Author and cultural critic Fran Lebowitz added voice to the unhinged calls on the left for trashing the Supreme Court. As I discussed recently in the Wall Street Journal (and in my book), there is a growing counter-constitutional movement in the United States led by law professors, pundits, and celebrities. Lebowitz amplified those calls in a radical demand to simply get rid of the Court.
Lebowitz called for President Joe Biden to “dissolve the Supreme Court” despite the fact that it would violate the Constitution and remove one of the most critical protections against executive and legislative abuse.
Lebowitz insisted that the Supreme Court is a “disgrace” because, in a reference to Donald Trump, it is “completely his.” To the wild applause of the New York audience, she added: “It’s so disgraceful, this court, that it shouldn’t even be allowed to be called the Supreme Court. It’s an insult to Motown. Basically, it’s a harem. It’s Trump’s harem.”
Her views aligned with others on the left who have attacked the Constitution, the Court, and even rights like free speech as now threats to our democracy.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previously declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced that she wants the impeachment of all six of the conservative justices. She was immediately joined by other Democratic members.
Previously, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.”
Other members, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called for packing the Court with additional members to immediately secure a liberal majority to rule as she desires.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., RI), has assured voters that Vice President Kamala Harris will support the packing of the Court with a liberal majority.
Despite supporting censorship to combat “disinformation,” many on the left now eagerly spread disinformation about the Court and its rulings. Lebowitz repeated false claims about the Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, stating that the decision makes the president a “king” who “can do whatever you want.”
In reality, the Court followed the same approach that it has taken in prior conflicts between the branches.
As it has in the past, the Court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills.
In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress.
In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.
None of this matters. Facts do not matter. Many on the left are calling for the trashing of the Constitution based on wildly inaccurate claims.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.”
In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.”
In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Lebowitz previously said that Trump should be killed with the help of the Saudi government.
Lebowitz is demonstrably wrong about the voting record of the justices. In reality, the Court continues to rule largely by unanimous, or nearly unanimous decisions. After April, unanimity stood at 46 percent of cases.
Of the 22 6-3 decisions, only half broke along ideological lines. That is the same as the 11 such cases last term.
The average for unanimous decisions has been roughly 43 percent. The rate is back up to 48 percent for the last term. When you add the nearly unanimous opinions, it is the vast majority of cases. Moreover, Sotomayor agreed with Roberts in 71% of cases Kavanaugh and Barrett agreed with Sotomayor roughly 70% of the time.
In critical decisions, conservative justices like Gorsuch and Barrett have joined their liberal colleagues and the Court has repeatedly voted against positions supported by Donald Trump.
Again, none of this matters. Lebowitz and others are falsely telling the public that the Court is dysfunctionally and ideologically divided. Of course, even if you accept the false premise, the problem is not with the liberal justices always voting as a block but the conservatives doing so. The liberals are not robotic, they are simply right.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
There certainly seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish folks loving that central authoritarian collectivism. Makes a hundred years ago not seem that long.
There certainly seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish folks winning the Nobel Prize for Science.
There certainly seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish folks who are educated.
If there is disproportionality of numbers in many fields, can you comprehend what that means in terms of your statement?
There certainly seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish folks who are sexual deviants and predators
There certainly seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish folks who are Wall St crooks
Communism has a jewish problem and the US has a communism problem.
When winning a prize or getting an education becomes a bad thing, your point will be germane. Winning a prize or getting an education does not offset the tens of millions dead because of central authoritarian collectivism, the victims of sexual deviants, or bring justice to the wall st crooks. The rise of jewsih power in the US since 1940 has not been a net positive for the US or the world. Sorry – take your debate to your people, your culture breeds disproportionate rot.
“There certainly seems to be a disproportionate number of Jewish folks who are sexual deviants and predators”
That is because you have a deviant mind. Likely you are a pervert who must be kept away from children. You certainly never accomplished anything in your life. In your case that must be genetic. Take a look at your parents. If they are decent, you can wonder if they are yours.
