Coop Scoop: Recusal? Hell no! RESIGNATION!

The Democratic response to the Alito affair is beyond pathetic and worrisome

May 28, 2024

By Marc Cooper

I’m gonna make this note relatively short because by the time you get it Tuesday some time and for the following week, we are going to be awash 24/7 in “reporting” on the final days of the Trump payoff trial (BTW my money is on straight up conviction).  Before that news flood, I want to sneak in a couple more thoughts about Alito, his subversive banners, and the limp Democratic response before it gets shoved down the memory hole.

Make no mistake about SCOTUS Justice Sam Alito, who I have zero problem calling a nasty little shit. Along with his twin turd, the extraordinarily corrupt and exquisitely reactionary and markedly dim-witted Justice Clarence Thomas. For all I care, they are more than welcome to keep tossing their equally subversive wives under the bus, but the fact remains that Alito and his pal have definitively proven not only their blatant core corruption and whoring to billionaires, the more salient point is that these two creatures MUST be understood for exactly what they are: the undisputed ring leaders of a vicious, repressive anti-democratic, zealously pro-Maga faction on the court that has risen to leadership.  Indeed, their hyper-aggression and legislating from the bench have effectively displaced  Chief Justice Roberts as boss – Roberts is just a run of the mill right winger and not quite enough bloodthirsty to be tightly allied with the two jerks now defining the extremist direction of the court. That doesn’t mean he’s not gonna vote with him almost every time.

And if you think what you have seen the last two years is revolting, you better buckle up for this coming month of June during which the Supremes are going to announce a number of new decisions that will further trim or stomp upon our rights.  You are not going to like it.  At the top of the list is the inexcusably delayed decision on Donald Trump’s completely absurd claim that an ex-President has “absolute immunity.”  This laughable proposition,  as seen nearly by all legal scholars except the one or two who have a Musk diode implanted in their brain, should have never been taken up by the Supreme Court for two reasons: 1) it is ridiculous and 2) the lower district appeals court, dominated by Republicans, knocked it down months ago, unanimously.

The SCOTUS right wing majority, however, saw an opportunity to take on the case so they could further delay Trump’s crucial January 6 trial so it would not be heard before the election. Blatant partisan help for the deranged aspiring dictator.  Even after the pseudo-case was accepted, that same consensus of legal scholars predicted that the court would very quickly decide the case, perhaps within a week or two, to keep the trial on track and because there was nothing of substance in the appeal to review.

Days went by. Then weeks. Then months. And now it is obvious there will be no ruling for another month when the court ends this term.  The conventional wisdom now prevailing among reliable legal observers is that there is almost certainly a majority of 5 or 6 justices who will rule against Trump (they think though I am not so sure).  But that the delay stems from a probable minority dissent being SLOWLY composed by the Alito-Thomas-Maga faction with perhaps some of the lesser toadies like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh along for the ride and making sure it stalls the most important of the Trump trials as long as possible..

And while the court has dragged it heels on letting American voters see one of the two candidates on trial before voting takes place, it has found the time to inflict further despicable damage to the republic.  This past week, the majority ruled in favor of an explicitly racist South Carolina electoral map with Alito writing that any gerrymandering based on race is inherently political and it is not the role of the court to intervene politically.  I guess the section of his brief explaining how the moon is made of cream cheese was excised before publication.  At the same time, global bon vivant and mega-yacht specialist Clarence Thomas penned his own take on the case by directly suggesting that the landmark Brown V Board of Education ruling which is the historic document ending school segregation just might have to be struck down.  The same way that he suggested last year the court should get around to dismantling same sex marriage, and while we are at it, there’s just too much birth control out there for Clarence’s refined tastes and just maybe we should start restricting that too.

Lower courts in MAGA states have picked up the cue from the Supremes and now the Louisiana courts have ruled that the common and benign drugs used for medical abortion will now be classified as “scheduled drugs” putting them in the same bucket as hard narcotics and making it much harder for women to get a hold of the pills that have been used safely for 20 years with nary a negative incident.  That’s after the Arizona supreme court effectively banned abortion.

OK, enough about these thugs and Neanderthals. What about the Democrats?  Their response to the revelations about Alito supporting the January 6 insurrection –and that is precisely and ONLY what his two flags mean—looks more like an overcooked noodle than a serious and stiff political response.  Primary among the Democratic amoebas is Senator Dick Durbin, the fabulously ineffectual head of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the number three or four top Democrat. He makes lots of critical hiccups about what Alito has been up to but straining so hard that he’s leaking pee, the most Durbin can come up with is, um, well, we should really figure out a code of ethics for SCOTUS and Alito should maybe recuse himself from any cases still stemming from the attempted overthrow of the US government which he, his wife and double dating partners – the Thomases – all supported (and will support again if Trump loses in November). 

