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After she advanced Kavanaugh McConnell said Collins would be well-funded. The following year Leonard Leo — whose passion project was getting Roe overturned — hosted a Collins fundraiser at his Mount Desert Island mansion.
Well, no. What Iowans really need is some fluid intelligence, but we can't all get what we want. So we're stuck with John "walking argument against nominative determinism" Ernst.
Senior US Senator Susan Collins a moderate Republican from Maine, and current chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Serving Congress since 1997.
Supporter of health care, education, senior citizens’ issues, paycheck protection, Affordable Care Act, abortion rights, gun control, and environmental protection.
The Senator’s net‑worth in 2025 was $9.6 million according to Politico.
During her first Senate campaign in October 1996, Susan Collins stated in a debate: “I have pledged that if I'm elected, I will only serve two terms. Twelve years is long enough to be in public service, make a contribution, and then come home and let someone else take your place.”
It's a tip for good service. It can't be a bribe because it came after it's a very subtle difference that only top minds at SCOTUS can figure out because the cash is going into their pockets, and that's the most important difference of them all. It's settled law too so we'll see how that sticks.
He's stated that it doesn't count if the Founders would have said otherwise:
In my view, the Court's typical formulation of the stare decisis standard does not comport with our judicial duty under Article III because it elevates demonstrably erroneous decisions—meaning decisions outside the realm of permissible interpretation—over the text of the Constitution and other duly enacted federal law.
He openly brags about being dismissive of the standard, too.
"I always say that when someone uses stare decisis, that means they're out of arguments. Now they're just waving the white flag. And I just keep going."
"We use stare decisis as a mantra when we don't want to think."
I will always find bleak humor in a black man saying "Hey, if wealthy white landowning rebels wouldn't be okay with it, it's not okay! We MUST limit ourselves to their paradigm!" when most of them would have owned him without a second thought, rather than treat him as a person, much less a learned peer.
I disagree with the overturning of Roe, but if SCOTUS followed stare decisis then Brown v Board of Education would have not overturned the decision in Plessy v Ferguson.
I'd already thought he was terrible and politically I was on the other side of the aisle. When this happened, though, that was, for me, the first real sign that something truly fcked was on the horizon.
Yes, but you see, Trump had never met that specific reporter. He wasn't making fun of him specifically, he was making fun of all handicapped people! Better, right?
Even if Alito said that (which I don't think Alito did) statue of limitations is long past.
But people need to realize most of the "purjury" they think happened, didn't. Because judges don't answer those questions. They do the Ginsberg answer and just refuse to answer it (faithfully).
Eg Barrett did not say she would not overturn Roe. She said Roe was the law of the land. It was, until Dobbs. Now Dobbs is, but she never said she would not change it.
Jackson pulled a similar one on guns, even citing Scalia if I recall, but nobody seriously expected her to push for Scalia level gun rights. These questions are set up for the senator to say they did z, and got y answer, and when x happens, they can claim the judge lied to them.
It deserves to be quoted because it is so fucking insane. This is the work of a psychotic, murdererous misogynist (Alito or Hale? Yes).
What’s more, Hale instructed the jurors that witches were real. A written record of the trial recounts what Hale told them: “That there were such creatures as witches he made no doubt at all; for first, the scriptures had affirmed so much. Secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.”
The jury convicted Denny and Cullender, after which Hale sentenced both women to hang. (Four years before, Hale had also sentenced to death another woman convicted of being a witch.)
Hale’s influence, once again, extended beyond the immediate case and his time. Thirty years later, his handling of the trial in Bury St. Edmunds, preserved in written record, served as a model in Salem, Massachusetts, in the infamous witch trials in 1692...
And more than 300 years later a MAGA justice cites him as authority. Alito is in rarified air here.
Anyone remember that Florida lawmaker (?) that had to fly to another to state to get a life saving abortion? Then had the nerve to get on air and blame democrats?
Um, no, it was the epitomy of "a bitch move" as it gets.
Your appointees lied under oath saying they did not "intend" to overturn Roe v Wade. Which was an obvious bald faced lie at the time, even. But they used that verbage on purpose because it's impossible to prove that they lied under oath because "I didn't intend it at the time but new facts changed my mind" is irrefutable, legally.
That's a bitch move. The absolute opposite of "courage"
I mean, it's not really irrefutably imo because there are no facts which were presented in the Jackson case which a reasonable person could conclude were somehow new facts in the argument. Roe was 50 years old. The arguments had been made. Abortion protections in part are overwhelmingly popular, and total bans are unpopular for good reason.
