcome.

      Can congress tell Disney that it can not make children’s films ?

      CU is not a conservative decision, it is a correct constitutional decision.
      The alternative would be that government has the power to restrict all speech that is not speech by only one individual.
      That we have constitutional rights – but only when we act alone.

      I would ask you how can you have religious freedom – when constitutional rights only exist for individuals acting alone ?

    5. So I am clear. Though it is unlikely – courts could entirely eliminate the legal fiction – slight of hand of corporate personhood.
      It is a legal convenience. Eliminating it would change nothing except the complexity of court decisions when courts had to treat all corporations as collections of individuals and weight the rights of each of those individuals.

      Courts could also completely eliminate the corporate veil. It is a beneficial legal doctrine. But it is not found in the constitution – nor is corporate personhood.

      Eliminating corporate personhood and the corporate veil who be disasterous, they would make the law and the world into a mess.
      But the existance or non-existance of either has no constitutional significance at all.

      But the idiocy that constitutional rights disappear when we act as a group would violate the constitution.

    6. Lets shift from affirmative action to free speech – because that is what CU was about.

      You are arguing that I can have free speech as a sole proprietership.

      How about as a partnership ?
      If I and my neighbor start a business together as a partnership – say a business selling bibles. Do we still have free speech rights int hat business ?

      How about if I have 3 partners ? 10,000 ?

      How many partners do I have to have before a business no longer has free speech rights ?

      Do I only lose those rights if I change from a partnership to a corporation ? What about an LLC ? an LLP ? Sub Chapter S ?

      Are you saying that if I make a business decision that is based on taxes or management convenience that the free speech rights of owners in a corporation suddenly vaporize ?

    7. “How can anyone oppose Affirmative Action while supporting legalese like “Citizens United”? Conservatives were very liberal when it comes to the law!”

      Because in the former, you literally institutionalize racism and in the latter those who would literally institutionalize racism do not get what they want.

  6. Affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws are patently unconstitutional as they deny rights to Americans.

    Different and superior rights cannot be conferred without diminishing the rights of others.

    Equity is the absence of bias and favoritism.

    The judicial branch has no power to legislate, to modify legislation, or to modify legislation through “interpretation,” the constitution may be modify only by legal amendment.

    The sole charge of the Supreme Court is to support the literal Constitution and to assure that actions comport with statutory law and fundamental law.

    The Supreme Court has the duty to conduct Judicial Review.
    ________________________________________________

    “Judicial Review in the United States”

    Annotation

    The legitimacy of judicial review and the judge’s approach to judicial review are discussed.

    Abstract

    The doctrine of judicial review holds that the courts are vested with the authority to determine the legitimacy of the acts of the executive and the legislative branches of government.

    – DOJ, Office of Justice Programs
    ___________________________

    The singular American failure has been and continues to be the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.

    American constitutional freedom persisted for merely 71 years until the egregious, gross and violent attacks against it in 1860 by Lincoln.

    Every act of Lincoln must have been found unconstitutional at that time by Judicial Review.

    In fact only one was, the suspension of habeas corpus by Chief Justice Taney, at a critical time when the judicial branch and Supreme Court failed miserably to adhere to its sworn-oath duty to support the literal Constitution and failed to support America.

    The Supreme Court recently acted retroactively by 50 years to correct the constitutional debacle of Roe v Wade.

    The Supreme Court must act retroactively by 150 years to correct the constitutional debacle of Lincoln, including the unconstitutional “Reconstruction Amendments” which were improperly and corruptly ratified with a gun to America’s head.

    That one “likes” or enjoys something, does not provide the power to amend or modify the Constitution.
    _________________________________________________________________________________

    “…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”

    “…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what they forbid.”

    “[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”

    – Alexander Hamilton

  7. Professor Turley,

    You misquoted the NYT opinion article. The actual quote is “[T]he court has been transformed into a judicial arm of the Republican Party.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/opinion/supreme-court-legitimacy.html

    Thus, the entire court – given its 6-3 majority is the judicial arm of the GOP, not just the 6 conservatives.

    Further, you then go on to make the same argument: “The last term showed that a stable 6-3 majority has taken hold on the court.”

    This conservative majority is indeed “stable,” which is the argument the Editorial Board was making. That does not make it less controversial. The difference between this “stability” and other eras of Court “stability” is that each justice consistently takes the side that benefits the party of the President who nominated him or her. The Warren Court during the 50s and 60s – as you are well aware – was not this way. Earl Warren was nominated by the GOP, not the Democrats and yet he led a Court that worked largely in opposition to GOP political objectives.

