To the editor: Just when you think columnist Jonah Goldberg has found his way from the dark side, he goes right back to conservative apologism. Now, he uses some egregious mental gymnastics to say the U.S. Supreme Court is not in fact highly partisan.
First, he claims that the recent decision on mifepristone was ruled unanimously “in favor of the pro-abortion-rights position.” The ruling had nothing to do with the merits of the pro-abortion-rights side. Rather, it was a technical ruling based on the lack of standing by the plaintiffs, leaving this vital question open to future legal assault.
His lauding of the reversal of the bump-stock ban is just as head scratching. This device’s sole purpose is to provide the functionality of a machine gun to semiautomatic rifles. The banning of this device by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives adhered to the congressional ban on machine guns. This is exactly the kind of proper interpretation of existing law that federal agencies do all the time.
Finally, while the court may eventually rule against former President Trump’s immunity claim, its slow-rolling of this case is having what appears to be the effect of delaying the verdict on Trump’s insurrectionist activities until after the November election.
If it’s all the same to Goldberg, we’ll continue to believe our own lying eyes.
Earle Hartling, Culver City
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To the editor: Goldberg argues that the Supreme Court is more unified than perceived, except in “big” cases such as the 2022 Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade.
The same could be said of the Roger Taney-led Supreme Court that decided the Dred Scott decision, which held that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts.
Stephen Smith, Westchester
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To the editor: Goldberg writes, “If Trump is reelected, you can imagine many liberals suddenly looking more favorably on the idea that presidents can’t unilaterally rewrite the law.”
No, but dictators can. And one candidate has already told us that’s who he will be. I hope we are not foolish enough to ignore that.
Mary Sidell, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Goldberg ignores what the current conservative super-majority has communicated through its smattering of ideologically skewed decisions — to send them cases that provide an opportunity to reverse precedent they detest.
The Dobbs case, overturning nearly 50 years of precedent, is the prime example. What could be next is Louisiana’s enactment of a law that mandates posting of the Ten Commandments in school classrooms.
The longstanding precedent that bars such religious indoctrination in public schools probably doesn’t matter to this high court’s theocracy-indulging super-majority. It will welcome the chance to disingenuously assign some overarching secular purpose to Louisiana’s biblical post.
Perhaps I should pray that Louisiana’s blatant merger of church and state doesn’t reach the high court until its pre-Trump ideological balance is restored.
Edgar M. Martinez, Orcutt, Calif.
