Tag Archives: SCOTUS

legal news

Cruz is correct on gay sex? Wow!

It surely doesn’t occur often, when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and your friendly blogger — that would be me — are on the same side of an issue.

Get a load of this: The Texas Republican junior senator told the Dallas Morning News that the state needs to repeal its decades-old law that bans gay sex. How come? Because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling that declared the state gay sex ban is unconstitutional.

“Consenting adults should be able to do what they wish in their private sexual activity, and government has no business in their bedrooms,” Cruz’s spokesperson told the newspaper.

I need to shake my marbles loose. I am shocked to hear such wisdom coming from Cruz or from any of his spokespeople.

Ted Cruz says Texas should repeal its now-defunct anti-sodomy law | The Texas Tribune

The state also had a law on the books that banned same-sex couples from engaging in intimate activity. They called it the “anti-sodomy law.”

I am not going to gush freely over what appears to be a sort of epiphany from the Republican lawmaker. As the Texas Tribune reports: But questions over the future of that precedent have surfaced after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Both the 1973 abortion case and the gay sex case, known as Lawrence v. Texas, were decided based on the idea of a constitutional right to privacy.

The court’s overturning of Roe caused some to wonder whether other cases based on that privacy right would be next — and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas had suggested that the court reconsider the Lawrence precedent.

I have this nagging concern that should the Supreme Court rule in the future that “rights of privacy” also no longer apply to sexual relationships, that it might decide that states, indeed, can make laws such as the Texas ban on same-sex marriage.

What would Cruz say about that ruling? I guess I have come down on my belief that I don’t trust Ted Cruz to stand by what looks like a reasonable statement.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Contraception is alive, but struggling

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that allows Americans to take measures to avoid pregnancy when they engage in intimate activity.

Sounds, well, rather normal, right? Not if you’re a Texas Republican member of Congress. You see, all GOP House members from Texas voted against this modern, common-sense, rational bill. That means my congressman, Van Taylor of Plano, has something against allowing his constituents to use contraceptives during sex.

What the hell?

Someone has to explain to me the reasons behind the partisan resistance to this measure.

GOP Texans in Congress vote against bill to protect right to contraception | The Texas Tribune

It appears to be some additional blowback to the Supreme Court decision to overturn the law that made abortion legal. Justice Clarence Thomas — the right-wing king of the high court — let it be known that the SCOTUS might next take aim at same-sex marriage and, yes, allowing contraception.

Good grief!

The 50-50 U.S. Senate isn’t likely to follow the House’s lead, given that the GOP side of the divide is wedded to this idiocy that contraception is some sort of Satanic mischief.

Well, it’s as clear as deep blue sky that the Texas Republican congressional delegation has swallowed the swill that now governs GOP policy these days.

They sicken me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Back to the beginning on marriage?

Wow. I didn’t ever think we would reach this point after the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that men could marry men and women would marry women.

We’re now watching the U.S. House of Representatives enacting legislation that makes same-sex marriage — and same-sex intimacy — legal all over again. A bipartisan bill seeks to head off a possible future Supreme Court ruling that could make gay marriage illegal in this country.

What in the world are we doing to ourselves?

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently said the SCOTUS ruling legalizing gay marriage was wrong. Cruz is wrong. Not the court, which ruled that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees all Americans the right to due process and equal protection under the law.

But wait a second! The nation’s highest court struck down the law legalizing abortion and is sending signals it could do the same thing to gay marriage and perhaps even interracial marriage.

Yikes, man!

The House vote doesn’t codify what shouldn’t even be on the table. The Senate has to approve it but needs 60 votes to make it law. A 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans, though, signals that the Senate might not have the votes to do the right thing.

That would be to enact a federal law that strengthens the high court’s decision legalizing gay marriage.

I am shaking my noggin utter disgust.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

End of Roe brings new idiocy

Idiocy can present itself in sometimes surprising forms, such as when a pregnant woman drives her vehicle in a “high-occupancy vehicle” lane, asserting that the baby in her womb is a “second person” in the vehicle.