    Until we have at least one justice that does not almost always benefit the party of the President who nominated him or her, I think it is fair to consider them an arm of that party. Justice Roberts is the closest to fitting that bill (with Gorsuch the next closest), but the fact that Roberts and Kavanaugh vote the same way 95% of the time just shows how sad the state of affairs is that the closest Justice only bucks his party’s side once out of every 20 cases.

    And both parties are at fault here. Anyone who thinks the court is not political has their head in the sand.

    1. Law is a religion (i.e. protocol) of social consensus. The justices, in theory, pledge to uphold the principles (e.g. “the People and our Posterity”) of the Constitution, implying that perturbations are divergence (e.g. liberal interpretation, emanations from penumbras, twilight fringe) for special and peculiar interests, for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather causes.

    2. The NYT is not trustworthy for anything, but that is beside the point. Anonymous makes a meaningless point that misses what Turley was trying to impart. Things sometimes are not clear to everyone in the audience, but anonymous is nitpicking while attempting to throw mud in Turley’s face.

      I think Anonymous owes an expansion of what he is upset about, as we can see his feathers aroused.

      When one reads the NYT or Turley further, one can see Anonymous’ complaint, “You misquoted the NYT opinion article.” is an attack, not a helpful comment.

      Here is the NYT paragraph.

      “The actual cause of its historic unpopularity is no secret. Over the past several years, the court has been transformed into a judicial arm of the Republican Party. This project was taking shape more quietly for decades, but it shifted into high gear in 2016, when Justice Antonin Scalia died and Senate Republicans refused to let Barack Obama choose his successor, obliterating the practice of deferring to presidents to fill vacancies on the court. Within four years, the court had a 6-to-3 right-wing supermajority, supercharging the Republican appointees’ efforts to discard the traditions and processes that have allowed the court to appear fair and nonpartisan.”

      I think anonymous picks the conclusions he wishes to draw and then sees how he can mold the discussion to that conclusion whether or not Anonymous is honest with his own quotes.

      1. Professor Turley quotes the NYT as claiming that the conservative justices are the arm of the GOP, which leads him to rhetorically ask whether the liberal justices are the arm of the Democratic party.

        However, the NYT article refers to the whole “court” as an arm of the GOP, not just the conservative justices.

        Do you disagree with this inconsistency?

        1. Admittedly the NYTimes’ writing leaves a lot to be desired. The court is not an arm of any party. I don’t remember Turley calling the court an arm of the Democrat Party when Liberals outnumbered conservatives. Additionally, we see so-called conservative justices siding with the Liberals, while, for the most part, the opposite is incorrect.

          What Turley did was to make what the NYT said clear while not copying their incorrect rhetoric. You are too accustomed to The misuse of facts when you provide them.

        2. Meaningless pedantry,(overly concerned with minute details or formalisms,)from an overwrought political hit piece. That is supposed to replace a meaningful comment

  8. Affirmative action, if only. Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) doctrine is processed under the ethical religion that rationalized slavery, political congruence (“=”), and wicked solution (i.e. human rites performed for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather causes).

  9. I have to disagree with the good professor about his answer to the question :’Does that make the three liberals justices voting together on the Court the “judicial arm of the Democratic Party”? I would have to say YES it does. They rarely vote outside of their bias, one even stoking the militant arm of the democratic party to go after the pro-life individuals.

  10. re: GioCon

    Your words, not mine. Any good person (Democrat or Republican) that wants to know the real deal on race should read “Disintegration” by Eugene Robinson. Most problems and solutions aren’t black & white and don’t fit on a bumper sticker. Most issues are very complicated to solve.

    This book is mostly a good news story for African-Americans but accurately identifies the problems that need more improvement. Repeat, this book reports the great progress of many African-Americans but also shows the bad side. This book is not the today’s liberal talking points.

    Another great book on the topic is titled “Medical Apartheid” by Harriet Washington. The 20th Century chapters of the book, would be of great interest to anyone concerned about race.

