Radley Balko: These mistakes originalist justices are making aren’t about disputed interpretations of history, with evidence on both sides. They’re pulling quotes out of context to attribute ideas to founding figures that those figures adamantly opposed. (via @andycraig.bsky.social) reason.com/volokh/2024/...

These mistakes originalist justices are making aren’t about disputed interpretations of history, with evidence on both sides. They’re pulling quotes out of context to attribute ideas to founding figures that those figures adamantly opposed. (via @andycraig.bsky.social) reason.com/volokh/2024/...

The Supreme Court's Dubious Use of History in Department of State v. Munozreason.com Justice Amy Coney Barrett's majority opinion includes significant errors, and violates some of her own precepts against excessive reliance on questionable history.

Originalism is an ideology of convenience. Full stop. Where it fails to meet their goals, they invent new ones

Yes. And even if it were consistent, who cares what a bunch of white dudes thought 250 years ago?

Scalia's concurrence in Conroy v. Aniskoff decried use of legislative history in statutory analysis because it essentially turns lawyers into untrained historians and bills clients for the privilege of their amateurism. Somehow that's perfectly fine for constitutional analysis though.

This is a very good point.

You’re arguing in good faith with bullshit artists.

It’s carny preacher bullshit. The Word of God means whatever is most convenient and profitable for me this week.

Mistakes suggests that they might be operating in good faith. All evidence says that they are not.

Agree!

This is what happens when you tell your clerk that you want X outcome and send them off to find justification for it.

They are lying liars who lie.

They aren't mistakes. Mistakes are unintentional.

Originalism means "What I originally wanted right now."

Strong evidence that originalism is merely a tool to achieve their preferred policy outcomes. But.. they're not arguing in good faith... That's been the biggest issue the last ten years... properly responding to idiotic statements no one believes but people base bad policy on it anyway.

Don’t kid yourself. They are all in on project 2025!

I wonder where the majority Catholic Court would have learned such a thing.

There’s no such thing as “originalist justices.”

A few months ago this 6th Circuit judge was promoting AI to U of Chicago FedSoc, arguing it gives a rooted, “objective” answer, something “real” for the parties and judge go on, but of course it’s all a load of tosh because nobody is fact checking & it’s just a smokescreen bsky.app/profile/saba...

Judge Bush goes on to say that "history & tradition" is the least-bad analytical method because it least it's based on something objective instead of jurisprudential philosophy, which in his estimation is untethered (AFAICT, whoever uploaded the YouTube video disabled the transcript & CC features)

Did judges do this when the magic 8-ball was new too

This corpus linguistics nonsense (which Judge Bush’s talk on AI related to) is all about finding sufficient wallpaper to create the illusion of rigor bsky.app/profile/phil...

From my colleague Molly Redden: “Weeks before she struck down the federal mask mandate in spring 2022, U.S. District Judge Mizelle attended an all-expenses-paid retreat where a conservative group gave her a crash course in the niche legal theory propping up her opinion.”

Trump Judges Went On A Luxury Trip — And It Doomed A Major Biden Policywww.huffpost.com The April 2022 ruling included an unusual legal theory — and new disclosures seen by HuffPost shed some light.

I haven’t looked at this but I’d wager the most partisan history & tradition decisions rely a ton on right-wing amici too. May as well be a Bill O’Reilly book I did read the parties’ briefs in Loper Bright and was struck by how much Roberts’ decision borrowed straight from the petitioner’s brief

lies, then.

Fabricating like their Congressional testimony

It must be fun to be "strict constructionists" for a constitution that only exists in their heads.

Why do you treat these as mistakes? These are DELIBERATE LIES. The conservative justices are making shit up to justify what they want to do, actively going against both the law and the original intent. SAY IT.

Just like religion! We've come full circle.

No country was ever saved by its jurisprudence, from sinking into Fascism. It just never happens.

They're not mistakes. They should not be thought of in that way.

They aren't mistakes.

"They’re pulling quotes out of context to attribute ideas to founding figures" I did this as an undergrad when I had one night to write a paper and the assignment required me to cite x sources, it was made up then and it's made up now

basically it’s a lawless court, using law as window dressing.

There is a generation of super ambitious and normally super smart SCOTUS clerks whose research work is being ignored or abused, which is humiliating and degrading, or is actually the intellectually insulting material being cited, which is shameful and a disgrace. Either way, get out or GFY.

These “ mistakes” are what other pundits call “ smartest boy in the room” legal reasoning.

A gross miscarriage of justice perhaps

Basically no better than high school debaters