NPR Supreme Court expert Nina Totenberg reported that a clerk for a conservative justice is the likely source of the leak of Alito's outrageous draft opinion showing the court is preparing to to overturn Roe v. Wade. "The only one that makes sense is it came from somebody who was afraid that this majority might not hold." It's of little interest compared to what's in the leak.
But even what's is in the leak wouldn't move me to kill, kidnap or maim any of the justices. Nor would I kidnap any of them, or harm their families. It's too dangerous; the chances of getting caught are overwhelming. It looks like the main culprit and his family have moved out of their home. That's good. I hope he's inconvenienced. I hope his family is in turmoil. I hope he's scared to death. In fact, I hope the 72 year old Alito has a heart attack and dies. Or a stroke. I hope the other 4 do as well. And I hope their passing is long-drawn out and horribly painful. He and his family-- presumably his wife Martha-Ann have been taken to an undisclosed location. Their two kids are adults and I don't think they live with their parents.
You know what else I wouldn't do? I wouldn't be part of a bipartisan vote to "expand security protection to the family members of justices, following protests at some Supreme Court justices’ homes over the weekend." The bill-- the Supreme Court Police Parity Act-- to spend more money protecting these assholes and their families was proposed by two rotgut conservatives: John Cornyn (R-TX) and Chris Coons (D-DE). Cornyn: "The events of the past week have intensified the focus on Supreme Court Justices' families, who are unfortunately facing threats to their safety in today's increasingly polarized political climate. We must act to ensure Justices and their families are protected from those who wish to cause them harm by extending Supreme Court police security to family members."
Coons: "If the families of Supreme Court Justices have the same profile and exposure as the highest ranking officials in our government, they deserve the same level of protection. We must take threats that come from extremes on both sides of the political spectrum against Supreme Court Justices seriously, and that makes this bill an unfortunate necessity."
Over the weekend, pro-abortion rights protesters gathered outside the private homes of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts in Chevy Chase, Maryland, outside Washington, DC.
While protests around the country have been largely peaceful, law enforcement officials in the nation's capital have been bracing for potential security risks. Last week, an 8-foot-tall, non-scalable fence was installed around parts of the Supreme Court building, and crews set up concrete Jersey barriers blocking the street in front of the court.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell slammed the protests outside some justices' homes, saying they may be "flat-out illegal," citing a federal law that criminalizes pickets with the intent of influencing a judge.
"Trying to scare federal judges into ruling a certain way is far outside the bounds of First Amendment speech or protest; it's an attempt to replace the rule of law with the rule of mobs," the Kentucky Republican said in remarks on the Senate floor on Monday.
Last night, The Hill reported that "The targeting of the residences-- belonging to Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts-- has forced the White House to navigate a thorny question about the proper bounds of political discourse, one with sharply divided views over whether the tactic marks a worrisome escalation or an impassioned response befitting the likely loss of an almost 50-year-old constitutional right. The Biden administration attempted this balancing act on Monday, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki denouncing the prospect of threats or violence but stopping short of condemning the protests outside of justices’ homes."
“We are a country that promotes democracy, and we certainly allow for peaceful protest in a range of places in the country,” Psaki said. “None of it should violate the law.”
Some political analysts viewed that response as tepid. Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, said the Biden administration’s message could have been stronger.
“They’re trying to walk a line, pretty clearly, between a firm stance against violence toward judges while not alienating their pro-Roe base,” Wheeler said.
The recent demonstrations played out as street protests in major American cities and a suspected arson attack Sunday on a Wisconsin anti-abortion group have fueled concerns over whether Roe’s potential demise could spark a new wave of political violence in the U.S.
...“The vast majority of political and criminal violence globally is committed by men. The people most enraged by the Roe decision are women,” said Kleinfeld, a senior fellow in democracy, conflict and governance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “While men may be in the streets, their feelings are on the whole less visceral.”
On the political left, she added, those who most strongly support violence are the least close to the Democratic Party: “That makes their violence more spontaneous and less politically organized,” she said.
In discussing her opposition to protests outside people’s homes on either side, Kleinfeld said “there should be a separation between where people live and the jobs they do, to protect their children from trauma, as well as for democratic reasons.”
ShutDownDC, which is organizing the demonstration in Alito’s neighborhood this week, defended its decision to protest outside of individual homes because “it’s clear that the Justices don’t want to hear public opinion.”
“If they won’t listen to us at the building that symbolizes the power they have over us, then they’ll have to listen enough to us at a building that symbolizes just how personal this is-- their homes,” Hope Neyer, a communications team member with ShutDownDC, told The Hill.
“To those suggesting that protests like this go too far, or cross a line, we say this leaked decision, if officially announced, crosses a line,” Neyer added.
...Within hours of the Monday evening leak, published by Politico, large crowds had gathered outside the Supreme Court. By Tuesday, law enforcement officials had installed 7-foot, black security fencing around the building and subsequently closed off portions of adjacent streets.
The fencing is part of stepped-up crowd-control precautions in the wake of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump’s supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Security fencing was up around the Capitol’s grounds for nearly five months after the insurrection.
I was multi-tasking while I was writing this piece, interviewing an old friend, David De Jong, on the David Feldman show (at just before the 2 hour mark) and copying these pathetic liberal pleas not to be mean to the Nazis and their families right here in America in 2022. De Jong's new book, Nazi Billionaires-- The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties, might make a reader imagine what would have happened had the German Nazis of the 1930s been ripped apart by angry mobs. You might wonder, for example, how many millions of their victims would not have gone to their cruel and undeserved fates. Do Sam Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch need to face the peoples' Justice? I very much believe so.
They can use the same unit of the marshals service that currently guards the homes of doctors that work at abortion clinics.
"face the peoples' justice"?
noting here that german nazi judges did not face justice until the Nuremburg trials after the war. and only a scant few of them even then.
hard to imagine such a thing here unless the usa is defeated in a massive war by china or something. american "people" have elected nazis and pussies (only) for over 50 years. the makeup of this court was entirely predictable and inevitable based on that. not that any american voters save just a few have the intellectual potential to have foreseen this. Certainly the media and punditry remained almost totally mute.