    1. Diversity [dogma] breeds adversity. Diversity [dogma] (i.e. racism, bigotry, color blocs “people of color”), Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) doctrine under the ethical religion exacerbates it. Sex chauvinism (i.e. feminism/masculinism) forces dissonant evolution. Political congruence (“=”) is inequitable and exclusive. Redistributive change normalizes progressive corruption. They need to lose their nominally “secular” religion. #HateLovesAbortion

  11. The Jan. 6th riot is being used by Democrats to tar Republicans as domestic terrorists who are trying to overthrow the government. In reality, the Democrats, through their sabotage of and threats to the Supreme Court, are the real insurrectionists.

  12. Jonathan: With the opening of the Fall term of SCOTUS we will probably see a further right-wing trend in the Court’s rulings. One case you lightly glossed over–Moore v. Harper–could virtually destroy voting rights–particularly in the South. The case comes out of North Carolina, where the GOP legislators are upset that the state’s courts tossed out their racist gerrymandered voting map. The state GOP was actually happy the gerrymandered map was tossed out so they could take their case to a more friendly SC. The N. Carolina GOP is arguing that in federal elections state legislators have almost total power over election procedures. This means state courts have no power to overturn a gerrymandered voting map. It’s the whole “states’ rights” argument being used again to keep Black people from voting. If the right-wing SCOTUS agrees, states like Georgia, N. Carolina , Texas and Florida, that have enacted restrictive voting laws, could engage in more racist gerrymandering. I’m not a betting person but I suspect that Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Barrett will be sympathetic to the GOP position. That’s why the NY Times accurately characterized the Court as the “judicial arm of the Republican Party”.

    1. ” It’s the whole “states’ rights” argument being used again to keep Black people from voting. If the right-wing SCOTUS agrees, states like Georgia, N. Carolina , Texas and Florida, that have enacted restrictive voting laws, “

      Taking just one of those states.

      “Who Can Register to Vote
      To register to vote in Florida, you must:
      Be a Citizen of the United States of America (A lawful permanent resident, commonly referred to as a “green card holder,” does not have the right to register or vote in Florida);
      Be a Florida resident;
      Be at least 18 years old (You may pre-register to vote if you are 16 years old);
      Not have been adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting in Florida or any other state without having the right to vote restored;
      Not have been convicted of a felony without your voting rights having been restored.”

      Where does this say black voting rights are impaired? Where does it mention color? Dennis, you are imagining things which is typical. That is why your comment lacks facts and details.

      https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/for-voters/voter-registration/register-to-vote-or-update-your-information/

      1. S. Meyer, registering to vote has nothing to do with gerrymandering. The legislature controls how districts are created. Voters have no say on how districts are shaped.

        The problem is the GOP is gerrymandering according to race and that’s illegal. State courts are being told by GOP legislatures that they too have no say in it. Even when their state constitution is being violated. Voters wouldn’t be able to contest the gerrymandering in court because the GOP is arguing that ONLY the legislature can determine the shape of a voting district even if it’s based on race.

        2. Gerrymandering is from both sides of the aisle. Who does it most is an open question. In the past cycle, the winner might have been Democrats.

          If you look carefully, one of the reasons we see gerrymandering today is to provide representation to minorities, but it works both ways. You assume certain groups of people do not share similar views with the rest of the population leading to a focus on those groups knowing they support particular ideas providing more votes to your party. Though this is an incorrect view of good governance, you are permitted to believe what you wish. However, recognize your argument provides privileges to one group and takes them away from another. We tried your way, and it failed. That was called racism.

          Boundaries of districts are necessary. I prefer an open-source modifiable computer program not under the control of those in power.

          There are reasons behind gerrymandering. One is to provide for various needs.

          Let’s take a fictions state and divide the competing groups, A and B, randomly throughout the state where A is 65 percent of the population and B is 36. If gerrymandering did not exist, A would win everything, and B left out in the cold. Is that all right with you? If B were black, I think there would be legitimate concerns about a legislature not being fair to their needs. Now you can tell me how you would fix that problem.

          1. There is no objectively correct means to allocate congressional districts.
            Redistricting will ALWAYS be political and politically corrupt.
            The best we can do is limit what institutions it corrupts.

            Further there are only two types of gerrymandering.
            They are incompatible.
            The first secures seats for powerful members of the party – at the expense of the parties control of the state.
            The second attempts to leverage small advantage with voters into large advantage in total number of seats.
            To the extent that it works it also makes the party highly vulnerable.

            If a state where one party has a 2% advantage gerrymanders districts to control 75% of congressional districts.
            a 2% swing in the electorate could result in their losing 100% of the seats.

