With every passing day, it becomes increasingly more clear to me which set of Supremes has made us better and which is making us so much worse.
Wikipedia reminds us:
The Supremes are the most successful American group of all time, and the 26th greatest artist of all time on the US Billboard charts; with 12 number-one songs … and three number-one albums on the Billboard 200. The Supremes were the first artist to accumulate five consecutive number-one singles … In 2017, Billboard ranked The Supremes as the number-one girl group of all time.
Born to segregated white America, it was no wonder that for so many weaned on 1950s “Father Knows Best” delusions, The Supremes, with the words of Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Edward Jr. Holland, offered a far more accurate assessment of what life was really like. These Supremes came from the Brewster-Douglass Project in Detroit, home of the “working poor.” Their lived experience provided the backdrop for their ability to effectively communicate that life could be difficult and complicated for ordinary folk of any and all colors. And with extraordinary skill and vitality and vocal dexterity, they were telling it like it was. And so many of us felt lucky to sing along with them.
No, love, love don’t come easy
But I keep on waiting
Anticipating for that soft voice
To talk to me at night
For some tender arms
To hold me tight
I keep waiting I keep on waiting
But it ain’t easy
It ain’t easy
But mama said:
You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said to trust, give it time
No matter how long it takes
You can’t hurry love
No, you just have to wait
She said love don’t come easy
It’s a game of give and take …
And really, truly, “it ain’t easy” and “you just have to wait” was true for so much more than merely love.
These Supremes were prompting us to dance and helping us cry, bringing us the truth way before the “privileged Supremes” harnessed all the arrogance, the presumptuousness, and disrespect they could gather as they sanctimoniously and systematically stripped away fundamental freedoms from us all, especially American women. The privileged Supremes gladly and consistently intervene on behalf of the powerful and the wealthy and disparage and thwart the attempts of governments and lower courts to better serve the interests of ordinary people—for safe streets and clean water and breathable air, to address the climate crisis.
And so, I give you the Lesser Supremes:
These four white men, one collaborating Black man, an ineffectual Chief Justice, and the additional Trump-appointed white woman imagine their religiosity permits them to dismantle judicious healthcare and impose their notions of what American women ought to do with their bodies. Obviously, they don’t respect the centuries-old struggle for autonomy and independence and privacy so courageously and tenaciously fought for by people of color and so many known and unknown women.
These Supremes are creatures of the past, not the present. Remember, the Constitution approved of slavery and denied women and Native Americans the vote. Which is why Samuel Alito could so easily reach back into the dark recesses of olden days to find the appropriate punitive language and outdated and cruel laws the Court needed to justify their dismantling of the forward-looking precedent of Roe v. Wade.
In contrast, the better Supremes knew exactly who to consult: Ask any girl, ask any woman, not subject to the throes of a male-dominated religion:
“Ask Any Girl”
Being hurt by the one you love
It’s a feeling that’s hard to hide
But you don’t seem to understand why
When I’m alone I sit and cry
Ask any girl
Who’s often left alone
All by herself
Neglectfully pushed aside
Set aside like a doll on a shelf
Just ask any girl
Ooh, and you’ll understand why
I sit and cry
Ask any girl
Who knows the fear of losing
Someone dear
And she’ll say the same thing
It hurts you deep
Makes it hard to sleep
Don’t take my word
Ask any girl
Then you’ll understand why
I sit and cry
Ask any girl
Who receives no loving affection
And she’ll feel as I feel
It’s heartaches by the number
Many nights without slumber
Ask any girl
Ooh, and then you’ll know why
I sit and cry
I sit and cry
Writers: Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, Edward Holland Jr.
It is not really a coincidence that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the two women of color on the Supreme Court, recently shared what it is like to watch her colleagues so painfully drag us back to the days before the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s movement, the Pride movements, acknowledging how she sometimes finds herself sitting and crying:
‘There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried … There have been those days. And there are likely to be more … There are moments when I’m deeply, deeply sad … And there are moments when, yes, even I feel desperation. We all do. But you have to own it. You have to accept it. You have to shed the tears, and then you have to wipe them and get up and fight some more.’
