{"id":48157,"date":"2026-05-10T11:31:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T18:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=48157"},"modified":"2026-05-10T11:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T18:31:15","slug":"john-roberts-is-starting-to-sweat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/10\/john-roberts-is-starting-to-sweat\/","title":{"rendered":"John Roberts Is Starting to Sweat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The reactionary hacks on the Supreme Court might have gone too far this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ryanby\u00a0Ryan Cooper<\/a> <\/strong>May 8, 2026 (Prospect.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chief
Chief Justice John Roberts attends the State of the Union at the U.S. Capitol, February 24, 2026. Credit: Tom Williams\/CQ Roll Call via AP Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If there\u2019s one thing Chief Justice John Roberts would like the American people to believe, it\u2019s that his Supreme Court is not at all political. Like the transparent eyeballs at The New York Times<\/em> politics desk\u2014such as Peter Baker, who doesn\u2019t vote<\/a>, as doing so might indicate the dreaded partisan bias\u2014Roberts sees his role as \u201cto call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat,\u201d as he put it in his confirmation hearing in 2005<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Court\u2019s most recent decision gutting what\u2019s left of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais<\/em>, which sparked volcanic outrage across the country and the destruction of not only several majority-Black House districts but representatives for many of America\u2019s cities<\/a>, Roberts is back on his routine. At a judicial conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania, this week, he squalled<\/a> that people were misunderstanding his project and being very mean to him personally. \u201cI think [people] view us as purely political actors, which I don\u2019t think is an accurate understanding of what we do,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not simply part of the political process and there\u2019s a reason for that and I\u2019m not sure people grasp that as much as is appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More from Ryan Cooper<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also lamented a shift \u201cfrom criticism of the opinion to criticism of the judge \u2026 As soon as you personalize, it can become problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judging from the preposterousness of these remarks, I suspect that Roberts himself is starting to question whether this time he and his fellow right-wing hacks in robes have, at long last, gone too far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an initial matter, it is a priori<\/em> impossible for legal decisions to be nonpolitical. (The same thing is true of journalism.) The Supreme Court is part of the government, its members are appointed by politicians, and its decisions have obvious political effects. Even the most neutral imaginable adjudication of some technical legal dispute rests on an assumption that the rule of law is a good way to organize society\u2014a political opinion not shared by everyone. Donald Trump, for instance, does not believe it. (Although he\u2019s at least the most honest of the lot on this point, that legal decisions are clearly political. That\u2019s why he thinks the Court should side with him on whatever he wants, because he appointed them.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that all judicial decisions are equally fraudulent, of course. There is no escape from politics, but there are such things as good and bad faith. And John Roberts is the most bad-faith chief justice at the head of the most dishonest Court majority at least since Melville Fuller, who presided over the\u00a0Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em>\u00a0decision that legally sanctioned Jim Crow tyranny, and arguably ever. Not even Fuller or Roger Taney ever argued that the president is above the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Callais<\/em> decision is a perfect example<\/a>. Not only does the 15th Amendment very obviously<\/em> authorize the VRA\u2019s requirement for majority-minority districts in certain places, it also specifically sets out a results-based test<\/a> for whether something is discriminatory. After all, the mass disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South under Jim Crow was often carried out through facially neutral tactics, precisely to create plausible legal deniability. That was why<\/em> Congress amended the law in 1982.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito ignores the Constitution and the text of the VRA to return to an intent-based test, while claiming that he is rooting out \u201crace-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.\u201d Just like in Jim Crow, so long as the jug hooting Ku Klux Klan members in the Alabama state legislature are smart enough to not write down \u201cwe are taking voting rights away from minorities, because we are personally fervent racists\u201d then they can disenfranchise minorities to their hearts\u2019 content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court\u2019s flagrant political bias can also be seen in the fact that the majority allowed an illegal racial gerrymander to stand in Alabama in 2022 because it was supposedly too close to an election to change it, but today is allowing<\/a> Florida, Tennessee, and Louisiana to redraw their districts<\/a> less than a month before their elections. Indeed, in Louisiana voting had already started when Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the elections to give time for additional gerrymandering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Callais<\/em> is