Weâre back from our Alaska vacation. It was extended two extra days in Seattle courtesy of United Airlines, who cancelled our flight, along with thousands of others. To add to Unitedâs bad press, its CEO, Scott Kirby took a private plane out of New York while so many of his customers were grabbing hotel rooms they didnât want, instead of sleeping in their own beds.
Wrongo promised more photos from Alaska:
June 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo
This iceberg broke off from the Shakes Glacier, which is located in the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness of the Tongass National Forest. It stood about 20â above the waterline. Since about 10% of a berg is above water, about 220â of this bad boy was underwater in Shakes Lake which is about 800′ deep. We rode in a jetboat about 25 miles from Wrangell, Alaska to see it.
This weekâs cartoons are about the recent decisions by the Supreme Court. SCOTUS released opinions in three big cases, the affirmative action case, the student loan forgiveness case, and the anti-LGBT+ case. Wrongo hasnât had time to read them carefully, but the dissents by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson made it clear that these decisions suck.
These cases show us a few things: First, that the concept of âstandingâ before the court means only what the Supremes say it means. Previously, It was about where the parties in a lawsuit âstandâ in relation to each other. Back in the recent past, a party had to prove they had standing before a court considers the merits of a case. But:
- In the gay website case, the plaintiff trying to inflict damage on the LGBT+ community didnât need to show standing. The Colorado web designer, who the Supremes said could refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples, cited a request from a man who told the AP, he had never asked her to do any work for him. The state of Colorado said she didnât have sufficient grounds to sue, but the Supremes ultimately said that she did.
- In Biden vs. Nebraska, the plaintiffs in the student loan case couldnât show injury. The Supremes said that the plaintiff, the state of Missouri, had standing because Mohela a student loan servicer, is an instrumentality of the state. Mohela has the independent power to sue and be sued, but it refused to sue in this case, and the state sued on its behalf. Justice Kagan in her dissent said:
âFrom the first page to the last, todayâs opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint…At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.â
Second, weâve learned that the 14th Amendment, which was originally written to insure that Black people had Constitutional rights, no longer applies to them. Now that the Conservative majority on the Court has ended racism, maybe weâll get a new holiday to celebrate!
Third, this is what happens when a third of America doesnât vote. In 2016, we were told to elect Hillary because of the Supreme Court, but America didnât like the âmeanâ lady, and Trump was elected. Despite what you thought about her, this growing list of Supreme Court decisions that so many people disagree with are a direct result of that loss.
There are two kinds of freedom: Freedom to, and freedom from. But your freedom isnât supposed to hurt anybody else. And historically when it did, we enacted laws curtailing that behavior, but no longer. Now, weâre out there all on our own.
Society is moving backwards. Wrongo grew up in the 1960s, those good old days when politicians and the courts strived to promote equality. Now societyâs divided. Its coarser, and much less equal. âItâs on you to bootstrap your way to the topâ is what the Supreme Court is telling us. Weâre born and after that, youâre on your own. However your life plays out, itâs your fault. On to cartoons.
No ladder required:
SCOTUS suggestion for getting ahead:
A case of blind justice:
Blinded by the White:
Some of the Supremesâ action is definitely affirmative:
OTOH, the Supremes overruled the independent legislature theory:
The affirmative action decision is also an odd one. The “plaintiffs” were ostensibly Asian but the mechanism that gives them lower scores (so fewer admissions) is in essence a personality test. So the supreme court removed the mechanism that raised the levels of admission for black and some hispanic students but did nothing to attack the mechanism that mistreats Asian students.
For myself, I think way too much energy is spent in this small issue – I meet lots of Paterson students, most from at best working class backgrounds. For them, they often start at a community college and finish at a state college. They commute to college so save the costs of a dorm. I have been involved for almost 10 years and I have seen high school kids graduate from college. One girl who was involved in the program at the Paterson Great Falls is married, working (in an office job) and just had a baby, For most kids the Ivies are really a bridge too far.
But I also don’t know why SCOTUS needed to get involved in the way colleges set their admission priorities.