The myth of nonpartisan justices

Adam Serwer's grim Atlantic piece about SCOTUS is entitled, "The Lie About the Supreme Court Everyone Pretends to Believe".

It opens:

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is offended by those questioning the impartiality of the Supreme Court.

“This Court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks,” she announced at a recent event at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center, named for Senator Mitch McConnell. “Judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”

For Barrett to insist on her nonpartisanship at a center named for the legislator whose procedural hardball was instrumental in securing her seat suggests that, although Barrett’s peers have praised her legal mind, her sense of irony leaves something to be desired. ...

Serwer provides a handy timeline of how the so-called "conservative" movement worked for a half-century to tilt the Court so far to the right that it's hard to believe it hasn't tipped over. He doesn't fault the movement for doing this, arguing that that's how politics is played. He does, however, tell the too-pious-for-words Justices trying to maintain the fiction of judicial impartiality (including non-conservative Stephen Breyer) to STFU:

The conservative movement seems to have secured the Court for a generation at least, but that is insufficient. The right-wing justices also demand their decisions be seen as the outcome of dispassionate legal reasoning, not partisan warfare. They do not want the legitimacy of their proclamations, or the institution itself, questioned to the point where their liberal counterparts might consider paths as drastic and radical as the ones they took to get here. They wish to be admired and celebrated as the sagacious intellectual giants they believe themselves to be.

Having reached the heights of the legal profession, it must be deflating for the justices to recognize that the public is not obligated to reflect their self-regard. In truth, the public is simply reciprocating the contempt that the justices show for the people every time they insist on lying to their face about how the Court works, or why it looks the way it does today.

Contempt. Yep, that's what I feel for our would-be Solons. Suck it up, right-wing Justices, because you've more than earned it.

The Texas anti-abortion law is incomplete

Thanks to all five uber-right-wing Supreme Court Justices turning a blind eye, Texas' now-infamous anti-abortion law has taken effect. The law criminalizes abortion after six weeks. (Most women don't even know they're pregnant at that point.) There is no exception for rape or incest. To keep from running afoul of prior Supreme Court rulings, the state of Texas doesn't enforce the law. Instead, the law allows a private citizen — any private citizen — to sue anyone who facilitated the abortion. That could include not just the medical personnel who actually carried out the procedure, but anyone who helped; the oft-cited example is the rideshare driver who dropped the woman off at an abortion clinic. Moreover, there's no downside for suing: the plaintiff isn't liable even if s/he pursued the claim frivolously. (That's my understanding from media coverage, anyway.) If the party being sued doesn't respond, a Texas court can enter a default judgment requiring the defendant to pay the plaintiff's legal fees plus a $10,000 fine.

It's a lovely piece of work. Congratulations, Texas Republicans: you crafted a law that is uniquely cruel and corrosive to the rule of law, substituting vigilantism for law enforcement.

However, the law could be made palatable (maybe) with a simple addition to its provisions:

Any party suing, or threatening to sue, under the terms of this law is required to take custody of an unwanted newborn — one for each suit threatened or filed. Otherwise a filed suit is dismissed with prejudice.

You feel strongly that all fertilized eggs should be brought to term? Then take responsibility for the resulting children.