only somewhat more preposterous than Shelby County v. Holder<\/em>, the Roberts-written opinion that struck down Section 5 of the VRA. He didn\u2019t even bother to point out<\/a> which part of the Constitution the law supposedly violated in that decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone can see what is happening. These are a pack of partisan hacks ruling by decree. Disenfranchising Black people benefits Republicans because Black people vote for Democrats, and Roberts and his fellow party activists on the Court will delete nearly any law that stands in the way of that. The decision might as well have been copy-pasted from the lorem ipsum<\/a> text. To adjust the saying<\/a> somewhat, Roberts is micturating directly in our collective eye sockets and then saying \u201cit isn\u2019t raining at all, no sir, and frankly you\u2019re very rude for even mentioning the word \u2018wet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason the Court has hitherto gotten away with this is a handful of lucky Republican presidential victories, and the timidity of the Democratic Party. President Biden, confronted with Court reform activists who warned him that the rogue Court majority was going to disembowel his presidency and pave the way for Trump to return, punted the issue to a blue-ribbon panel of credentialed experts, which naturally went nowhere<\/a>. The Court went on to repeatedly overturn Biden\u2019s policies based on invented doctrines and then anointed Donald Trump as king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problems with the Court have only gotten worse since then. This is a rogue institution corrupt to its very marrow, and even moderate Democrats are starting to see that it is an imminent threat to the American republic itself. That\u2019s why 16 years after the epic Republican gerrymandering spree began, Democratic states have started to respond in kind. Efforts are afoot to raise the stakes once again in reaction to this fresh round of GOP election-rigging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence Roberts\u2019s indignant harrumphing that nobody is allowed to criticize him and his fellow law wizards. Outrageous, flagrant lying got him this far; he might as well keep it up. But let\u2019s hope it is no longer enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Read more<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"An<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An Epic Collapse for Britain\u2019s Labour Party<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Britain\u2019s centrist Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer crashes while Spain\u2019s Socialist Pedro S\u00e1nchez shows how to lead from the left. Could there be a lesson here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Robert Kuttner<\/a><\/strong>May 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Meat<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meat Industry Price Fixer Sentenced to Make Money<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Agri Stats collected proprietary information from all meat producers and encouraged price increases for decades. After a Trump DOJ settlement, it\u2019s allowed to stay in business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by David Dayen<\/a><\/strong>May 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Aftermath:<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Aftermath: There Is No End to the War With Iran<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s edition, we discuss how the haphazard ending to the war won\u2019t divert from the terrible path Donald Trump has led the world down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by David Dayen<\/a><\/strong>May 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before you go.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I hope that you found this article interesting and thought-provoking. The reason we\u2019re able to publish stories like this \u2014 free of programmatic ads and never behind a paywall \u2014 is because readers like you step up to support our work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prospect <\/em>doesn’t answer to advertisers or billionaire owners. We answer to you and to our commitment to pursuing the truth, wherever that leads us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independent, reader-supported journalism is critical at a time when the free press is under assault. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you believe this kind of reporting should exist and remain free to read, we hope you’ll consider chipping in. Every contribution, however modest, makes a real difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donate Now<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"David<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

David Dayen<\/strong>
Executive Editor<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Cooper<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

rcooper@prospect.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan Cooper is a senior editor at The American Prospect, and author of How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics. He was previously a national correspondent for The Week. His work has also appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, and Current Affairs. More by Ryan Cooper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reactionary hacks on the Supreme Court might have gone too far this time. by\u00a0Ryan Cooper May 8, 2026 (Prospect.org) If there\u2019s one thing Chief Justice John Roberts would like the American people to believe, it\u2019s that his Supreme Court is not at all political. Like the transparent eyeballs at The… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48158,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48157\/revisions\/48158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}