I really intended to write some deep, meaningful piece this afternoon, but I find that … well, two things really: 1) my inspiration seems to be taking a break and I cannot wake it up, and 2) my cartoon stash is filled to the brim once again! And so, my friends, you will have to settle for ‘toons instead of my ‘words of wisdom’ {cough, cough, choke} this afternoon!
Only recently did I start paying attention to memes, and setting aside some to share here. Like the political cartoons, the memes are sometimes humorous, sometimes give us food for thought, and sometimes cause us to grrrrrrrowwwwllll. Since it’s Sunday, the end of the week, I thought I’d skip ranting for one day and just share the few memes from this week’s collection! Relax and enjoy your Sunday, for tomorrow … is … MONDAY!!!
Okay, so you’ve heard a lot of rumbling this week about ‘bump stocks’ and the Supreme Court decision killing the ban on them. Let’s take a deeper look …
First off, what exactly is a ‘bump stock’? It is a device that can be attached to a semiautomatic firearm in place of a conventional gunstock, enabling it to fire bullets more rapidly. Essentially, bump stocks assist rapid fire by “bumping” the trigger against one’s finger (as opposed to one’s finger pulling on the trigger), thus allowing the firearm’s recoil, plus constant forward pressure by the non-shooting arm, to actuate the trigger. Bump fire stocks can be placed on a few common weapons such as the AR or AK families. They can achieve rates of fire between 400 and 800 rounds per minute depending on the gun. So, in short, it allows a shooter to kill more people in a given period of time than he could without the bump stock. Oh yeah, makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? What damn fool invented these?
His name is Jeremiah Cottle …
… and he is an Air Force veteran, father of four children, and promoter of mass death via his invention of the bump stock.
Bump stocks were used in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 that killed 17 people, 14 of them students, and in the 2017 shooting during a music festival in Las Vegas that killed 60 people. In the Las Vegas shooting, the shooter fired over 1,000 bullets in under 11 minutes – a feat that he could not have accomplished were it not for the bump stock he used. The first regulations banning bump stocks came in 2018 as a result of the Las Vegas mass shooting, and until two days ago, bump stocks had been banned by the ATF, saying that they turned rifles into illegal machine guns. But then … a funny thing happened in the U.S. Supreme Court, best known today for its corruption and for its complete disregard of the people of this nation.
In what has become the typical 6-3 ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had exceeded its power when it prohibited the device, and that bump stocks did not, in fact, convert a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun, or fully automatic one. One has to wonder if Clarence’s sugar daddy, Harlan Crow, is somehow vested in the firearms industry. About 15 states have gun laws banning bump stocks that will remain in place, for this is a federal ruling against the ATF that does not affect the states … yet. However, you can expect challenges to those state laws to start any day now.
The case was brought by a group called the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of Michael Cargill, a Texas gun shop owner. Jeremiah Cottle celebrated, telling one news outlet …
“I’ve waited over half a decade for justice after the President of the United States unconstitutionally targeted my company and invention. Today is a win for the American people.”
No sir, it was a huge loss for the “American people” and for our lives and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives, but that doesn’t matter to you, as long as the $$$ keep rolling into your pocket, right? Instead of 21 people losing their lives at a school in Uvalde, Texas two years ago, it could well have been 30 or more if your damn bump stocks had been legal.
You all know my feelings … no guns belong in the hands of civilians … EVER. This is just one more straw added to the camel’s back. Today, there are approximately 330 million people in the United States and over 400 million guns in the hands of civilians. Where’s the common sense? It certainly is NOT in the United States Supreme Court!!!
The big news of the day yesterday was the ‘secret’ recording by journalist/filmmaker Lauren Windsor of Justice Samuel Alito and his wife at a Supreme Court event last week whereby Alito generally indicated his desire to turn the U.S. into a ‘Christian’ nation, and his wife spewed her hatred for the LGBTQ community. I suppose that none of this should come as a shock to us, but … hearing the quiet part spoken aloud does rather give us a jolt. The Supreme Court … is no longer very ‘supreme’ in my view. They are selling this country downriver at a dizzying pace. I’d like to hear what Robert Reich has to say about it all, so let’s head over to his place … oh, and I LOVE his drawing of Alito!