Democrat Durbin, putatively a liberal, said immediately after the insurrectionist upside down American flag was made public a week ago, that he did not have “anything planned” in response.  Then he mumbled: “I think [Alito’s] explained his situation. The American public understand what he did.  But I don’t think there’s much to be gained with a hearing at this point. I think he should recuse himself from cases involving Trump and his administration.” And if Alito doesn’t recuse, Durbin cannot find any “recourse other than impeachment, and we’re not at that point at all.”  Though there is an unconfirmed report that Durbin is currently soaking a couple of strands of fettucine that he might use to whip Alito with if necessary.

Durbin’s response to the discovery of the second insurrectionist flag found on his summer home was just as weak.  “This incident is yet another example of apparent ethical misconduct by a sitting justice, and it adds to the Court’s ongoing ethical crisis,” he tweeted. “Justice Alito must recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection.”

The response from House Majority Leader Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was just as tepid.  After agreeing the flags are directly tied to the Stop the Steal movement and the attempted insurrection Jeffries timidly echoed Durbin. “He definitively needs to recuse himself from any matter pending before the United States Supreme Court that has to do with the Jan. 6 violent insurrection,” Jeffries said during a press briefing in the Capitol. “He should have no part of it.” 

Recusal? That’s it? And they know very well even that ¼ measure will never be enacted. The proper Democratic response should be” “These two ethically challenged and partisan sympathizers of the anti-democratic election deniers in MAGA must immediately RESIGN!

I repeat, RESIGN. Resign because you are an embarrassment to a democratic government and you are a threat to civil liberties and national security. And you are blatantly corrupt. And you have glaring conflicts of interest. And because, Mr. Alito, the already extant federal judicial code prohibits ALL judges from engaging in or even displaying symbols of partisan politics.

Now it is true that the Democrats don’t have and probably will not have after November enough of congress to impeach these two scoundrels even if the party could work up the energy to propose it. And that is the answer you will get from them today about doing anything about SCOTUS and the Fascist Twins.  We don’t have the votes. True.  Even if they called a hearing and wanted to subpoena Alito to a Senate hearing where he could get grilled, the Democrats know they can’t even get the second signature from a Republican on the judiciary committee to even issue the subpoena.

So, when I say the proper response is to call for resignation, I make no illusions that is about to take place anytime soon. No way.  But is it incumbent on somebody (!), like the Democratic Party, to at least inject that option into the political bloodstream so that it can circulate, educate, build force, move into the mainstream, and put some more scorn and pressure on the outlaws in robes.  Don’t laugh because it is indeed a ridiculous thought, but if 100,000 Israelis could come into the streets prior to October 7 to defend a justice system that Netanyahu wanted to damage, why couldn’t there be a half million Americans rallying in DC calling on these guys to GTFO?

There are many answers to this not-so-hypothetical query including: Americans are not inclined to street demos; Americans are not inclined to read or learn much about the courts; millions of Americans would rather think about sports, sex or cars before worrying about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights or the Supreme Court; and that’s not counting the millions who never found out what a Supreme Court is or does. 

But mostly, it’s a Democratic Party who has completely forgotten (if it ever knew) the art and science of mobilizing and organizing or at least supporting and/or helping to fund and encourage a social movement to achieve tomorrow what should be done today.  The Democrats look upon the political playing field as being defined every 2 or 4 years by elections (that hopefully keeps their asses in office) and then they assume there is nothing to be done in between those elections to relate to, to organize, to lead a movement for real change.

Why not make resignation of these two mooks a campaign plank? Why not mobilize Americans to vote Democratic at least in part to purge or modify the court?

I’ve heard a rumor that the Democrats have a 2024 campaign. I haven’t seen it or heard it but I have heard it mentioned here and there.  I guess there is nothing to worry about. We still have 160 days for somebody to figure out how we can retain rule of law and democracy going into 2025 and defeat an authoritarian takeover.  If u hear anything, let me know. And as I said, brace yourself for this coming month of Supreme decisions. They are going to rock our world like an 8.7 earthquake and further pave the way for an ant-democratic and authoritarian federal government that as of today seems as likely as not. ++

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