Many people say the synagogue of Satan has total control over Washington DC except for the Supreme Court. Seems likely that the SC will soon fall too. Luke 16:8 says: “…for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.”
It also seems likely that the anti-Christian, genocidal Noahide Laws are coming soon. God, help us.
“It also seems likely that the anti-Christian, genocidal Noahide Laws are coming soon. God, help us.”
These are the Noahide Laws Brian, the antisemite (and presumably antichristian) fool wishes. He quotes Luke from the New Testament while proving himself a fool.
Embrace G‑d’s Oneness
Do Not Curse Him
Guard Human Life
Respect Animal Life
Respect the Property of Others
Live a Moral Family Life
Ensure Justice
Facts are never an impediment to liberals.
“dissolve the Supreme Court”
Here is Washington on the importance of a Supreme Court: “In assenting to the opinion that the due administration of justice is the strongest cement of good government, you will also agree with me that the first organization of the judicial department is essential to the happiness of our country.”
And without a SC, what happens to the individual’s happiness, property, wealth, life? They are all sacrificed to the mob.
Here is Hamilton (Fed. 78) on how the SC is a check on the power of the legislature: “[W]here the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former.”
In other words, the SC is a crucial element of a government of laws. By getting rid of it, what does the Left want? A government of men — i.e., mob rule.
For the Left, it’s mob rule all the way down. With its Chosen ones as the voice of the mob.
This is call by Lebowitz and others is just more sowing of their seeds of sedition to destroy our REPUBLIC. AOC, doesn’t understand the need for the SC because she doesn’t understand the Declaration of Independence, Constitution or Bill of Rights. Trump doesn’t own the SC, the Marxists are angry because America is awakening to their subversive drive to arrive at a totalitarian state. What they don’t understand is that should America fall to this, the Globalists will then replace them as Hitler did his brownshirts. They are like petulant little children that aren’t getting their way. Enough is enough !
Traveler,
Well said.
I just commented on how they are like six year olds. They need a good slap upside the head to told to grow up.
The problem is, as nutty as she should be seen to be, it’s not her alone. There are those who have the power of the media behind them. Disinformation is real and how do you stop it? Look at those throwing support to “dismantling” an independent judiciary. I counted three senators and a House member, but that’s limited to the confines of column inches. It’s not Lebowitz to be feared, it an apathetic populace that gets limited, controlled information. We just got real information within the last 48 hours about 13,000 convicted murderers, and larger number of convicted sexual predators, wandering our streets because of a broken immigration system. The numbers are based on government numbers, yet how many are getting the information? The court won’t be abolished. That’s extreme. Instead, it will be packed and that will be seen as a victory. It’s a loss. Myself, I’m concerned for the future of this country.
I find this woman offensive in remarks and appearance, what I find dangerous are those who “wildly applause” her. It illustrates the ignorance of these so called “smart” people.
“We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. “
The day that Biden, or any other President, declares the Supreme Court dissolved, is the day that blood in the streets becomes a short-term probability here. That eventuality might or might not wait for the conclusion of the inevitable Congressional impeachment proceedings against whichever President issued that declaration. This st’unt Lebowitz, along with her Demoncrap supporters in Congress (and those haunting this space, as well) should consider herself strongly encouraged to emigrate to a country nominally run as the kind a plebiscite that she apparently endorses (although anyone with a functioning brain understands that such countries are, nearly without exception, thinly disguised dictatorships). Maybe Cuba will take them; we could trade a boatload of these used anus cleansing towelettes for Cubans who desire freedom to work and prosper.
If Cuba won’t take them the sharks in the Florida Straits will! They will eat anything…
“They will eat anything…”
Even Democrats? Sharks’ stomachs must be even stronger than I thought…
I truly loved this book.would you recommend more books on this subject or where I can find primary sources. Also would you please explain @johnkerry on twitter why censoring and lying is not ok and why we have Free Speech.(today,)
Try “Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison
A Fabulous read.
