Even the Supreme Court is Divided

You can watch a speech from JFK in 1960 and swear he was a Conservative. You can watch a speech from President Clinton in 1995 on illegal immigrants and you would swear he was a conservative.  You can watch a clip from Senator Joe Biden saying how ridiculous it is for the Senate to spend time debating gay marriage because “marriage is between a man and a woman.”  Today conservatives have almost nothing in common with the liberal agenda.  It’s hard to “come together” when the Left and Right are 1000 miles apart.  But the Supreme Court was supposed to be different than the legislative body.  They were supposed to be reasoned and logical and get along with each other no matter what the case.  So when some liberal judge allowed the news of Roe v. Wade being overturned to “leak out” to the liberal press and cause mountains of harassment, promises of violence and death to the conservative supreme judges, now the judges are even divided just like the rest of the governing bodies.  A kingdom divided will not stand.

Roe v.Wade and abortion (baby killing) is all in the news again today because it’s been one year since it’s overturn.

*******************************

This year, however, was different. The traditions of the court were under siege. In the wake of the unprecedented disclosure of a draft of the landmark Dobbsdecision overruling abortion rights, the court’s placid work conditions were disrupted by a sweeping investigation. Expressions of distrust among the justices seeped into their public statements. Persistent accusations of ethical improprieties followed.

Over the past 13 months, the court has been hit by a series of challenges, both internal and external, that have rocked the institution itself, undermined relationships on the bench and fundamentally altered the way it is viewed by the public and treated by the media. This account is based on interviews with people inside the court and others with close dealings with the justices, along with statements by the justices themselves, several of which have not been published before.

Even the court’s own historical society, which is supposed to be a charity independent of the court, is under a microscope. Last summer, Rev. Rob Schenck, a former leader of the religious right, came forward to claim that some religious activists had used the historical society as their entry point to curry favor with the justices. Then, this spring, one of the society’s board members, Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, was revealed to have gifted fancy vacations and private-school tuitions, among other favors, to Justice Clarence Thomas, his wife, Ginni, and another relative.

Justice Thomas took part in the last similar gatherings in 2018 in 2019, as did liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor. But, at this year’s banquet, Thomas was a no-show. So, too, was Crow, who doesn’t typically turn up for events. The court’s three liberal justices — Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — also stayed away. Only Chief Justice John Roberts and two other conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett, attended this year’s dinner. Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined for the reception alone.

There didn’t seem much to celebrate: A long string of polls has shown record-low levels of public trust in the court. And some of the justices themselves have aired concerns about damage to the institution. In the months after Dobbs, both Sotomayor and Kagan broke ranks with public remarks that some observers interpreted as casting doubts on the court’s very legitimacy. The comments drew a sharp and equally public rebuke from Alito, the author of Dobbs, and even a brush back from Roberts.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/25/supreme-court-dobbs-00102730