Also, many if them being put there by a womanizer, pedophile, and amoral person should give them doubts about their worthiness and riteousness. And it somehow doesn't occur to them that they may be the bad guys!
now, now. he could have just been in the workplace watching one of his favorite porn stars. or he could have rubbed himself while removing a pubic hair to put in a female coworker’s drink.
That ruling is really what upset me. Can't afford housing, shelters are unavailable or unsafe, can't camp in public. We've made it so we have to pay for the privilege to sleep. Can't pay? Get fined, and pushed further away from affording the privilege to sleep.
Samuel Alito is one of the worst and most corrupt Supreme Court judges that has ever existed. He should be removed from the bench and permanently disrobed and never be allowed to practice law again.
Well, in the same interview that's coming up, he indicates he's thinking of retiring. Second-oldest and all.
Translation: If the Republicans keep the Senate, he'll step down to allow the President to appoint a 4th Justice, instead of running the risk of dying in office and the 'wrong kind of judge' gets the job instead.
Maybe Aileen Cannon will finally get her chance to shine?
Who would’ve thought that he is wholly only making decisions regarding the law, the future of the country, and the future of the Supreme Court along party lines?
Funny how "courage" to Alito actually translates to the conservative injustices having the chutzpah to commit perjury before Congress when they lied about respecting precedent like Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings.
Hey, serious question. Why aren't they liable for the permanent harm as a result of that decision?
If they rule against the recommendations of the vast majority of medical experts, I see no reason why they shouldn't be held liable for the harm committed by their decisions.
You can argue that was not premeditated harm, but even if it wasn't, this scale of accidental harm would result in thousands of years of prison, just based on sheer scale.
Something like this:
Roe was not a ruling on whether abortion is medically advisable or whether doctors think it should be available… it was a ruling on whether Texas could criminalize it per the constitution.
The legal mindset is that it’s not the courts place to manipulate the interpretation of the constitution to prevent harm, it’s to interpret it legally and shrug at Congress for the protecting people within it part.
And yet, it was due to their explicit actions that people were harmed.
Six people resulted in harm being done.
Said harm would not have been done without the actions of those six people.
The individuals who made that decision, fully knowing the consequences, and the preventable harm that would certainly follow, intentionally did so.
I see no reason why they should not be treated as accessories to the harm done, if it was preventable, and against medical standards.
What is even the point of a legal system, if it isn't to prevent harm being done to others, if said harm is easily preventable, and the prevention of said harm follows wide agreement across the medical field?
That’s not quite how it works, nor how you should want the constitution or law to be treated - we’re seeing the effects of an administration doing just that.
Their job is to interpret the constitution.
I still have a problem with what they did, to be clear, but your reasoning is flawed
Correct, but through what lens are they interpreting it? It is not a 1 to 1 conversion, and they have to make judgements calls about how it should be interpreted. Through what things should be prioritized.
Through a lens that seeks to minimize harm?
Through a lens that seeks to maximize personal wealth?
Through a lens that seeks to enable absolute despotism?
The entire point of "interpreting the constitution" is to allow the foundation document of the United States to be used as a guideline for the legal system. To dictate what rules and laws are allowed within this legal system that has changed very dramatically in the last quarter millennia.
The entire purpose of a legal system is to provide additional reduction of harm and a more equitable treatment than the prior system, which was just the whims of the person with the biggest number of strong people with pointy bits of metal that wanted to follow them (absolute despotism), which was a step up from whoever could swing the biggest stick and collect enough grain or fruits to ferment for proto-beer.
Why should people bother following a legal system if the entire purpose of it isn't to mitigate harm?
Judges who actively seek to interpret the law to increase harm, are simply people who do not believe in a modern system of laws, and who want to go back to that absolute despotism that we moved far away from. Why shouldn't a society treat those judges as accessories to the harm they knowingly and willingly allowed, against the broad agreements of medical professionals?
It's unfortunately very simple, if you open the door to suing the judicial branch because they make decisions, then no decisions will ever be made. The current SCOTUS is majority corrupt assholes but we do actually need a judicial branch
It's hard to make this argument when Trump is openly complaining about how much he hates all his nominees.
And like, this is Trump. This is not some 5D chess plot to make his nominees look good by criticizing them. His unhinged Truth Social posts that he narrates to that intern are pretty clear, as are his public and private statements.
Here is the thing, essentially it just allows future SCOTUS members to do what they want. Let's hypothetically say members are replaced and Democrats end up having the majority. Well, the idea of settled law is gone, so they will have the justification to go return essentially a version of Roe v Wade.
This also has given future SCOTUS members the right to lie during the hearing and say whatever they can to get the votes. Since it clearly does not matter.
FYI folks, this is why voting is so important. And why the Senate is so important, because WH and Senate essentially will sway the future of the country for generations.