Alito’s Admission
By Robert Reich
10 June 2024
I’m no fan of secret recordings designed to entrap public officials into saying things they’d rather not have the public hear, but Justice Sam Alito’s remarks to filmmaker Lauren Windsor at the Supreme Court Historical Society dinner on June 3 — released today — confirm everything I assumed about Alito’s approach to the law.
After Windsor told Alito that, as a Catholic, she couldn’t see herself getting along with liberals in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end, and that the Court should be about “winning,” Alito responded:
“I think you’re probably right. On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
When Windsor said people must fight to return our country to a “place of godliness,” Alito said, “I agree with you. I agree with you.”
As you know, Alito wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson, issued June 24, 2022, which overruled the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, establishing a woman’s right to an abortion.
Alito’s opinion began by noting that “Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views,” and then went on to hold that “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but … the right to abortion does not fall within this category.”
Alito spent the next 75 pages (including 69 footnotes) seeking to justify the his decision. But not once did he admit that his personal his religious convictions influenced him. Nowhere did he say that America should be a place of godliness. At no point did he convey his belief that there is no room for compromise on such a fundamental moral issue.
Alito’s secretly-recorded remarks about his true beliefs will come as no surprise to anyone. The remarks signaling his religious bias are like the flags flown in front of his houses signaling his political partisanship.
But what is lost in these revelations is the naïve hope that justices of the Supreme Court put reason over personal bias, logic over religious preference, and public duty over partisanship. This hope is invaluable in maintaining public confidence in the Supreme Court.
The other cynical consequence of the secret recording of Alito’s remarks is to besmirch the legitimate roles played by journalists and investigative reporters. Windsor posed as a conservative to bait justices into saying things they would otherwise never say in public, and secretly record them. Windsor later said she felt justified in doing so because the court is “shrouded in secrecy, and they’re refusing to submit to any accountability in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious ethics breaches.”
She is right, but it is still a shame we have come to this.
(The recordings were published by Rolling Stone and Windsor’s activist site The Undercurrent, and on X.)
Here is the approximate net worth of all nine Supreme Court Justices:
Granted, none of them are as rich as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates, none are billionaires, but still … a million dollars is a lot of money! I don’t think I made a million dollars in my cumulative 44 years working for a living. But this probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue except that we know of at least two of those justices – Thomas and Alito – who have taken special ‘favours’ and donations from wealthy people who had or would soon have business with the Court. And we know that in one way or another, both Thomas and Alito are involved with the attempted coup on January 6th 2021, and both have refused to recuse themselves from the two cases about that insurrection pending in the Court today. All of which adds up to a pretty damn corrupt court in my view.
A number of retired judges and one Supreme Court Justice have sounded warnings about the Supreme Court in recent years, among them retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, retired Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig, and most recently retired D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel. Judge Tatel, whose memoir, Vision, will be in bookstores on June 11th, has issued a stark warning for the future of the Supreme Court, the future of the planet, and democracy.
Two articles, one in the New York Times and the other in The Washington Post, tell a bit about Judge Tatel, his views, and his upcoming memoir … worth reading!
Trust in the Supreme Court today is, not surprisingly, at an all-time low. Reversals of prior precedents such as the Voting Rights Act and Roe v Wade left us feeling as if we had been slapped in the face, and then seeing the abuses by Thomas and Alito, and watching Chief Justice Roberts condone their behaviour … is a bridge too far, I’m afraid. I am waiting with bated breath to hear their ruling this month on whether to grant Donald Trump full immunity for his many crimes while in office … that could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
As you might imagine, between Justice Samuel Alito’s outrageous refusal to recuse himself from cases he has a vested interest in and the big news about HWSNBN (he who shall not be named) being convicted on all 34 charges in the New York case, the cartoonists have had a lot on their plates this week and they’ve done well! Here are a few of the best ones I saw …
Much has been said about Justices Alito and Thomas lately — their inappropriate behaviour, symbols of partisanship (flags), and the variety of partisan rulings they have made in the past few years — and our friend Annie has summed it all up neatly for us. It’s time for We the People to stop whining and demand that our elected leaders (members of Congress) take action … NOW! Check out her post …
Well, friends, it’s that time of the week again … been four days since my last cartoon post and the file is once again overflowing! How can so much sardonic mirth just keep on coming? I’m surprised the cartoonists don’t have carpal tunnel or some other hand ailment yet from all that drawing! But alas, they have enough material to keep them drawing 24/7, and I, for one, am grateful for it helps to be able to find a chuckle amidst the darkness every now and then. So, buckle up …
I’m sure most of you have heard by now about the recently released photo/news about the upside-down flag flying at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home at a critical time a few years ago. I’ve read a couple of excellent takes on what it means and why it’s so important, one of the best by professor & lawyer Joyce Vance, who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017. I’d like to share it with you today …
Justice Alito
By Joyce Vance
17 May 2024
When I saw this headline in the New York Times late Thursday, a lot of different things ran through my mind. First, I wondered who had gotten through security to rig the flag at the Justice’s home. Then, as I read the story’s opening lines, I figured the photo had to be a deep fake.
