Protests at the homes of the six Supreme Court justices, ironically including Chief justice John Roberts who is presumed not to be part of the majority in the Dobbs case, began after a pro-abortion group published their home addresses for this purpose. The division between those who support protests of this nature and those who do not is proceeding as expected on social media.
What does the White House have to say about these protests?
But the Biden White House doesn’t seem to care that angry mobs have gone to the homes of six conservative Supreme Court justices to protest the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade after a draft document stating such, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, was leaked earlier this week. A liberal firestorm followed, as the overturning of the 1973 decision would send abortion law back to the states.
One liberal group, “Ruth Sent Us,” has published online the home addresses of Justices Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. Several of these justices have children at home, including Barrett, who has seven.
“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics,” the group said earlier this week.
What’s meant by “force accountability” is unclear. What purpose is served by protesting at all, no less protesting at the homes of justices, is unclear. But they protest nonetheless, and many argue, usually by analogy, that it’s either justified or comparable to other protests, such as protests at abortion clinics where women have been subject to attack and intimidation for years. Despite the flawed comparisons, these arguments are sufficient for those who choose to believe and embrace any rationalization to support their engagement in protests.
When asked about the president’s position on these protests, the White House press secretary came up empty.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the planned protests earlier this week.
“Do you think that progressive activists that are now planning protests outside some of the justices’ houses are extreme?” asked Doocy.
“Peaceful protest? No, peaceful protest is not extreme,” Psaki retorted.
The norm of not protesting against government officials at their homes has given way over the past five years, although those protests involved political officials and not the judiciary. Doocy asked whether the president supports this shift in norms.
“The president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document,” Psaki said. “We obviously want people’s privacy to be respected. We want people to protest peacefully if they want to protest. That is certainly what the president’s view would be.”
“I don’t have an official U.S. government position on where people protest,” she added.
There’s no doubt that there’s “a lot of passion” being felt around the country, but that isn’t responsive to the question, any more than saying they “obviously want people’s privacy to be respected.” By not condemning protests at the homes of Supreme Court justices, President Biden is tacitly approving these protests.
Even though protests at the homes of government officials are hardly novel, protests at the homes of judges and justices, whose jobs are explicitly and intentionally insulated from popular whim, breaks through another wall of propriety. Is Biden suggesting that mob rule should be used to influence the judiciary? If not, is he simply unwilling to take the bold move of condemning these protests for fear they will attack him next for his failure to be supportive of their passion?
It’s unlikely that any condemnation by the president will change anything on the street. It’s not as if he’s respected by progressives who consider him a failure for not imposing their agenda by magic or fiat. But the fact that Biden has failed to take a position on protests at the homes of justices, suggests that this norm has fallen along with the protests of political officials and the attacks of the unduly passionate in restaurants and on the street.
As of now, the protests have been peaceful. Hopefully, they will stay that way.
Update: Jen Psaki has spoken on behalf of President Biden.
.@POTUS strongly believes in the Constitutional right to protest. But that should never include violence, threats, or vandalism. Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety.
— Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec) May 9, 2022
Protests at the homes of judges and justices now have the blessing of the President.
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Norms have been dying like flies since 2016. The Supreme Court itself is soon going to destroy the “norm” of stare decisis. The time they are a changin’.
This is absurd. Stare decisis is an element, not the whole of the law. If precedent we’re immutable nothing would ever progress, and this didn’t pop up in 2016.
Since 2016??? Destroy the “norm?”
Apparently John Lentini would have objected to Brown v. the Board of Education. That overturned 60 years of settled law.
I miss precedented times.
Democrats are likely hoping that this will be their mechanism to rouse their fanatics and stave off a resounding defeat in the midterm elections. In any event, they can’t afford to have Biden alienate any of their special interest groups. Some number of them may even be hoping their at-all-costs nutcases will be the mechanism to get rid of some justices so Biden can appoint new ones to redirect the Court’s opinions.
I do agree that protesting outside judges (or other politician’s) house is not appropriate. However there are some mitigating factors that move me to a “meh”. Peaceful protests are a right in this country, the Republicans have been using killing Roe as a major campaign message for decades, and they are about to do massive harm to the women in this country. SCOTUS justices are politicians. I think Biden remaining neutral in this is a justifiable position.
It was pointed out on another group that SCOTUS in Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (1994) they ruled that protesting at the houses of abortion clinic staff is a right. Thomas agreed.
First, there’s a distinction between a participant in the underlying conduct and a judge whose duty it is to decide cases.
Second, the issue is norms, not legality.
Third, nobody cares whether you are for or against it or what your views are other than you. You aren’t anyone’s “thought leader.”
That’s not what they held in Madsen: if it was a “right” to picket a specific residence, then the Supreme Court would have effectively overruled Frisby v. Schultz, which they explicitly declined to do in Madsen. The Court only said that the injunction issued by the state court, barring picketers from coming within a football field’s length of clinic staffers’ homes, was overbroad.
On the one hand, I adore the use of timpani in pop music. On the other hand, he’s playing timpani wrong and it breaks my heart.
With all due respect, Admiral,
Ouch.
Nothing personal. It’s a big club. If I was as old as dirt, I’d be a charter member.
Besides, it’s Zappa.
Ain’t it great? When knowing things spoils the party..
The comment brings a quote to mind…
“Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this. […]
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. […] You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. […] You read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. […] But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. […] The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.”
Michael Crichton
I use to be interviewed by the media from time to time about chess and chess related issues. (Big Fish, Small Pond). I never saw a reporter get what I said 100% right. The results ranged from a total wall of error to one reporter who had just one small mistake. Over time I stopped attributing this to malice and came to recognize the difficulty of quickly understanding a new topic. I have become highly skeptical of reporting front page to the classifieds.
The one thing that I will be remembered for: “Chess is the Sumo of Wrestling of the Mind”.
Having had a number of high profile cases over the years, I’ve been acutely aware of this problem. Unfortunately, the options are quasi-reliable info or no info at all. Not trusting the media to be accurate doesn’t mean we get to make facts up either. It’s a problem.
What it does say, however, is that the media was unreliable before, when it strived to be as neutral as it could be. Now that it’s forsaken any effort at neutrality for moral clarity, the same people who couldn’t get their facts straight before are reporting only those “facts” they want us to know and are proud of it.
We need to make sure there is bipartisan judicial harassment. Every time any court is about to make a ruling on abortion, there should be two nonstop protests at each judges house. One group needs to screech about women’s right while the other group shrieks about murder. One group gets to go home after the ruling while the other should up the ante and follow the judges and their families everywhere.
Once the pattern is set on abortion, we can expand it to every other hot issue of the day. With proper political donations, this can even be a jobs program – employment for anyone willing to carry a sign. We will have a robust economy and ensure our judiciary is strong and democratic reflecting the will of most strident and extremist members of our society.
Curious whether you intentionally used the term, “pro-abortion” as opposed to “pro-choice”. If so, wondering you’re thinking on that. TYIA.
I did not intentionally use “you’re” instead of your. i.e., wondering your thinking.
As my pal Bill likes to say, “irregardless.”
Yes, it was intentional. Euphemisms are bullshit. It is what it is, and if it’s unacceptable in unvarnished form, then it’s no better with a pretty ribbon tied around it.
Show me one single “pro-choice” advocate who thinks the choice should ever be anything but abortion. At least be honest with yourselves and admit it’s not about a “choice”, it’s about killing babies.
One step over the line, LY. Whether it’s about “killing” a cluster of cells, a fetus or a viable baby is a separate matter.