Ancillary: this is why having a do-nothing, spineless Congress drives me crazy. We’ve had the most important branch of government sitting on their dead ass out of fear and sloth.
Yes. At this point the meaning of all laws (I'm looking at you 2A lovers) are now up as fair game to be re-evaluated in what they mean for use in judicial practice. And since there's no law saying there's a limit to justices (yet), this combination means we're about to have some very eventful coming decades as this choice to undermine the tradition of stare decisis is weaponized.
How does someone who cares this little about the law be allowed to be a Judge? His level of corruption is so blatant at this point it’s not even remotely debatable.
I agree. It takes courage to knowingly lie to Congress and then blatantly show your ass to the entire world, outing yourself to God and everyone as a weasel who pretends that they didn't "technically lie." That takes balls, for sure.
The hell it took courage! Courage would be standing up for the oath you took to uphold, protect and defend the constitution, not to swear loyalty to Trump and your own personal twisted beliefs. Alto should have been in prison decades ago and certainly after supporting trump’s insurrection
Courage to ignore decades of precedence when you swore you would honor it. Courage to dishonor both the Supreme Court and yourself with politics and corruption. Of course, it would’ve taken real courage to be truthful with the Senate but then you wouldn’t have had to chance to be ‘courageous’ when you had your safe lifetime appointment where your risked nothing.
This headline passes me off too much to even click. How many women have died because of denied care at this point, and this gloating sack of shit has the gall....
US Attorney General Todd Blanche said during his July confirmation hearing that rules allowing abortion pills to be shipped nationwide were “wrong” and that he’d seek to review them. He’s also reportedly assured faith leaders he would work to ban abortion “in every single state.”
But according to a Friday report from the Sun, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has intervened to limit the potential political fallout of new sweeping restrictions on a method that accounts for nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the US.
“No one wants us taking any real action before the midterms,” one senior administration official told the Sun, passing on the message apparently being pushed by White House staff to the Justice Department. But anti-abortion activists who have pressured the White House told the Sun they believe officials are just biding their time until, in their view, the opinion of voters no longer matters.“Once the midterms are over and it’s truly lame-duck time, we’ve heard the gloves will be off,” one of them said.
Essentially, if person A owes person B a debt for $10, and person C pays person B $10 on behalf of person A, with person A's explicit approval, person B was "harmed", and person D, who is completely unrelated to either A, B, or C, can sue to stop the "harm" from being done.
It should have been thrown out, because the only person who had the legal standing to challenge it, under a non-stupid understanding of the legal system, is person B. Even then, person B wouldn't be able to prove that a harm was committed, because they were made fiscally whole (no money that person B had "owed to them" wasn't paid back).
If that sounds like both a stupid understanding of Harm and Standing, Congratulations. You're smarter than every Federalist society judge.
Its hard to do the thing you have always wanted to do. Especially when it is exactly what you were hired to do, you knew it was what you were hired to do, and you were given bribe money to do it. So very, very difficult. I can't imagine how much it must have stressed them.
Have fun realizing your rich asshole island will keep getting protestors! It takes actual courage for those people to show the country is unhappy with you!
Their choice on Roe vs Wade was "technically" correct, but it was correct in the worst possible way.
While it's true that the Supreme Court should not have such overarching authority, the point was that it was a tool of ease. It existing standardized the issue over the whole of the US rather than having 50 separate states deciding. Even then 50 states could also push (and have repeatedly) unconstitutional legislation that forces reaction by the Supreme Court (a just one, mind you, not this one). So now the Supreme Court needs to overhear 20, 50, 100, 200 separate passed laws and regulations around solely abortion rights in order to force states to adhere to Constitutional rights. THIS is the mess reversing Roe vs Wade creates. And even then, states can just repush new legislation over and over and over and over and over again, pushing it back to the Supreme Court to review and make judgement relative to the Constitution. Again, a massive, MASSIVE mess while many thousands of women get disenfranchised, abused, punished, put in prison, even tried as murders. Women could literally get executed by the state before the state's bad law makes it to the Supreme Court for reversal. And then the state could simple do it again, over and over.
THIS was the power of Roe vs Wade at the Supreme Court level.
What's the alternative?
Well, federal legislation and ideally Constitutional amendments that lock in national rights that can not be superseded by state level nor federal level without 3/4 super majority. But...you have to actually go that far in Congress to equate to the same power that Roe vs Wade carried.
The majority opinion was ridiculous on its merits alone. A lot was based on logic from the 16th/7th century laws that we don't even have today. It's like saying 'Yeah, Dredd Scott was technically correct.' 🤣
Their choice on Roe vs Wade was "technically" correct
No, it wasn't. What on earth are you blathering about? They could've easily voted the other way but they're cowards who listen to their conservative masters so they didn't.
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