Day after day, case after case, these hypocritical men and their female fellow traveler pretend it is Godliness—not rage and spite and fear—that prompts them to control a woman’s body, the voting booth, who ought to get educated and how and where, and constrict the ability of workers to fight for a living wage and safe working conditions.
This is as good a time as any to talk about Samuel Alito and his wife. Remember their great flag-flying controversy? The upside-down American flag flown during the Stop The Steal insurrection and the Sacred Heart of Jesus flag at their vacation house. You might recall how Justice Alito, in response to calls to recuse himself from the two January 6 cases before the Court, dropped the dime on her:
Some teleprompting journalists have criticized Lauren Winston, the documentary filmmaker who, by flattering and agreeing with them, surreptitiously recorded their conversations at the recent Supreme Court Historical Society dinner. Both Alitos spoke freely and enthusiastically about how they really feel about America. Lauren Winston began by talking about the polarization in the country:
Perhaps remembering that he has sworn an oath, Alito adds, “I mean there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully …” But the impulse for accommodation quickly gives way to the desire to win:
Lauren Winston goes on to say: “And that’s what I’m saying. It’s just, I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument.”
So, it seems clear that Justice Alito is at war, imagining himself on the side of morality, the side of God.
Is it really surprising that Martha-Ann Alito, she of distressed upside-down American flag, admits how annoyed she is with what is become of America?
And is it really surprising, so obviously partial to flags, how upset she is by the flag the others fly? She is unable, even for a moment, to appreciate the pride manifested and celebrated by those liberated from the constraint of having to hide their truest identity. Is it surprising, she, too, is convinced of her Godliness? So Godly, she has her own Psalm.
Whether they appreciate it or not, it seems to me that so many members of today’s Supreme Court are enemies of the very spirit of The Supremes, of Motown, of Dancing in The Street. They are hostile to the successful efforts that replaced the stale, often cruel reality of segregated and homogenized 1950s white male America with the vibrant hope of the multiculturalism of the 1960s. With the help of The Supremes, The Temptations, The Impressions, Curtis Mayfield, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Nina Simone, and so many others who provided so much of the soundtrack that accompanied the Black, white, and in-between effort to push past segregation, religious bias, male chauvinism, the primacy of heterosexuality to affirm the desire and need to be free. Allow me to make a slight revision to Elvis Costello: “What’s so frightening about peace, love, and understanding?”
I knew they were “conservative,” but I never quite appreciated the deep-seated rancor and utter cynicism of those who serve on the highest court. The fierce need to wipe away the remnants of those hard-earned freedoms. Exactly how do expanded voting rights or affirmative action or sensible gun legislation threaten Catholic and Christian values? To me, the reliance on Godliness is the clearest example of the remarkable powers of delusion mixed with unfathomable arrogance. How Christian is it, really, for the justices to lie and cheat and hide the millions of compromising gifts they have taken from billionaires with an obvious great stake in how the Court votes?
How Christian is it to force women to birth the children of their rapists? From incest? How Christian is it to allow women to bleed to death during tragic miscarriages and other medical emergencies while pregnant because you have denied them medically necessary abortions? How exactly are you pro life while you deny us the ability to feel safe in the streets, at home, work, and in our schools because you have armed our crazed and angry neighbors to the teeth? Their bizarre insistence that the Second Amendment of 1791 magically covers modern weapons of war inevitably causes continuing death and extraordinary destruction.
Just the other day, Clarence Thomas, joined by Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett in Garland v. Cargill undid the critically important attempt of the government to ban the lethal bump stocks which resulted in the unspeakable carnage in Las Vegas.
Fueled by yet more hatred of governmental regulation and “political pressure,” the justices employed tortured logic: quibbling with terms like “single function of the trigger” and “automatically” and arguing about the technicalities of “trigger assemblies” all the while defying common sense. Once upon a time we were told these guns were about hunting, but an AR-15 fitted with a bump stock firing hundreds of bullets would obliterate a deer. While protecting the dubious rights of the gun owners, it would sacrifice any attempt to provide reasonable public safety for the rest of us:
Without embarrassment, Thomas lectures:
Firing multiple shots using a semiautomatic rifle with a bump stock requires more than a single function of the trigger. A shooter must also actively maintain just the right amount of forward pressure on the rifle’s front grip with his nontrigger hand.
