The plan to bring a lawless Supreme Court to heel next month

Today I will put the cart squarely in front of the horse, and submit a meaty argument that WHEN the Democrats take control of the House and the Senate next month, among the very first things they need to address is bringing some order to our lawless Republican-run Supreme Court.

The radical right majority on this court have done unheard of damage to this country with rulings that are both cruel, and a nod to the oligarchy in America that controls them and the Republican Party.

While acting with absolute impunity and answering only to the money that controls them, John Roberts’ court has ravaged Roe v. Wade, the Voting Right Act, and our environment, while giving Donald Trump, a convicted felon and the single-most crooked president in American history, the unlimited power of a mad king.

These six jackals — Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samual Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — have done more damage to the notion that America is a fair and decent place than anybody besides the orange, wannabe king they idolize and have anointed.

America finds itself in this peril because while most of its electorate was sleeping, Republicans played an exacting, sinister game of political chess, and put a high premium on gaining control of our nation’s highest courts, instead of wasting all their time on the two term-limited legislative branches of our federal government.

Why subject yourself to Russian Roulette every two years with meaningless elections when you can control a court that features judges with lifetime appointments, who answer only to the money that bet on them?

By thoughtfully moving pieces around the board, Republicans now have a 6-3 stranglehold on the court that could very easily get even worse.

It’s about time Democrats did everything in their power to stop this, but that can only happen if they can gain control of the Senate Nov. 3, a feat that seemed improbable not so long ago.

If in fact, Democrats can wrest control of the Senate, they should be able to at the very least temporarily put a check on any further Trump appointments to the court. In theory, there is no way a Democrat-controlled Senate would rubber-stamp any Trump Supreme Court nominee.

If the Democrats don’t prevail, and the Senate remains in the Republicans’ dirty hands, I will guarantee you that either Alito or Thomas — perhaps both — will step down, allowing Trump to ram through younger, lawless robed deviants so that Republicans can control the court in its current form for decades to come, while doing even more catastrophic damage to America.

This chilling possibility has gained steam in the past week as Alito has loudly hinted that if the price is right, he might consider stepping down from his lofty perch where he has been spitting on Americans since being appointed by the dangerous dunce, George W. Bush, in 2006.

Frankly, it has continually shocked me that Alito and Thomas have not already accepted a bribe to abandon the bench, allowing the America-attacking Trump to appoint an unprecedented fourth or fifth justice to this crooked court.

And if you really want to blow your own mind, consider there is nothing stopping John Roberts from heading off for the coast of Maine for retirement, and leaving 67 percent of the court staffed by MAGA judges.

Of all the appalling Trump legacies we will be forced to deal with when he is finally dead and gone, this has to be the worst. It is truly the stuff nightmares are made of. My fingers sweat just typing it.

Even if Roberts, 71, doesn’t go, Father Time might have other ideas, because the absolute worst-case scenario would be one of the three liberal justices passing away during a Republican-led Senate. If, God forbid, this were to happen, the Republican majority on the Court would expand to 7-2.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor is 72, and while a steady, sensible liberal voice, is not a picture of health. Nobody should need to be reminded what happened when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away less than two months from the 2020 election allowing Mitch McConnell to ram Coney Barrett onto the court before Trump’s term ended.

Ginsburg was 87, and while she was an icon, it is incredible that such a brilliant person lacked the sound judgment to step down allowing Barack Obama to name her replacement. Though as we also know, Obama and his Democrats hardly put up a fight when McConnell refused a confirmation hearing for Merrick Garland in the wake of conservative justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016.

There was no legal precedent for this, but weak-kneed Democrats accepted it as their fate, and figured Hillary Clinton could just handle it when she beat Trump.

History turns on such disastrous decisions, and America hasn’t stopped spinning since.

All this is a long way of saying there is a very real possibility that unless something is done, MAGA could control the Supreme Court until at least 2050.

So why haven’t these radical Right judges stepped down yet to pad the extreme Republican lean on the court? I believe there are two reasons.

1. Ego. It’s tough to give up a good-paying job that’s guaranteed for life, replete with plenty of illegal perks where you only answer to Big Money.
2. A misreading of the midterm electorate.

The second reason is the most intriguing one, and there is some delicious irony here. If you said last year that the Republicans could lose the Senate this November in what is a very tough political map for Democrats, you are either the most optimistic person on Earth, or should subscribe to one of these awful, predatory betting services and start taking their money.

Well today, loudmouths like me are telling you the Republicans are cooked in November. I believe Democrats will handily win the House, and squeak by in the Senate. They will also win important governors races and hundreds of other key local races throughout the country.

And if you are saying, “Maybe, Earl, but what about the disgraceful phony Democratic Senator Jon Fetterman?” I am saying that is a very legitimate concern, and the reason I fervently hope Democrats can shoot the moon and pick up at least five Senate seats, rendering that disgraceful 400-lb. attention-hog powerless to sink the party that put him in power.

Winning the Senate will not be enough, though, if we simply get a repeat of the milquetoast leadership we have gotten in the past from too many Democratic-led Senates. They must use their bully pulpit, and their enormous power to comport themselves as a co-equal branch of our government, and demand changes in that court.

