There are certain dates that have become a regular feature in American life. In February, the Sandhill Cranes return to the Platte River in Tennessee. In March, the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano…and in October, the protesters have returned to Hupper Island, the summer vacation home of Chief Justice Roberts.
The last migratory pattern is more recent and certainly less welcomed. In past years, liberal protesters have descended on the homes of conservative justices to disrupt their lives, shout abuses, and, in one case involving Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seek to kill a member of the Court. Protesters outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett left bloody dolls on the lawn, knowing that she had young children inside.
This week, the protesters appeared at the vacation home of Chief Justice John Roberts in Maine. Calling themselves “kayak-tivists,” they formed flotillas facing his home to hold up signs and voice their displeasure at the jurist.
It is an ironic moment for a Chief Justice who has been regularly attacked by President Donald Trump for voting against his position in major cases ranging from tariffs to birthright citizenship. However, this is about rage not reason. Back in 2022, Becca Shaw Glaser wrote about how Mainers needed to harass Roberts whenever he ventured out of his home.
She wrote:
“Roberts is one of the most powerful people in the entire world. He comes to Maine to unwind and feel good about himself and his decisions, despite if he has just gutted our rights, forcing rape victims to give birth after an arbitrary time period determined by the government, gutted environmental protections, overruled basic gun regulations, decreed against the separation of church and state, and made politics much more unequal and infested with money.
Exactly why should we continue to let Roberts use Maine as his easygoing backdrop for fun and relaxation? Why should Roberts get to breathe in the beautiful Maine air when he is fine with destroying methods of keeping our air clean?…
Maine is not here as your happy place, your wind-down from all of your hard work destroying my civil liberties and democracy. No. May you never feel welcome here again…”
Glaser, who was later dropped as a columnist, has pushed Mainers to hound Roberts wherever he goes in Maine:
“Should you see Chief Justice John Roberts duck into Squid Ink coffee or the Port Clyde General Store this summer, consider letting him know exactly what you think of him and his illegitimate, ultra-conservative court. Yell, boo, whisper, weep audibly, give him the thumbs down or the finger, hand him a note, refuse to serve him.”
In its recent discussion of these protesters, the New York Times features Glaser and reveals how last year Glaser was approached by Roberts’ daughter, Josephine, who sought to defend her Dad during one of Glaser’s harassing protests. The Times recounts how liberals have been pushed to the breaking point by Roberts despite the fact that he has had to curtail his movement around the island.
One of the featured suffering locals is Wendy Schlotterbeck, who was outraged when Roberts was spotted celebrating the Fourth of July on the island. The Times sympathetically explains the outrage since “[Roberts] and his colleagues had just narrowed protections for transgender athletes and minors and allowed Trump’s immigration crackdown to proceed.” It recounts how Schlotterbeck has transgender relatives and “immigrant friends of hers [have] been arrested.” Outraged, she left the picnic and, the next day, joined the “kayak-tivists” outside Roberts’ home.
Protesting outside the home of a Supreme Court justice is a crime, though some of us have questioned the constitutionality of such laws. Putting that debate aside, the protests should be condemned by all Americans as reckless and wrong.
Justices may hold different views on the left or the right, but they are all people of good faith who are trying to protect what they consider the essential rights of our Republic. (Liberal justices have largely been spared such protests at their homes, though occasional protests have occurred).
What is maddening is that this Court has continued to show its independence in ruling with the law rather than a partisan agenda. Unlike those on the left who want to pack the Court with an instant liberal majority (in the name of fighting partisanship), the Court continues to vote overwhelmingly on a unanimous or nearly unanimous basis. The conservative majority also continues to rule against the Trump Administration when the law requires it.