And so, thanks to textural interpretation, the bullets will fly.
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson, unsuccessfully attempted to restore clarity and sanity to the issue:
Congress has sharply restricted civilian ownership of machineguns since 1934. Federal law defines a ‘machinegun’ as a weapon that can shoot ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’ 26 U. S. C. §5845(b). Shortly after the Las Vegas massacre, the Trump administration, with widespread bipartisan support, banned bump stocks as machineguns under the statute. Today, the Court puts bump stocks back in civilian hands. To do so, it casts aside Congress’s definition of ‘machinegun’ and seizes upon one that is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the statutory text and unsupported by context or purpose. When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. A bump-stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle fires ‘automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.’ §5845(b). Because I, like Congress, call that a machinegun, I respectfully dissent.
One of the most common of tells these justices share is how they all lied during their confirmation hearings. But here, the secret Alito recordings provide an explanation: All is fair in the Godly war they are waging on American liberalism and multiculturalism. There is no place for truth in this war. They are fighting to abolish programs like Obamacare; Social Security; affirmative action; and undo progressive advances like same-sex marriage, in vitro fertilization, perhaps even birth control. They look to replace opportunity, compassion, and care with a revised Thatcherism and parsimony.
It is a practiced dishonesty, rich with arrogance and pomposity. It is a flat-out lie embroidered with pseudo-intellectual, self-convinced assertions and false histories, replete with citations from our discredited sometimes barbarous past.
Here is a bit of what Neil Gorsuch told the Senate:
When I put on the robe, I am also reminded that under our Constitution, it is for this body, the people’s representatives, to make new laws. For the executive to ensure those laws are faithfully enforced. And for neutral and independent judges to apply the law in the people’s disputes … As Alexander Hamilton explained, ‘liberty can have nothing to fear from’ judges who apply the law, but liberty ‘ha[s] every thing to fear’ if judges try to legislate too.
Could Neil Gorsuch have missed how his Court has been legislating its ass off? Didn’t they just re-legislate bump stocks? Clearly, liberty has everything to fear from his Court.
Gorsuch declared the late Justice Antonin Scalia his mentor:
He reminded us that words matter — that the judge’s job is to follow the words that are in the law — not replace them with words that aren’t …
What am I missing here? The Second Amendment reads:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Pretty much everyone knew what this text meant except for Scalia. Originalism and textualism except when it doesn’t suit your purpose. Why not, if necessary, distort the part about the militia.
Neil Gorsuch displayed more well-rehearsed dishonesty discussing Roe v. Wade and precedent.
GORSUCH: Senator, again, I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.
GRASSLEY: What about Griswold, which was decided a few years before Roe, the case where the Court found constitutional right to privacy? …
GORSUCH: Senator, it is a precedent that is now 50 years old. Griswold involved the right of married couples to use contraceptive devices in the privacy of their own home. And it is 50 years old. The reliance interests are obvious. It has been repeatedly reaffirmed. All very important factors again in analyzing precedent. (Emphasis added.)
How about Brett M. Kavanaugh:
Senator, I said that it is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis. And one of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
And as you well recall, senator, I know when that case came up, the Supreme Court did not just reaffirm it in passing. The court specifically went through all the factors of stare decisis in considering whether to overrule it, and the joint opinion of Justice Kennedy, Justice O’Connor and Justice Souter, at great length went through those factors. That was the question presented in the case … That makes Casey precedent on precedent … So that precedent on precedent is quite important as you think about stare decisis in this context.
Amy Coney Barrett told us:
After all, cases are not like statutes, which are often named for their authors. Cases are named for the parties who stand to gain or lose in the real world, often through their liberty or livelihood … I chose to accept the nomination because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the place of the Supreme Court in our Nation. I believe Americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written. And I believe I can serve my country by playing that role.