Here’s what I did not anticipate: that in January of 2021—for several days around January 17th, to be precise, both after the insurrection on the sixth and while the Supreme Court was still considering whether to hear an election-related case—the inverted flag associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement was flying on a flagpole on Justice Alito’s lawn.
We know it’s true because Justice Alito blamed his wife when asked. As though a sitting Supreme Court Justice, upon pulling up to his home and seeing the flag, wouldn’t immediately take it down and say, “Honey, I understand your feelings, but as a Justice on the United States Supreme Court, I must avoid even the appearance of impropriety, and that flag conveys a political sentiment that is an affront to the rule of law I’m sworn to uphold, especially after rioters carrying it swarmed the Capitol a week and a half ago.”
The Times reported that Alito emailed the following statement to them when asked for comment: “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
I have spent a good bit of time in my life around Judges. My Father-in-Law was a federal judge, my Husband was a state court judge, and I have a number of close friends on the bench. I am certain that none of their spouses or other family members would have even considered placing a political symbol like this in their front yard because they would have understood the rules, just like I did. And the rules are, you don’t do that. At the time the Alito’s flew the flag in front of their house, the Court was deciding whether to hear a vote-counting challenge from Pennsylvania. The majority said no, but Justice Alito, joined by Thomas, dissented. They wanted the Court to take the case, whose theme, in brief, was that the Pennsylvania election had been stolen—stop the steal.
You can hardly blame the folks who saw the flag flying at the Alito’s home and decided it had to be brought to the Court’s attention. Surprisingly, it’s taken this long to become public. The Times reported that the half-dozen or so neighbors who were aware of it asked to remain anonymous because they “feared reprisal.” Let that sink in as we contemplate what a second Trump term in office might look like.
The ethics rules that apply to all of the lower federal court judges in this country are similar to those I’m used to as a former DOJ employee. No political signs in front of your house, not bumper stickers on your car. It’s not complicated. If you’re committed to serving the people and ensuring they have confidence in the fair administration of justice, you just don’t. But Sam Alito did.
A post from the pro-Trump site Patriots.win encouraging Trump supporters who couldn’t make it to Washington on January 6 to fly their flags upside down to show their support for Trump.
Justice Alito seems to have forgotten, or perhaps he’s just flagrantly ignoring, the fundamental truth of this Republic, which is that judges are not meant to be above the law. If anything, they must hold themselves to a higher standard in service to ensure that American justice holds the high standards of the Founding Fathers to whom Justice Alito frequently pays lip service.
In a different era, Justice Alito, if not resigning from the Court over such a serious breach of ethics would, at a minimum, recuse himself from two cases that are currently pending before the Court: the presidential immunity case and the case deciding whether the statute that criminalizes interference with an official proceeding applies to January 6. Will there be any consequences in Alito’s case? Doubtful. Will Alito continue to sit on those two cases alongside Clarence Thomas, who has his own ethical issues? Undoubtedly.
Much as Trump eroded public trust in our essential institutions, two Justices are stripping public confidence in the nation’s highest court. Permitting Donald Trump to name any more justices to this Court would be a blow the nation could not withstand. We are entitled to judges and justices who take their oaths of office seriously.
Imagine if it came to light that Justice Sotomayor had an Antifa bumper sticker on her car or Justice Jackson had a “Dark Brandon” sign in her front yard. What would the fallout look like?
This is important, if belated, news particularly in the context of earlier reports about ethical lapses by members of the Supreme Court. It deserves a lengthy turn in the news cycle. There are a lot of weighty issues on the ballot in November. We do ourselves and our future a disservice if we do not include the Supreme Court as one of them.