        3. Voters elect legislators – of course they have a say in the creation of districts.

          Regardless, the only way you get stable gerrymandered control of a state is if the people self gerrymander – i.e. democrats choose in overwhelming numbers to live in cities.

          Every intentional method of gerrymandering for partisan advantage has a very high risk of tsunami wipeout elections where the party in power is obliterated.

          It is called math.

        5. Gerrymandering by race was invented and practiced by democrats for the past 50+ years.

        6. Courts do not make law. they do not legislate.
          That has always been the case.
          The courts have no authority to create districts.

          There is an open question as to whether they have the authority to review legislative districts.
          Arguably the constitution says no – atleast for congressional districts.

          Regardless, the executive has no role in redistricting. no role in creating election laws.
          The judiciary is limited to determining if districts are constitutionally valid and the accepted criteria for doing so is very narrow.
          Prior to 1964 there was ZERO judicial review of districts.
          Simm’s decided Legislative districts may only deviate from strict population equality only as necessary to give representation to political subdivisions and provide for compact districts of contiguous territory.

        7. Today if legislative districts are compact. geographically defined and have approximately equal populations they are constitutional.
          There are no other requirements.

      2. S. Meyer: North Carolina is probably the most gerrymandered state in the country. For a primer of how it works in the state see “Democracy Docket”, (9/28/21). Gerrymandering guarantees the GOP retains power even though they are in a minority in many districts in NC. And registering to vote doesn’t mean you can actually choose the candidate of your choice. Gerrymandering in NC dilutes the votes of Black people and Dems. That’s a fact Jack!

        1. Dennis, my reply to Svelaz whose response came earlier is the same as I would offer you.

          Unless you have proof that gerrymandering is a GOP conspiracy, I think you need to accept it is done by both parties. It may have been a conspiracy by the Democrat south when they wanted to remove power from blacks.

          Tell us your alternative and why it is better.

          1. S. Meyer, your response was a nonsensical mess. You started with voter registration which had nothing to do with gerrymandering.

            The issue is that the NC GOP doesn’t want the courts to be able to review redistricting maps made by the GOP because they are intentionally gerrymandering districts so they can stay in power despite the fact that they are in the minority. They are gerrymandering according to race and NC law as well as federal law makes that illegal.

            I’m order to challenge those maps voters take their cases to court. The republicans are arguing that the courts have no say in whether maps created by the legislature because they are twisting the meaning of a constitutional clause referring to legislatures having sole power to determine voting in states. What it does NOT say is that courts can’t review challenges to redistricting maps that are based on race or against state laws.

            Republicans want to keep courts from being able to void their racist gerrymandering and keep minority rule.

            1. “S. Meyer, your response was a nonsensical mess. You started with voter registration which had nothing to do with gerrymandering..”

              Svelaz, if you were intelligent, you would have noticed Dennis was making more than one point. The response was only to this limited portion from Dennis. “Texas and Florida, that have enacted restrictive voting laws“. I provided the basic rules of voting for Dennis to expand upon. Unfortunately, when more than one point exists, you get confused.

              Later in response to your query on gerrymandering, I discussed gerrymandering, and when Dennis brought it up again, I referred him to that response.

              Since the questions raised were valid and had substance, I replied to you civilly and even used my name, but once again, we see that you will lie and deal in an uncivil manner. Civility is something you do not deserve. Stupid people of your nature need to be careful where they step. They must avoid the garbage you spill around them.

              Are you unable to deal with something known by most people? Gerrymandering exists on both sides of the aisle. In my reply, I also suggested a solution, but brainless as you are, it must have been too difficult for you to comment on or suggest your own.

              You again played the race card, but you are the new racist. Svelaz is the newly improved type of racist.

            2. Do the GOP NC maps:
              divide into districts that are equal in population within 10% ?
              Divide into districts that are geographically compact ?
              Divide into districts that respect existing political and demographic boundaries ?

              If so then there is no basis for judicial review.
              The constitution does not even include the criteria above.
              There certainly is not some criteria that districts have to suit you politically.

              Whether a state is red or blue, this is something the courts should stay out of.
              This is a political question, and the courts are to avoid trying to adjudicate political questions.
              Those belong to voters.

            3. In statewide elections Republicans get about 100K+ more votes than democrats – they are the majority.

            4. Voters must challenge those maps by going to the polls, not the courts.
              About half of NC voters are not going to get the government they want no matter who wins.

              That is not a question for the courts.