This term has many potential blockbuster decisions and the protesters are expected to return to the homes of justices around Washington. We have every right to debate, and indeed protest, such decisions. However, we should all unite around all of these justices — on the left and the right — in denouncing these protesters literally bobbing and floating on a sea of rage.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
1. Where is the $2 per gallon gas?
2. Where is the less than 1% inflation rate?
3. Where are the low interest rates?
4. Where is home affordability for everyone?
5. Where is the administration’s full transparency?
6. Where are the Epstein files?
7. Where is the diplomacy without a war? (which is getting our soldiers killed)
8. Where are the low consumer prices?
9. Where is the booming economy?
10. Where is the separation between public office and private business? (using the WH to get richer)
11. Where is the oversight by the Republican led House, Senate, and SC?
12. Who are all the suckers who voted for an immoral con man?
13. Where is all the money he stole?
14. Who are all the immigrants he’s killing?
15. Who are the 10 million people who will lose the healthcare right after the midterm elections?
16. Who are the 300,000 federal workers they laid off without any justification?
17. Why are only rich people and large corporations getting tax breaks and assistance?
18. Why did his wife say the only book she’s ever seen him read is about Adolf Hitler?
19. Why are farmers going broke?
20. Why is ICE literally terrorizing our cities?
21. Why is the GOP using gerrymandering to pick voters, instead of following the Constitution and letting voters pick the politicians?
22. Why do we have to obey laws, but the president doesn’t?
23. Why do Republicans have so much distain for the Constitution?
25. Why would anyone vote for a Republican in the midterms?
26. Why don’t they like brown and yellow people (65% of the world population)?
27. Why don’t they like black people (15% of the world population)?
28. Why don’t they like LGBTQ people (10% of the world population)?
29. Why don’t they like people who live in urban cities (58% of the world population)?
30. Why don’t they like universities and colleges b/c calling them liberal indoctrination centers?
31. Why don’t they like highly educated people?
32. Why don’t they like strong and independent women?
33. Why don’t they like woman who want to make decisions about their own bodies?
34. Why do they always favor rich people over middle class and poor people?
35. Why don’t they like democracy?
36. Why did they promise to reduce the deficit then ran it up to the largest in U.S. history?
37. Why would anyone in their right mind vote for a Republican in 2026 or 2028?
Where is your brain?
Why don’t you use it?
This morning, the trolls are decrying how they “feel threatened” on this blog by insults–as they insult Professor Turley on a daily basis, harass justices, cancel speakers, and celebrate killing Christian debaters and CEOs.
If they win in November, that behavior will be normalized. Look at France today. The Greta Thunberg doll now includes arson and assault in her accessories. French public-sector employees are striking on Tuesday in solidarity with the arsonists. And woke came from America to France. Macron himself denounced it, but now it’s terminal. We’re next because our clowns invented it.
Insurrection and maybe even civil war are right around the corner.
And who the heck ever said Roberts is a conservative anyway?
Yep, he’s an institutionalist so he often splits the difference between Heaven and Hell. He’s finding out Hell doesn’t compromise.
Estovir, YOU are the troll!!
Anyone who keeps changing names to ensure they get the last word in every debate is obviously acting in bad faith. What’s more, it’s difficult to grasp why you’re a constant presence here.
So when you complain about ‘the trolls’, one just has to ask, “What the hell are YOU..??”
LOL! I don’t know if you meant for me to laugh today but thank you anyway.
Why do you use the term “liberal”. They are totalitarianism thugs. They are intolerant illiberal ignoramuses. They are dangerous and evil
If they did this in front of an abortion den they would be locked up forever. Priorities.
Trump’s childish mudslinging only backfires to those who see it for what it is.
By slinging mud, he inadvertently slings mud at himself as someone who slings mud.
How is slinging mud at political opponents supposed to improve the lives of the people?
The targets of the mudslinging might actually have better answers and solutions for the issues of the people, solutions
that they would be deprived of if the mudslinging tactics are allowed to work.
Now we can see why GenZ is so upset! Being the failures to launch in life, then Gen Alpha shows them up on how to be successes in life at the tender age of 14!
Gen Alpha kids are earning money. Here’s how parents can help them save and invest
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/03/investing-for-kids-accounts.html
Why not demonstrate your loyalty to Trump by going to Iran to fight? I’m sure he’ll appreciate it. He might even buy you a Big Mac.
OT, very interesting, Red states rate high on parental rights and DEI while blue states rank lower
Director of Government Affairs at Defending Education Dr. Terry Stoops told The Center Square: “If your state is at the top of Defending Education’s rankings, congratulations! You live in a state with public school policies that prioritize sound academics over shameless antics.”
“If your state is at the bottom, then your elected officials have sacrificed educational excellence at the altar of social justice,” Stoops said.