Therefore, she argues, she is entitled to drive in the HOV lane.

Nonsense. Bullsh**. Horse pucky.

We’re getting some of that idiocy these days in Texas as individuals are reacting to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. A woman who is about to give birth to a child decided the other day to flout a rule requiring two people or more are allowed to ride in an HOV vehicle.

This is an example of political grandstanding run amok. It’s nothing more than a stunt that — and this is weird — could eventually find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I shudder to think what this court, comprising a 6-3 super conservative right-wing majority, would do with this form of idiocy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Cruz is the one who’s wrong!

Rafael Edward Cruz says the Supreme Court decided wrongly when it legalized same-sex marriage in this country.

Well, the junior Texas Republican U.S. senator — to my total non-surprise — is about as wrong as he can get on that one. The Cruz Missile, indeed, has misfired once more.

The court ruled in 2015 in the noted Obergefell v. Hodges case that same-sex marriage is as legal as heterosexual marriage. It was seen as a monumental victory for the “equality movement” that said gay couples shouldn’t be discriminated against on the basis of whom they love.

I believe the court ruled correctly. My benchmark lies in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; the final clause of Section 1 declares: “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Yes, no one should be denied “equal protection of the laws.” What part of that clause does Sen. Cruz reject?

Sen. Ted Cruz said the Supreme Court wrongly decided Obergefell, the ruling that legalized same-sex marriage (msn.com)

Ted Cruz and other archconservatives are feeling mighty smug these days in the wake of the court’s 5-4 ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old landmark ruling that had legalized abortion. Cruz and other right-wingers now are drawing a bead on gay marriage.

Cruz is about as wrong as anyone can get, at least from my perspective, in condemning the court’s ruling on the Obergefell case. The way I read the 14th Amendment tells me — without equivocation — that no American should be denied the right to marry whomever they wish.

That is precisely what “equal protection under the laws” provides all Americans … no matter what.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Lesson in ethics

I watched an interesting bit of ethical correctness play out this week at a city council meeting I was covering for a newspaper for which I work on a freelance basis.

The Farmersville City Council made several appointments Tuesday night to citizen boards and commissions. One of the appointees was Sue Williams, who happens to be married to Terry Williams — who happens to serve on the City Council.

What did Terry Williams do prior to the vote? He motioned to the city attorney and asked to recuse himself from the vote. Terry Williams walked out of the council chambers and the council then voted to put Sue Williams on the board to which she had been nominated.

Why mention this? Ohhhh, because a member of the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have the semblance of ethical propriety to recuse himself from court matters involving his wife.

Justice Clarence Thomas has voted on matters related to The Big Lie promoted by Donald J. Trump, the defeated and disgraced former president who — to this very moment — hasn’t yet conceded that he lost the 2020 election to President Biden.

The most recent ethical transgression occurred a few weeks ago when the Supreme Court voted 8-1 to require Trump to turn over White House records to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection. Who voted “no”? Justice Thomas.

Why did he vote no? It might have something to with the fact that his wife, Ginni, is an ardent MAGA follower of Trump and a believer in The Big Lie who attended the 1/6 rally but left before it turned into a violent frontal assault on the U.S. government.

Clarence Thomas clearly should take a page from the ethical book followed by a small-town city council member in North Texas.

Whereas Terry Williams saw the potential for conflict of interest were he to vote to accept his wife for a spot on a citizens panel, Clarence Thomas continues to ignore that gigantic blind spot.

Indeed, the justice would solve the problem altogether by resigning from the nation’s highest court — which he clearly should do.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Imagine such demagoguery

“Imagine being upset that babies will live.”

So it went this morning as I came across this social media post from someone I’ve known — admittedly not well — for the past quarter century.

He is applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. Yes, we know it as Roe v. Wade.

My friend’s social media message, of course, follows the demagogue’s strategy in arguing his point.

To suggest that those of us who are pro-choice on abortion are “upset that babies will live” is a disgraceful attempt at demonization. What upsets me about the SCOTUS ruling has nothing to do with whether “babies will live.” It is that the ruling deprives women of the opportunity to make this most difficult decision on their own.