700 million guns in circulation in America. Is that where you want to take us?
Say When
For those of us who believe strongly in the value of the Constitution as the guiding document that has led our country through all it’s trials and tribulations this is painful to read. It is astounding that so many of our “leaders” clearly demonstrate their ignorance of both the content and meaning of the Constitution itself and the detail of the findings in the current cases. Today’s liberals are now nothing more than fish out of water, flopping on the bank because they can’t have their way with everything.
“so many of our “leaders” clearly demonstrate their ignorance of both the content and meaning of the Constitution itself and the detail of the findings in the current cases.”
Another example of the common, counter-productive illusion that the advocates for the demise of the American Republic are merely ignorant of its founding principles. Nothing could be further from the truth. The proponents of this kind of national demolition know exactly where their efforts would lead, if successful. Many, if not most of them, hate themselves and their lives, and so cannot help but thoroughly despise anyone who loves his or her existence, and will spare no effort to assure that their (self) destruction is accompanied, preferably preceded, by our own.
Correct. Combine that ignorance with obvious arrogance, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
I hear that name and I immediately think of Animal House
NTL, another example of why we need to bring back Civics in Middle/High schools
Animal Farm.
Fawn Lebowitz school of pottery
Who is writing this column?
Real Time with Bill Maher is a weekly hour-long program with a studio audience, and is broadcast from Studio 33 at Television City in Los Angeles.
Whoever wrote this neglects to mention that Bill Maher hosts a political comedy show that unsparingly ridicules both the left and the right in equal measure. Whether Liebowitz was being completely serious therefore is likely a misperception. Maher’s comeback to her diatribe was “I see you’re still a moderate”.
In his “New Rules” segment, Maher delivered a resounding tribute to the United States and its free institutions, while mocking the left’s unhinged zealotry and how they take freedom for granted while disparaging the hand that feeds them.
The way this piece strips away context, and incorrectly inserts the “wildly cheering New York audience” image marks it as shallow, lame infowarfare. Does JT have a weekend ghost writer?
“Maher’s comeback to her diatribe was ‘I see you’re still a moderate’.”
Someone has never heard the expression: The radicals of today are the moderates of tomorrow. Or he doesn’t care about tomorrow.
And apparently, someone’s not aware that Liebowitz is a very popular and influential person — one who the NYT described as: The Dorothy Parker of our age.
* this is true
* meant 4 binca ^
The problem with left wing nuts is that when democrats gain power the actually do these nutty things
You have a 6-3 SCOTUS
Because left wing nuts urged the senate to abandon centuries old rules that compelled moderation
Republicans merely took advantage of democrats mistakes
It is not the Leibovitz’s that are the problem
It is that so many democrats in power will do what the nuts ask
As I read this I asked myself, “Who is Fran Lebowitz and why am I reading this nonsense?” That’s the point, my friends. Radicals on the left and, possibly, on the right as well often spout outrageous things in hopes of getting attention. And it often works – as in this case being recognized by a popular law professor and TV pundit. Right now, in the oft-forgotten and ignored world of the faculty lounge are multiple Fran Lebowitz’s pondering how they can lose their anonymity and by what outrageous message they can do so. In the end, these people are but fly specks on the pages of history, soon to be forgotten after their ten seconds of artificial fame. Thank goodness for the silent and smart majority that keeps these kooks marginalized.
“Thank goodness for the silent and smart majority that keeps these kooks marginalized.”
Marginalized, so far. But every time some kook like this is given a large audience for their insanity, without any meaningful rebuttal, they will win over a few converts, and inspire other attention seeking nitwits. Not a very productive exercise, over the long term. I have little doubt that Maher booked her in order to lampoon her positions (see the PBINCA comment above yours), but I think that if he believes his disparaging throw-away line suffices to convince his audience that Lebowitz should not be taken seriously, he has overestimated many of its members.