Then, Amy Coney Barrett, with the help of Lindsay Graham, modestly revealed the pathway for doing away with Roe:
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Let’s talk about the two Supreme Court cases regarding abortion …
AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, I think most people think of Roe vs. Wade, and Casey is the case after Roe that preserved Roe’s central holding … that the state cannot impose an undue burden on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: … there are states challenging on the abortion front. There are states that are going to a fetal heartbeat bill. I have a bill, judge, that would disallow abortion on demand at the 20 weeks, the fifth month of the pregnancy … I think 14 states have already passed a version of what I’ve just described. So there really is a debate in America still, unlike Brown versus Board of Education, about the rights of the unborn … if a state passes a law, and it goes into court where people say, ‘This violates Casey,’ how do you decide that?
AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, it would begin in a district court, in a trial court. The trial court would make a record. The parties would litigate and fully develop that record in the trial court. Then it would go up to a court of appeals that would review that record, looking for error. And then, again, it would be the same process. Someone would have to seek certiorari at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would have to grant it. And then at that point, it would be the full judicial process. It would be briefs, oral argument, conversations with law clerks in chambers, consultation with colleagues, writing an opinion, really digging down into it …
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Okay. Same-sex marriage. What’s the case that established same-sex marriage as the law of the land?
AMY CONEY BARRETT: Obergefell.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Okay. If there was a state who tried to outlaw same-sex marriage, and there’s litigation, would it follow the same process?
AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, it would. And one thing I’ve neglected to say before that’s occurring to me now, is that not only would someone have to challenge that statute. If they outlawed same-sex marriage, there’d have to be a case challenging it. And for the Supreme Court to take it up … it would be the same process I’ve described … So both the 14th and 5th Amendments protect life, or provide that the state cannot take life, liberty, or property without due process of law. And that sounds like a procedural guarantee, but in Supreme Court precedent, it has a substantive component. And so the substantive due process clause says that there are some liberties, some rights that people possess, that the state can’t take away or can’t take away without a really good reason. So the right to use birth control, the right to an abortion, are examples of rights protected by substantive due process.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: These are judicially created rights, not found in the document called the Constitution. Is that correct?
AMY CONEY BARRETT: Well, the Supreme Court has grounded them in the Constitution, although they’re not … They’re not expressed …
Let’s review the Dobbs decision, Decided June 24, 2022.
This issue revolved around Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act which states:
[e]xcept in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform . . . or induce an abortion of an unborn human being if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being has been determined to be greater than fifteen (15) weeks.
The issue provided the conservative Supreme Court majority exactly what they pledged not to do: override the precedents of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Justice Alito wrote for the majority:
And as Graham and Coney Barrett theorized, a state challenging Roe prevailed:
Roe and Casey each struck a particular balance between the interests of a woman who wants an abortion and the interests of what they termed ‘potential life.’ …But the people of the various States may evaluate those interests differently. The Nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.
And thus a reconsideration of the underpinnings of Roe:
Here is Samuel Alito’s declaration of victory over Roe v. Wade, and the reintroduction and return of male-dominated (and Christian) cruelty, over and above any compassionate modern-day understanding of women’s personal autonomy:
I am going to depart from The Supremes and call upon The Impressions and Curtis Mayfield to offer what I regard as a truly inspired call to Godliness: “People Get Ready,” a far more generous, compassionate, and inclusive appeal to the spiritual:
People get ready, there’s a train a comin’
You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith, to hear the diesels hummin’
Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
So people get ready, for the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers coast to coast
Faith is the key, open the doors and board ’em
There’s hope for all, among those loved the most
There ain’t no room for the hopeless sinner
Whom would hurt all mankind, just to save his own, believe me now
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there is no hiding place, against the kingdom’s throne
So people get ready there’s a train a comin’
You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith, to hear the diesels hummin’
Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
Writer: Curtis Mayfield
These Lesser Supremes have, in fact, hurt all mankind to save their own. Despite their apparent power, I still believe it is important we pick up passengers of all colors, of all faiths and genders. We must believe there is hope for all.