“For parents in bottom-feeder states who value rigor over ridiculousness, the choice is either fight or flight,” Stoops said.
https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_c21286fa-83a5-4b46-86f5-20dca6ccb1a9.html?a
#. Their home addresses should be unknown. List the court for mail. No access IRS.
anonymoose
Pt points out the left leaning justices aren’t attacked.
It’s coercion and degradation.
The problem can be resolved if We The People decide to resolve it. If these lunatics show up with their invasive behavior, then we show up and disperse them using whatever means we see fit. The process is as old as time. We The People didn’t set the rules. The Left did. Cities burned in “mostly peaceful” protests. People died. Laws went unenforced and the intent of the First Amendment was twisted into something it was never intended to be by black robed jurists playing God from their thrones. The Left, with its mantra of civil disobedience, insistence on forcing its own agenda on everyone, no matter their religious, philosophical or political beliefs and opinions, created a social pressure cooker fueled by social apathy, media support and academic and judicial activism. We all know what happens when a pressure cooker is left untended over a roaring fire. We shouldn’t expect that our societal pressures to result in less. The pressure is at a critical point. Don’t expect less than sheer tragedy.
Isn’t it great to live in a country where you can’t be thrown into a dungeon
for exposing the truth about the President?
In terms of constitutional rights and freedoms, America was already great.
By punishing entertainers and journalists in the manner of a dictator, Trump made it worse.
Ummmm, the only people that I am aware of that were completely deprived of their Constitutional rights are those Patriots that were protesting the J6. Thrown into a gulag, deprived of the right to due process, deprived of representation, held for years without recourse. All for peaceful protest of a Stolen or rigged or compromised election.
That was done through Biden, Comey, Merrick Garland and his Biden regime of Storm Troopers. Perhaps we should start protesting at those criminals homes?!
If they couldn’t do the time, then they shouldn’t have committed the crime.
There’s no shortage of graceless and puerile people on the left, manifest in this country in the attitude that the appellate courts are their property and that it is the business of the appellate courts to give them what they want 24 / 7 if legislative bodies won’t give it to them. (Since 1937, about the only issue in regard to which leftoids have been impeded by judicial opinions when they were not impeded by elected officials would be in implementing the mass gun confiscation they want).
For all the whining and complaining about the lack of civility and mutual respect on this thread, it does not dawn on the commenters here that they are part of problem. Time to accept the fact you are of a different generation; that you too didn’t not always abide by those unwritten rules you lament. And that you are all unwilling to take the blame for this change in our society. You set the example and now you have to live with it until you die.
Worse, we have to live with you until you die.
Nope! THIS is all YOUR fault dopey!
Former NYTimes executive editor Joseph Lelyveld for many years spent the month of August at his seaside camp farther down the Maine coast, where I was a neighbor. Although predominantly politically conservative, no one in the small lobster-fishing village ever protested his presence. In contrast to the actions of Roberts’ neighbors, and the views of many of the Times commenters, Lelyveld and his family’s privacy was respected without question.
Jonathan does a masterful job unpacking why rage ain’t the way to keep Ben Franklin’s Republic. The worst is when the doers damn well know that. That’s fake rage. That is the bunch that does understand that you don’t take your half of the road out of the middle. And do it anyway. Specifically, they know that the same Chief Justice Roberts held with them on the Affordable Care Act in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that the coverage mandate penalty was a tax within Article l taxing power. When I read the decision I saw immediately what our Supreme Court of Texas has stated my whole practice career. The Court will uphold the provision of a statute on any valid legal basis, even if not raised by the parties. That is a direct co- equal branch salute. I think there are fellow citizens in the rage camp that can be moved away from it by better speech. In a conversation I would hope to capture the idea you get hearing “do not put valve grinding compound in your gas tank. It will eat your engine.”
Did the 1st Amendment guarantee the right to participate in the unpeaceful events of January 6?
Almost none of the people arrested did anything which merited criminal penalties beyond minor fines.
Can the same be said about the kayakers, or is your criticism of them simply based on a dislike of their politics?
Ask the Capitol Police as they were the ones that turned peaceful assembly into a riot.
We need to start “Broken Windows” policing of these creeps. Inspect the boats for licensing, throwing dolls is littering. Harassing ICE during arrests is interfering.
You can’t phart in America without breaking some law or ordinance. Use it.
One person’s “Broken Windows” policing is another person’s Enabling Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
You’re a fraud.
Why do you say that?