On this topic, I’d also like to recommend Jay Kuo’s excellent post, SCOTUS Has Fallen … it’s a little longer, but very informative.
Some days the snarky just fills my head and feels like if I don’t let it out, it’s going to explode! Today is one such day, so fasten your seat belts and hang onto your hats! Where to start …?
You likely remember that when he was in the Oval Office, Donald Trump installed three uber-conservative Supreme Court justices (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, & Barrett) and made no bones about the fact that he hoped the court would overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that protected a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions regarding abortion. Two years ago, the Supreme Court did just that, and Trump bragged that he was responsible for it. Publicly bragged about setting women’s rights back 100 years.
Fast forward to the New York Times/Sienna College poll that has gotten so much attention this week. One of the questions on the poll was: Is Biden or Trump More Responsible for Ending Roe? Incredibly, 17% of respondents overall said that President Biden is responsible for ending Roe v Wade. President Biden has long been a vocal supporter of a woman’s right to make her own decision … it was Donald Trump who orchestrated this mess! Where are people’s brains? (Word of warning: you’ll hear me ask that question many, many times in the coming months) Even stranger is that even more Republicans than Democrats believe Biden is responsible for it … 22%! 🙄
Mitt Romney, who I generally consider to be one of the more sensible, moderate Republicans, said in an interview that President Biden should have pardoned Donald Trump on all federal charges, and should have urged New York prosecutors to drop the charges in the election interference/hush money case currently being tried. WTF??? So, ol’ Mitt thinks Trump should be given a free pass just because his enormous posterior sat in the Oval Office for four long years? His ‘reasoning’ was …
“You may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought on indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him. I’d have pardoned President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy.”
That is food for thought, but … no way should Donald Trump be allowed to skate free after robbing this nation and its people in the many ways he did. AND … Mitt’s suggestion would open the door to any future president who chose to use the office to further his own fortunes at the expense of We the People. We cannot afford that!
Anna Paulina Luna(tic) is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida, elected in 2022. Ms. Luna is a consummate liar who has lied about everything under the sun from her family, her background, her education, her religion, her childhood, and more. If she were from, say Maine or New Jersey or California, she never would have made it past first base, but … it’s Florida … need I say more?
Since taking office in January 2023, she has done a number of really stupid things, such as in February when she introduced a bill that would force members of Congress who voted for aid to Ukraine to serve in the war in Ukraine. Or in May 2023, when she declared in a House floor speech that “humanitarian aid for women and children in Afghanistan” is illegal because it is not mentioned in the Constitution. But her latest inanity takes the cake …
This week, Ms. Luna proposed a resolution, along with seven other Republican representatives, to award … wait for it … a Congressional Gold Medal to Donald Trump. Among the clauses in the resolution are “the greatest of President Trump’s foreign policy achievements was that no wars were started while he was in office.” What an utterly stupid, stupid woman she is!!! The resolution won’t pass, for it would require the approval of two-thirds of both the House and the Senate, but just the idea of it makes me ill. You can check out the resolution here.
The Congressional Gold Medal is the oldest and highest civilian award in the United States, alongside the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It is an expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions by individuals or institutions. To award it to Donald Trump would be a slap in the face to all who have received the medal, including notables like George Washington, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Dr. Martin Luther King, the Tuskegee Airmen, etc. Ms. Luna(tic) needs to go … let us hope that Floridians send her packing in November!
And my last snippet is a real doozy. His name is Harrison Butker and I gather he is a football player for the Kansas City Chiefs, though since I don’t follow football, I had never heard of him until this week. He first came to my attention yesterday when I read that during a commencement speech at Benedictine College he referred to Pride Month (June) as an example of the “deadly sins”. That was enough to make me growl, but then I read that he also addressed gender ideologies and said that a woman’s most important title is “homemaker.”
“It is you, the women, who have had the most diabolic lies told to you. Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr …
Interestingly, about 20 minutes after I read that article, our friend Ali Redford sent me an email asking me if I would consider sharing this link to a poll about Mr. Butker’s misogynist remarks! Talk about timing. If you have a minute, would you pop over to the poll … it’s just one question, takes less than 30 seconds … and respond? Ali and I would love to hear your thoughts on Mr. Butker’s remarks.
Well, I think I got some of the snark out so maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight! Thanks for listening!
Filosofa's Word 