DL Open Thread: Saturday, August 28, 2021
Floridians Turning Against DeSantis? Signs point to yes:
Covid infection rates continue to climb as the state faces shortages of health care staff, morgue space and even oxygen for patients. About 16,000 people are hospitalized. Child infection rates have shot up. School districts — even in Republican strongholds — have rebelled against DeSantis’ anti-mask mandates. And cruise lines are resisting DeSantis’ vaccine passport ban. Even his recent poll numbers are slipping.
“There’s no question it’s impacting him politically,” said a Republican consultant who has previously worked with DeSantis and requested anonymity to speak freely. “You can tout all the freedom and anti-lockdown that you want. There’s no political strategy for sick kids and tired parents.”
Florida Court Rules Against DeSantis’ Anti-Mask Mandate:
In a milestone decision in the heated debate about mask mandates in Florida, Cooper declared that the state cannot require districts to offer voluntary mandates over “the preservation of general welfare,” comparing the masking issue to the difference between the right to drink alcohol and the criminality of drunken driving.
Good news for the residents of Florida, assuming it’s not overturned somewhere else along the line.
Yep, Looks Like The 6 Rethug Justices Are Pushing A Radical Right Agenda. Retired Judge resigns from Supreme Court Bar with a withering letter to Justice Roberts:
I have not always agreed with the Court’s decisions, but until recently I have generally seen them as products of mainstream legal reasoning, whether liberal or conservative. The legal conservatism I have respected– that of, for example, Justice Lewis Powell, Alexander Bickel or Paul Bator– at a minimum enshrined the idea of stare decisis and eschewed the idea of radical change in legal doctrine for political ends.
I can no longer say that with any confidence. You are doing far more— and far worse– than “calling balls and strikes.” You are allowing the Court to become an “errand boy” for an administration that has little respect for the rule of law.
The Court, under your leadership and with your votes, has wantonly flouted established precedent. Your “conservative” majority has cynically undermined basic freedoms by hypocritically weaponizing others. The ideas of free speech and religious liberty have been transmogrified to allow officially sanctioned bigotry and discrimination, as well as to elevate the grossest forms of political bribery beyond the ability of the federal government or states to rationally regulate it. More than a score of decisions during your tenure have overturned established precedents—some more than forty years old– and you voted with the majority in most. There is nothing “conservative” about this trend. This is radical “legal activism” at its worst.
Without trying to write a law review article, I believe that the Court majority, under your leadership, has become little more than a result-oriented extension of the right wing of the Republican Party, as vetted by the Federalist Society. Yes, politics has always been a factor in the Court’s history, but not to today’s extent. Even routine rules of statutory construction get subverted or ignored to achieve transparently political goals. The rationales of “textualism” and “originalism” are mere fig leaves masking right wing political goals; sheer casuistry.
Cali Cops Refused To Investigate Serial Assaulter Of Activists. He’s finally been arrested for doing the same thing on January 6. Until then, the cops enabled him. In too many locales, the cops are the enemy.
Encouraging Redevelopment On Route 9. A renaissance on New Castle Avenue? Positive vibes.
What do you want to talk about?
Agreed on the cops and the supreme court. Acknowledge I am a long time hater of the supreme court and see it as an abomination that was never intended by the founders. The court is now flexing it’s far right muscle and seems to fear no consequence, what will happen? Look to the third world, when people feel powerless violence is just around the corner, once again third world be our destiny if this keeps up and it’s not just the court.