Under normal circumstances, perhaps. The problem is, as nutty as she should be seen to be, it’s not her alone. There are those who have the power of the media behind them. Disinformation is real and how do you stop it? Look at those throwing support to “dismantling” an independent judiciary. I counted three senators and a House member, but that’s limited to the confines of column inches. It’s not Lebowitz to be feared, it an apathetic populace that gets limited, controlled information. We just got real information within the last 48 hours about 13,000 convicted murderers, and larger number of convicted sexual predators, wandering our streets because of a broken immigration system. The numbers are based on government numbers, yet how many are getting the information? The court won’t be abolished. That’s extreme. Instead, it will be packed and that will be seen as a victory. It’s a loss. Myself, I’m concerned for the future of this country.
@JJC
I think in the past that was true, you had raving loonies on street corners or even in protests, but it’s whistling in the dark in 2024. Her sentiments are nearly universally echoed on the modern left, they are a regime, not a political party, and her ignorance pales in comparison to younger cohorts being indoctrinated in our institutions.
It would be tremendous folly to think her mentality is isolated or an attention grab; on the contrary: she’s comfortable expressing it because she knows she is in good company. It’s difficult to distinguish any meaningful difference between the modern DNC and the fascists of the 1930s.
James,
Well said and I agree. In this day and age they should be acknowledged as the kooks they are. But in this day and age there are so many of them, to include in Congrees and other positions of power, they are a danger. Their reflection of the fascists of the 1930s should be a warning to all.
Another Left Wing Elite Dem wanting one Party rule/control. Perhaps she will leave the country too if Trump is elected. Bye Bye.
@Anonymous
It remains to be seen that if Trump wins (which I think is likely) he is even able to take office. I hate to be pessimistic, but I don’t think personally we’ve yet seen the depths of ugly the modern left is capable of and willing to commit to. We really can’t afford to be so dismissive. I hope I’m wrong.
James,
I agree. At this point, I think leftist Democrats would be willing to destroy the country to keep themselves in power.
I have made tech same prediction several times in the comments of this column. If Trumps wind, all hell will break loose. First, the dems will start law suit=s in every state where the elections was somewhat close and the dems lost. If that does not work, they will start to stop the certification on Jan 6claiming tech 14th Amendment. Expect thousands of Antifa demonstrators in DC to put the pressure on Congress. If that also does not work, massive riots will emerge on Inauguration Day, and not just in DC. Better prepare.
Tell Liebowitz to stop just trying to bring attention to herself.
When the Left says, “our democracy” they don’t mean the same thing any rational thinking people think it means. They mean it to exclude any who disagree with their perverted ideologies. And attack anything, or anyone, who they view as a hindrance, or block on their agendas. These people are just plain EVIL.
Our broad and growing ignorance is displayed whenever our form of government is labeled a “democracy”. In a pure democracy the majority rules. If 50.1% of The People want to legalize murder, then we legalize murder.
Our Founders knew human nature well enough to know that this would be a suicidal choice (which we’d see playing out now if we were, in fact, a democracy).
Instead they chose to create a Representative Republic with a highly effective system of checks and balances, and an Electoral College so every state would have a say in national elections.
Thank God for their wisdom, foresight, and blunt appraisal of human nature.
* The Constitution is written for a principled people. The population has become unprincipled. Majority and minority are effective if two principles are in conflict. It is not meant for a principle v an unprinciple issue. In this way there isn’t a mob rule.
* true
What they mean by “democracy” is the same thing North Korea means by “democracy”. It is, after all, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
An ignorant old woman who used to be slightly funny 60 years ago.
Just more ranting from the unhinged Left. That Fran Lebowitz expressed a moronic opinion, to which she is entirely entitled, to a cheering mob of adorers, means absolutely nothing. She is merely a passé semi-celebrity desperately seeking an additional few minutes of attention and notoriety in an echo chamber. I’m sure she felt very validated but this will not change a single mind.