Countdown to the 5-4 decision announcement

[Razgovory]

Impeach Earl Warren John Rogers.

[Eddie Teach]

Impeach Earl Warren John Rogers.

Robert that.

[Razgovory]

Well, I'll be damned.

[Sheilbh]

This, from David Frum, is striking:

Tantrum on the Court
by David Frum Jul 2, 2012 10:35 AM EDT
We no longer joke about "epistemic closure," but that does not mean the phenomenon has ceased to govern the conservative mind.

From Jan Crawford's July 1 behind-the-scenes report from the Supreme Court:

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of [the Roberts majority] opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

Shoving fingers into the ears and chanting "nah, nah, I can't hear you" is a bizarre way to go about the judicial enterprise. Yet there is a comic as well as a depressing aspect to this latest expression of the conservative refusal to acknowledge unwelcome realities. The particular unwelcome reality that the Court minority refused to engage is a majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court—the highest law of the land. It doesn't go away just because you hold your breath until you turn blue.

As an old story goes:

The New England transcendentalist Margaret Fuller was given to exclaiming, "I accept the universe!" The British writer Thomas Carlyle, upon hearing this, commented: "Gad! She'd better."

[Admiral Yi]

Sometimes I get the impression that David Frum is trying to grab David Gergen's market niche.

[stjaba]

There's potential counter-leaks to the Jan Crawford story:

http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/03/so-now-we-have-supreme-court-leaks-disagreeing-with-supreme-court-leaks/

Regardless of the truth, the leaks are almost for sure coming from the conservative justices or their clerks. If the leaks were coming from the liberal justices, Jeff Toobin, and not conservative friendly outlets, would be reporting it.

Over at Salon.com, Lawprof Paul Campos writes:

I am told by a source within the Court with direct knowledge of the drafting process. . . that "most of the material in the first three quarters of the joint dissent was drafted in Chief Justice Roberts' chambers in April and May." Only the last portion of what eventually became the joint dissent was drafted without any participation by the Chief Justice.

This source insists that the claim that the joint dissent was drafted from scratch in June is flatly untrue. Furthermore, the source characterizes claims by Crawford's sources that "the fact that the joint dissent doesn't mention [sic] Roberts' majority . . . was a signal the conservatives no longer wished to engage in debate with him" as "pure propagandistic spin," meant to explain away the awkward fact that while the first 46 pages of the joint dissent never even mention Roberts' opinion for the Court (this is surely the first time in the Court's history that a dissent has gone on for 13,000 words before getting around to mentioning that it is, in fact, dissenting), the last 19 pages do so repeatedly.

I guess it's only a matter of time before Jan Crawford runs a story saying that her source insists that Campos's source is a "liar liar [with his] pants on fire." Pretty soon those of us who haven't received leaks are going to feel left out.

UPDATE: Here's another. John Fund at the National Review has a leaker, too – perhaps the same as person that leaked to the National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru, but who knows:

I've learned from my own sources that after voting to invalidate the mandate, the chief did express some skepticism about joining the four conservatives in throwing out the whole law. At the justices' conference, there was discussion about accepting the Obama administration's argument, which was that, if the individual mandate was removed, the provisions governing community rating and guaranteed issue of insurance would have to go too but that the rest of the law might stand. The chief justice was equivocal, though, in his views on that point.

Any other leaks so far today, or is that it?

[Razgovory]

Sometimes I get the impression that David Frum is trying to grab David Gergen's market niche.

Sometimes I get the impression that (Yi or something that Yi values), is trying to (some kind of pointed insult or veiled attack).

I'm tired so I've decided a new avenue of posting.  Instead of me coming up with something, I'm going to do Mad Libs.  So Yi, why don't you fill it out, then tell me how I'm wrong. 

[Admiral Yi]

For me to tell you how you're wrong I would first have to understand what the hell you're talking about.  That's assuming you are wrong.

[jimmy olsen]

For me to tell you how you're wrong I would first have to understand what the hell you're talking about.  That's assuming you are wrong.

Seems pretty simple and correct.

Do you not know what mad libs are? Because that doesn't have anything to do with his point.

[Sheilbh]

For me to tell you how you're wrong I would first have to understand what the hell you're talking about.  That's assuming you are wrong.

Seems pretty simple and correct.

Do you not know what mad libs are? Because that doesn't have anything to do with his point.

To be fair I didn't understand what Raz was on about at all.

Edit: Also I've seen conservatives making arch comments about Roberts spending his summer teaching in Europe, while Clarence Thomas is RVing across America.

[The Minsky Moment]

Edit: Also I've seen conservatives making arch comments about Roberts spending his summer teaching in Europe, while Clarence Thomas is RVing across America.

There may be something to that.

Line up Thomas and Kennedy on the one hand.
Kagan and Breyer on the other.

Which of those is Roberts more like, other than with respect to political right/left leanings>?

[Razgovory]

For me to tell you how you're wrong I would first have to understand what the hell you're talking about.  That's assuming you are wrong.

Seems pretty simple and correct.

Do you not know what mad libs are? Because that doesn't have anything to do with his point.

To be fair I didn't understand what Raz was on about at all.

Edit: Also I've seen conservatives making arch comments about Roberts spending his summer teaching in Europe, while Clarence Thomas is RVing across America.

It's an American thing.