I maintain the right to be both pro-life and pro-choice. I could never advise a woman to get an abortion; that is not my call. It is hers alone! Nor could I ever endorse a government policy that dictates to a woman how she must handle a decision that is best left to her conscience.

But … all of this is part of today’s toxic climate.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Eternal optimism gets test

Yes, it is time to acknowledge the obvious about today’s political climate: These times test even the most optimistic among us … and you count me as one of those folks.

My eternal optimism over the strength of democracy is suffering from serious stress.

The U.S. Supreme Court has punched the hot buttons that create my anxiety. The ruling on concealed carry permits for handguns in New York got me started. Then came the decision that tossed aside Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion.

Political figures are being hectored, harangued and harassed because they insist on following the rule of law. They and their families are being threatened with bodily injury … and worse!

A president who lost re-election in Novembe 2020 threatens to overturn the results of that election in an unprecedented attack on our governmental process. His cult followers insist he is right, and the rest of the country is wrong.

I am not alone in wanting our U.S. Constitution to hold together. I believe it will. I also believe it will hold the nation together.

My family and friends are likely to tell you — if you ask them directly — that I tend to see the good in people. The recent former POTUS, though, makes me think only the worst in him. Thus, my eternal optimism is being put to a test I did not foresee occurring … even when the former POTUS was elected to the presidency in 2016.

It’s a struggle. The news I watch for much of most days depresses me, pushing my emotions to a level with which I am mostly unfamiliar. Look, I dislike feeling this way. It’s against my nature. I am not an ebullient fellow normally, but I long have maintained an innate faith that our system of government — cobbled together by our nation’s founders — is built to absorb punishment.

My inherent faith in our system of government — as imperfect and occasionally rickety as it is — will keep me going even as I fight off the depression that threatens to put me asunder.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS has changed, not Roe

Leave it to a lame-duck U.S. Supreme Court justice to put a monumental ruling in fascinating perspective.

Stephen Breyer is about to retire from the nation’s top court. He cast a dissenting vote in the decision to toss aside 50 years of “settled law” by overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

Previous Supreme Court decisions had upheld Roe v. Wade in earlier challenges. The court would rule that the law was established and that, by golly, the Constitution did guarantee a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

Not this court. Not this time.

It was Justice Breyer who noted in his dissent that Roe had withstood challenges because it remained the same. The only thing that changed, he wrote, “is this court.”

So it is that Supreme Court, with his conservative supermajority, has decided to enact an activist agenda by ruling that a half-century of “settled law” had been decided wrongly.

Pitiful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS credibility at issue

The U.S. Supreme Court has a credibility problem. It’s serious, I’m telling you.

It ruled in just the span of a few days that New York does not have the authority as a state to govern concealed handgun carry and then decided that states must decide whether women can obtain a legal abortion.

Two justices — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — reportedly told Sen. Susan Collins that Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling that the court has just tossed aside, was “settled law” and that they wouldn’t trifle with it. Well, they damn sure did.

“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents,” Collins wrote.

This calls into question whether the court is as independent and impartial as the founders envisioned when they created the federal judiciary.

Having said all this, I stand by my refusal to endorse the notion of expanding the court’s number from nine to whatever progressives want to install.

What has to happen is that American voters need to decide whether the Supreme Court’s current makeup is reason to vote for members of Congress and for presidents who will honor the rule of the majority.

Donald Trump vowed to nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He made the pledge while running for president in 2016. Yes, he established the proverbial “litmus test” for judicial candidates to pass. He said so reportedly knowing that most Americans favored keeping Roe on the books. They, too, understood the meaning of “settled law” and wanted to give women the right to choose whether to take a pregnancy to full term.

The high court has thrown all of that aside with its Roe ruling. Moreover, it has spoken out of both sides of its collective mouth by declaring that states could decide whether to allow abortion but that they had no authority to decide how to govern firearm ownership.

Credibility? It’s missing from the Supreme Court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com