            5. “they are twisting the meaning of a constitutional clause referring to legislatures having sole power to determine voting in states”
              How so ?
              That is pretty much what the constitution says.

              “What it does NOT say is that courts can’t review challenges to redistricting maps that are based on race or against state laws.”
              When the founders wished to give a power to the states – they said STATE. When they wished to give it to the executive – they said executive.

              Mostly I do not give a schiff about this. If you do not like how this is change the constitution.

              Ultimately there is a fundimental problem

              quis custodiet ipsos custodes – who watches the watchers ? Or as MAdison put it – if men were angels …

              A general rule the courts have followed – because the constitution did not give the courts authority over political questions,
              is that when a question is political it is none of the courts business.
              That is not a perfect answer, but it avoids politicizing the courts – and we have far too much trouble with that today.

            6. Gerrymandering on the basis of race was created by Democrats.

              I do not know what NC republicans are doing – but democrat opposition to racial gerrymandering is massively hypocritical
              and a reflection of the fact that democrats do not have principles only desired outcomes.

        2. Who cares ?

          There is no such thing as objectively correct districts.

          I would further note that your premise is FALSE.

          You can gerrymander to assure that specific republicans never lose.
          At the expense of the parties total numbers.
          OR you can gerrymander such that your party NORMALLY gets a significantly higher proportion of the legislature than it would otherwise,
          at the risk of flipping the entire state if there is a few percentage change in voting.

          What you can not do is gerrymander to control and HOLD the legislature – without consistently delivering government that makes voters happy.

          I would note this is MATH.

          Lets assume that NC is 51/49 republican – that is the breakdown of the 2020 presidential election.
          NC has 50 senators, So the GOP controls the Senate 26/24 and uses that power to redistrict and creates 50 districts that are all 51/49 Republican. Resulting in the GOP controlling all 50 senate seats.
          Republicans then piss off 1.01% of NC voters who switch to voting democrat.
          Not the state flips to 50 Democrats and zero republicans.

          The kind of Gerrymandering you are pretending occurs is very dangerous.

          What is far more common is the reality of NC – the vast majority of the state is republican, while democrats control a few large cities.
          In those democratic regions democrats make up 75% of the electorate. As a consequence throughout the rest of the state they make up on average 40% of the state.
          The result is that democrats totally dominate in a few districts. giving republicans the advantage in most districts.

          Unless you redistict to force the breakup of urban districts and combine those voters with suburban and urban voters into real salamander districts you will end up with solid and stable republican control of a state that is close to evenly divided.

          If you do not like that – move out of the cities.

          You did this to yourself.

          I would note it used to be the opposite.
          Republicans controlled cities and democrats controlled the rest of the country.

    2. How do you know if the Carolina maps are actually jerrymandered based on race? Do you have the numbers to support that, or are you just parroting something you heard or read? Liberals call it jerrymandering when districts are drawn such that they “waste democrat votes”. Thats not jerrymandering. Dense groups of one minded people is a natural occurrence. To keep these “mobs” from exercising outsized control over everyone else, the founders wisely put in place many obstacles to that. Districting is just one of these.
      When people who really know what’s going on use the term jerrymandering, they are saying they would rather have their votes spread out, so they can impact elections in as many districts as possible and have more power. Carefully drawing these lines to gain power was a construct of the Dems, and now they don’t like it that the R’s are using it to their perceived advantage. In any case, that has nothing to do with “voting rights” or “keeping black people from voting”. They do that with voter ID, huh???

      1. Tom, I understand that NC is 27% black. I don’t know if that’s based on total population or voting age population. But assume that’s the relevant number.

        There are seven districts in NC. The electoral map has one of them majority black. The challengers want two districts. One district allegedly underrepresents blacks, but two would slightly over represent them.

        The idea that black candidates can only win in majority black districts is not true, since any number of black candidates have been elected by majority white electorates.

        In light of the fact that blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, I view the effort to create majority black districts as another effort by Democrats to help them win. If blacks stopped voting for Democrats you would not see these kinds of challenges.

    3. No it is not a Tenth Amendment “argument,” it’s an Article 1 Section 4 argument

    4. “Jonathan: With the opening of the Fall term of SCOTUS we will probably see a further right wing Adherence to the Constitution, and a focus on Federalism, trend in the Court’s rulings. “

  13. The Left is right about one thing: we do have “systemic racism” in America. But it’s name is “affirmative action.” No where in the Constitution is “diversity” a constitutional right, and never have Americans ever subscribed to “diversity” in any public referendum or document. The Democrats think they can change the game just by changing the language, but in the end, “equity” and “diversity” are simply the new racism.

