Law professor Jonathan Turley penned a lengthy op-ed torching the media circus over remarks made by Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. It’s excerpts from a secret recording from a liberal activist who lied to secretly record our nation’s jurist in some cockamamie ‘gotcha’ campaign that’s only shocking to the densest of liberals. No one should care about this little tape because nothing is controversial. It might be for the Left who has devolved into a campaign of pro-debauchery and degeneracy as of late.
The remarks were snorted like cocaine for the usual suspects, like Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Liz Warren (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). Whitehouse and Warren have been the most vocal and unhinged against our third branch of government, so it’s not a surprise they were triggered to no end. Turley did a line-by-line dissection and obliterated the premise about the Supreme Court, the contents of the tape, and how this whole media-manufactured circus is insane. Oh, and the name of the woman who secretly taped the jurists is Lauren Windsor, who is being hailed as a hero for lying for the “greater good” (via The Hill):
CNN accuses Justice Samuel Alito of "religious zealotry." pic.twitter.com/txdQleQCO5
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 12, 2024
Hey @CNN what is your definition of “religious zealotry.”
— Billy Gribbin (@BillyGribbin) June 12, 2024
Is it just being Catholic? pic.twitter.com/S0TJGFrnuN
Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects have assembled again to call for resignations and impeachments after Windsor’s surreptitious taping of both Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. That includes Warren, who declared that “Alito is an extremist who is out of touch with mainstream America. His rising power on the Supreme Court is a threat to our democracy.”
It did not matter that what Windsor captured on her secret recording was neither surprising nor unethical. Pretending to be a religious conservative at a dinner of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Windsor successfully induced the deeply religious Alito to say . . . wait for it . . . that he believes the country should return to a place of “godliness.”
It was an otherworldly moment as this notoriously anti-conservative activist asked an unsuspecting Alito why the nation was so filled with rage. In the recording, Alito laments the divisions in the country, stating, “I wish I knew. I don’t know. It’s easy to blame the media, but I do blame them because they do nothing but criticize us. And so they have really eroded trust in the court…American citizens in general need to work on this to heal this polarization because it’s very dangerous.”
When pushed on what the court can do, Alito again answered honestly: “I don’t think it’s something we can do. We have a very defined role and we need to do what we’re supposed to do. But this is a bigger problem. This is way above us.”
There is nothing even slightly controversial there. But the quote being repeated, often in isolation, was when Alito acknowledged that, while “there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully…it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So, it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”
Warren and others already prove that very point on the left, as do many on the right. Again, this is not at all controversial. We are divided because people hold irreconcilable beliefs on which they are unwilling to compromise. Imagine the reaction of liberals if Justice Sonia Sotomayor suddenly “compromised” on abortion rights.
[…]
Warren, Whitehouse, Blumenthal and many of the same pundits were strangely silent when liberal justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg engaged in actual partisanship, as when she openly opposed the election of Donald Trump and discussed cases and controversies that might come before her. There was no demand for a resignation when Justice Sonia Sotomayor called upon students to politically oppose pro-life laws after acknowledging, “they tell me I shouldn’t.” There were no vapors at the thought of justices expressing their political sentiments from the left.
Media even cleaned up interviews for liberal justices. Katie Couric famously deleted disparaging comments made by Ginsburg about players kneeling during the National Anthem at NFL games, even though that matter could have ended up before the Supreme Court.
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It’s a brutal takedown over a woman who seems to think she has the Supreme Court’s ‘Watergate’ when it’s a nothing burger. First, it shows how unscrewed the Left becomes over abortion. It seems to be the only issue these folks care about, and it’s no shock that the increase in attacks on the Court and the conservative bloc increased when Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed and the Dobbs decision was handed down. It’s not like Democrats had more than a generation to codify Roe through Congress. Again, the reversal of Roe v. Wade is the fault of Democrats, who felt that the liberal majority of the Supreme Court would live forever. The strategic and tactical failure is on them. As Dobbs noted, there is nothing in the Constitution regarding abortion, paving the way for laws that permit it, prohibit it, or could lead to a middle ground through the legislatures. The late Antonin Scalia was very clear about abortion rights: You want a right to abortion—pass a law. If you want to ban it—pass a law. Society is kept ‘up to date’ through the legislatures, not nine judges. Turley also makes it clear, and it’s true, that the Supreme Court is meant to be impervious to what society wants; they’re meant to dismiss approval ratings, polls, and other mechanisms because it’s not their job. That’s the purview of Congress and associated legislatures at the state and local levels.
Windsor even took aim at Mrs. Alito, which Turley easily slapped down:
Windsor generously allowed that a Supreme Court spouse “certainly” has a right to speak, before adding that expected “but!” Such liberty, she asserted, may not apply to Mrs. Alito “when your spouse is one of the most powerful men in the country, you know, with his fingers on the scale, literally, of justice. I mean, are we going to say that we are going to do away with impartiality, the bedrock principle of our democracy, of our jurisprudence? Is it okay?”
Well, the answer is yes, Miss Windsor. It is okay.
We do not require justices to divorce outspoken or irascible spouses. We do not punish them for speaking freely in private conversations with bottom-feeding gotcha activists who secretly record them at dinners.
Justices are even allowed to have strong opinions about controversial issues in dinner conversations. Strong personal opinions do not on their own constitute conflicts of interest.
We’re up against an army of idiots who think like Windsor and who pose a far greater threat to our republic than anything the liberal media can make up in a day. Anytime someone justifies execrable behavior, in this case, activities aimed at eroding the foundations of our country for the “greater good,” you should run from that individual.
The Left can’t enact the most odious parts of their agenda through the legislatures. You can’t message well on a pile of bad ideas, so they’re coming after the courts—all of them. It was a pet project that gained steam post-2016. It’s now a rapidly ascending action item for leftists. It’s almost obsessive.
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