In 2024, the last time the Democrats controlled the Senate, Dick Durbin, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee politely asked Justice Roberts to discuss adopting a Code of Ethics, which is long overdue.

Basically, Roberts gave Durbin a one-finger salute, and rather than pressing the issue, Durbin surrendered, and went home.

This kind of weak sauce needs to stop — pronto. The court works for us, and they need to be reminded of that. A code of ethics should be the very least we expect from these lawless lawyers. I believe there should also be a meaty, very public discussion about expanding the court and implementing term limits.

Democrats need to grab their hammers and chuck the rest of their tools in the dumpster going forward. You don’t deal with crooks with niceties and decorum. The Supreme Court needs a supreme makeover, and most Americans know it.

Consider that in a recent Gallup poll, just 12% of Americans said they have a great deal of trust in the judicial branch headed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

That is a staggering number, and Democrats need to listen hard to the court of public opinion, and start the work of rebuilding the Court in Americans’ image instead of Elon Musk’s.

And lest you think this talk of Republicans padding their majority on the court is folly, consider that Alito is all but saying he’s ready to accept his bribe and move on to join his revolting wife, Martha-Ann, who played the role of influencer and cheerleader in Trump’s 2021 January 6 coup, in the public sector.

Here is an outtake from an interview with Alito last Monday night with CBS News:

After two decades as a justice, Alito said he considered retirement earlier this year. Now 76, he said, “it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.”
Some conservatives had urged him to step down while Republicans have control of the Senate, so that President Trump could nominate his replacement. But Alito said that wasn’t a factor in the decision.
“It’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be,” he said, “and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.”
Sitting in one of the Court’s formal conference rooms, with gilded framed paintings of former chief justices hanging on the richly paneled walls, I asked him if he thought about his role and influence on the Court when he decided to stay.
“I think I can still make a contribution,” he said. “And it’s hard to give up the opportunity to do something that I think will be good for the Constitution and good for the country as long as I’m able to do it.”
Alito refused to contemplate his legacy, saying no justice should ever consider it. But when prompted, he detailed a coherent body of work since he joined the Court.
“We have stood up for freedom of speech, which is endangered. We have done a lot to protect religious liberty,” he said, pointing to what he called an “alarming picture” at colleges and universities.
“We have vindicated the principle that the laws should be applied equally to everybody, regardless of race or ethnic background,” he continued. “We have tried to restore the original structure of the government as it was set out in the Constitution — but that’s an ongoing project.”

We have vindicated the principle that the laws should be applied equally to everybody, regardless of race or ethnic background.”

Yes, I feel like gagging, too. How nice that CBS loaded up this propaganda to rehabilitate this sniveling, America-attacking liar.

It’s amazing lightning didn’t strike him ...

And just case you haven’t had enough of Alito for 12 lifetimes, he took to the polluted Fox News airways to spout out this two weekends ago:

“I am concerned about the escalation in public rhetoric in general and about the things that people in important positions say about the Supreme Court as a whole and about individual justices.”

The man who bows to Trump, perhaps the most revolting loudmouth in U.S. history, is worried about public rhetoric. Does he even hear the stupid words that come out of his mouth?

And any piece on this abhorrent Republican court isn’t complete without a reminder of how they lie through their teeth while taking an oath which demands the truth.

During his 2018 Supreme Court confirmation process, Brett Kavanaugh told Republican Senator Susan Collins that he viewed Roe v. Wade as “settled law.” Once safely appointed to a lifetime seat on the Court thanks to Collins, he changed his tune, voting to overturn that “settled law.”

Nobody will ever convince me that he shouldn’t have been impeached for so brazenly lying under oath. And another reminder: Collins is running for a sixth term in the Senate — speaking of liars and lifetime appointees.

Ideally, our Court wouldn’t be political but that ship sailed for good in 2000.

Consider that Roberts, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett all participated in the Florida vote count in 2000, working tirelessly to put Bush in the White House. This is called political activism, not judicial prudence.

These phonies were nominated to the land’s highest court because of their right-wing activism, not in spite of it.

Many of you, I’m sure, will point to that disastrous Florida decision as the beginning of the end of America as we know it, and I won’t disagree with you.

Will it change?

I will argue it better.

I could spend another 500 column inches illustrating the dangers of this crooked Republican court, but want to underline again how important it is that Americans vote to put Democrats in charge of the House and the Senate to safeguard us from what is most certainly coming if we don’t: The End.

That is, if it’s not too late already …

Trump’s attack on our elections is gaining steam, and God only knows what he is going to pull before and after the Nov. 3 vote. Whatever happens could well end up at a Supreme Court which has already ruled he is a king.

At that point all bets are off, because American citizens might decide to just take matters into their own hands. This is a terrifying thought, sure, but also a completely logical one given the dire circumstances in this country.

If we do survive this election, and we get a Democratic majority in the Senate, they must demand order in that court. Anything less than that, will almost certainly mean our demise.

Under this crooked administration and its corrupt court, there will be no more second chances.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and awarding-winning journalist who led newsrooms, and worked as a reporter in the newspaper business for decades. You can find all his work here.