    1. Diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE) doctrine under the Progressive Cult’s (PC) Pro-Choice ethical religion that denies individual dignity, agency, and value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. “people of color”), color quotas (e.g. “Jew… White privilege”), and affirmative discrimination (e.g. too many People of Yellow… Asian-American (i.e. 1/2 compromise)). There is a not so fine difference between action and discrimination, which has been crossed with affirmative, abortive intent and action. One step forward, two steps backward.

  14. Poor Erwin is surrounded by anti-Zionists at Berkeley. I guess he thinks he has to throw somebody under the bus to save his own skin.

  15. Time for the idea of allowing race to enter into any decision, for good or bad, to be over. It’s time for the Supreme Court to decide that merit is the only way to go. Only objective criteria in college admissions with all colleges spelling out their process and race is not one. Economic need could be the basis for scholarships but never race based admission. As long as we allow subjective judgements it will be used for bias. I hated it when i was applying to college and med schools but that was a time when affirmative active was needed. But that was 1966 and 1970. That time has passed. Let the best take their spots, period. If you lose then you were simply not good enough. Go home, re-asses, re-evaluate, work harder or try a different path. Or work your ass off till you get it right and then dare them to turn you down. Or as many of us in the 1960’s and 1970’s did and that was have a backup path to go to if choice #1 failed to pan out. Law school was my 3rd choice. For most of us the second choice was not our choosing-military service and Viet Nam.
    Students these days have it relatively easy, no military service beckons unless you choose it. You can fail and suffer no life threatening consequences like in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.
    The New York Times is a Rag. The only reason it’s read is because it’s printed in New York City. If it was printed in Iowa City, Iowa it would be shredded and put to good use like lining animal stalls, or to help start burn pits, or even used as insulation

    1. re: GEB

      It’s not that simple. In almost any zip code in America, African-Americans usually have lesser quality education and opportunities than the rest of us. Some Conservatives like to compare African-Americans using different zipcodes which is not an accurate comparison.

      For example: a poor white person in Augusta County, Virginia may have it worse than an African-American residing in a rich suburban zipcode near Atlanta, Georgia. African-Americans in Augusta County, Virginia (residing in the same zipcode) do not receive better treatment than white residents of the same zipcode. The above example didn’t always apply prior to the 1960’s even in perceived liberal big cities.

      In 1960, in liberal Washington DC, African-Americans weren’t allowed to enter some department stores to shop. In DC and other liberal cities, they weren’t allowed to enter most public swimming pools. Most were prevented from joining the Boy Scouts of America (largely sponsored by white churches at the time).

      Today, white kids use marijuana at near equal rates as kids of color but white kids rarely have their future destroyed from criminal records. This affects lifetime income and opportunities. Being denied public swimming pools and Boy Scout participation can prevent someone from joining the Navy, Coast Guard or military service.

      You have some good points that sometimes are valid, but African-Americans have had to work harder than most of us to reach those goals (in most zipcodes in America).

      Diversity on the court does matter, because most Americans don’t have experience from that vantage point. Good judges must have those vantage points in order to judge complicated circumstances.

      1. Ashcroft’s Zersetzung: You have just regurgitated every liberal talking point for the new racism (aka: reverse racism). Of course, with absolutely no evidence to back up your doomsday scenario for African Americans. It might surprise you to know that many, if not most African Americans have “made it” and are in the middle class along with many other ethnic groups. To continue to view them as poor, disadvantaged and needing to rig the game in order to advance, is, well, just plain racist. “Equality” has been their rally cry, and has worked. Don’t view all African Americans through the lens of the failed inner city minority.

    2. Students may come from far away to attend University of Iowa in Iowa City but it’s not in any sense of the word a conservative campus, certainly not in the last 40-50 years. The Times, along with WaPo and other leftist dailies and periodicals are very likely considered ‘quality journalism’ there. Like many campus towns these days, the Leftists have taken up permanent university positions and residence in the otherwise rural part of the state. If not for the college, Johnson County would be as red as upstate New York.

      1. Web search for ‘University of Iowa Lawsuits’. Seems there, like many other campuses, non-Leftist students have to bring lawsuits to ensure their ability to practice even basic freedom of speech and association rights.

  16. Let’s put this in perspective: In 2022 we have a U.S. Supreme Court that essentially refused to enforce Ronald Reagan’s Torture Treaty. Under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, Reagan’s treaty was (and still is) “the supreme law of the United States” – superior to federal law and local/state laws.

    Under the landmark rulings of “Marbury v. Madison” (federal authority ) and “Fletcher v. Peck” (state authority) – the U.S. Supreme Court has final “constitutional judicial review” authority on constitutionality.

    In 2022, none of the Bush torture attorneys have even been disbarred from practicing law. None have been criminally prosecuted (as Reagan’s treaty mandates). We have over 20 years of illegal Cointelpro style covert blacklisting, likely hundreds of thousands of Americans harmed, destroyed or suffering premature death (consequences of covert blacklisting).

    When is this U.S. Supreme Court going to enforce Reagan’s Torture Treaty?

    1. I usually don’t agree with you, AZ, but I agree with you here. I think most Americans now accept that Abu Ghraib was a blight on the image of this country. It would be a good step for the Supreme Court to put its seal on that consensus.

      I’m always against torture. It corrupts the people who use it and damages their cause. That being said, I believe a skilled torturer can get whatever he wants from his victims, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. We are better than that.

      Thank you for raising the issue.

  17. Lol that you think Dobbs ‘brought clarity’ to the issue of abortion last term. That’s just hilarious.

    I see where you lean on the issues before the court now. R’s have worked the court politically and you agree with them. So it goes.

    1. The clarity is, there is no constitutional right to kill human life due to irresponsibility/inconvenience.

      1. That shows the court settled for a religious definition and that they did the job they were hired to do. That doesn’t equal clarity.

        1. Whether you like it or not what is human life is a LEGAL decision – one made by legislators.
          It is a legal defintion that is made in not just the context of abortion, but the law more broadly.

          1. Indeed. With the approriate medical input…, that’s why the viability standard in Rowe should be codified nationally rather than have unelected, Federalist Society judges make the call while surrendering to religious dogma.

            1. SCOTUS Judges can only rule following evidence, legislation, or the Constitution. Using viability, is strictly in the purview of the People, through their elected Representatives. NOT Judges.

            2. Viability is Casey not Roe.
              Viability is a basis for a specific Outcome, it is not a basis for law.

              The real right is to control of ones own body.
              But the courts are unlikely to recognize that because that would devastate public health powers.
              Recognize that a woman can have the pregnancy removed at any stage, but that the state can require efforts to protect the life of the pregnancy.
              That would be constitutional.

  18. Republicans have the court they always wanted and they will use it. Bonus is that the judges don’t have to go up for election.

  19. Before they start the new term I hope they’ve engaged a good plumber to repair the leaks in the building?

    Regarding Students for Fair Admissions they can use the NFL, NBA, MLB as examples for entry into college, the best entry test gets the seat. The current admissions process is allowing those who have no understanding of the constitution, merit, or the value of debate and free speech into our colleges.

    1. “The current admissions process is allowing those who have no understanding of the constitution, merit, or the value of debate and free speech into our colleges.”

      Margot, it is much worse than that – the admissions process is undertaken and overseen by those devoted to the elimination of the Constitution, the concept of merit as such, free speech and debate as such from U.S. society.

  20. “Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, to denounce the conservative justices as ‘partisan hacks.’ Yet, the six conservatives are no less partisan than the three liberal justices voting predictably together in dissent on such cases.” This is all you need to know about how the prog/left will react to any decision of the court. They are so ignorant of their gross hypocrisy in all matters, they are like toddlers that only see the world through the lense of their own self, not mature enough to consider the law in a neutral way but adament that they get their way – or else.

    1. Poor Erwin is surrounded by anti-Zionists at Berkeley. I guess he thinks he has to throw somebody under the bus to save his own skin.

      1. Hah! They believe that they can abort the baby, cannibalize her profitable parts, sequester her carbon pollutants, and have her, too. Surely, they are playing with a double-edge scalpel. The justices disagree with their flat-earth model and have dispensed with the Twilight Amendment. Unfortunately, with the nation bitterly divided, and the influence of domestic and alien special and peculiar interests, we have progressed to a new deal, a green deal, a 1/2 compromise (e.g. Fetal-American, DIE (e.g. racism, sexism) doctrine, political congruence (PC), progressive prices (PP)).

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