[Epoch Times] U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia "Wise Latina"
Sotomayor said the conservative majority on the Court is overturning so many longstanding precedents so quickly that public confidence in it is flagging.
"I think my Court would probably gather more public support if it went a little more slowly in undoing precedent," Sotomayor said on Feb. 5 in remarks at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in Kentucky.
Public approval of the High Court stood at 44 percent in September 2024, with 51 percent disapproving, according to Gallup polling. Court approval has been underwater since September 2021 when it was 40 percent to 53 percent. President Donald Trump’s third conservative appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, joined the Court in October 2020. So public opinion has improved since the 'conservative justices' came into 'power'.
Since Trump’s first term began, the Court reversed Roe v. Wade, finding there was no constitutional right to abortion, ended affirmative action in the college admission process, and upheld broad immunity for presidents for official acts.
Sotomayor did not identify specific precedents but said the public becomes wary when the Court "moves too quickly in upheavals." Well, the public must be super-hyper wary since January 20.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/09/2025 08:08 ||
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#1
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia "Wise Latina" Sotomayor said the conservative majority on the Court is overturning so many longstanding precedents so quickly that public confidence in it is flagging.
No, your other SCOTUS members are placing the Constitution before precedents. The reason the court is losing confidence is clearly displayed by the partisan hacks in robes who fail to grasp the text of the Constitution.
#5
Lots of brouhaha over the obvious overreach of so many federal judges outside of the Supremes and virtually no information about historical precedents and what Congress can do under the Constitution in regulating federal courts.
See Act of March 3, 1863, 12 Stat. 762 which eliminat the then-existing DC circuit court, district court, and criminal court without providing for continued service by the sitting judges. One problematic judge simply lost his position. New judges on the new court system were then appointed & ratified in the usual way and did the usual thing. The judge that was "fired" this way turned out to be appointed to the replacement court - in 1885. He died in 1889.
Does anything prohibit the Congress from abolishing the DC court system one more time? I expect in response to this, as per usual.
#6
I have posted comments like the above in many other internet venues & have gotten zero response. Apparently none read them. "I expect in response to this, as per usual, will be the sounds of crickets"
#7
Congress continues to be asleep at the switch, only interested in cashing every paycheck and collecting every benefit of office they can. Remember the entire House of Representatives is up for reelection in Nov 2026, along with about 1/3 of the US Senate.
#9
I hadn’t thought of that solution to the judge problem. It would be worth having Big Balls plot all the circuit judges with a rating of their activism to see whether a version of Operation Bottomblow is possible.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/09/2025 14:48 Comments ||
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#10
I have posted comments like the above in many other internet venues & have gotten zero response.
Possibly others are doing what I did, dear Anguper Hupomosing9418 — I read the whole thing and it sounds good to me, but I know absolutely nothing about such things, so can’t add or argue.
[EKO Loves You] The clock struck 2 AM on Jan 21, 2025.
In Treasury's basement, fluorescent lights hummed above four young coders. Their screens cast blue light across government-issue desks, illuminating energy drink cans and agency badges. As their algorithms crawled through decades of payment data, one number kept growing: $17 billion in redundant programs. And counting.
"We're in," Akash Bobba messaged the team. "All of it."
Edward Coristine's code had already mapped three subsystems. Luke Farritor's algorithms were tracing payment flows across agencies. Ethan Shaotran's analysis revealed patterns that career officials didn't even know existed. By dawn, they would understand more about Treasury's operations than people who had worked there for decades.
This wasn't a hack. This wasn't a breach. This was authorized disruption.
While career bureaucrats prepared orientation packets and welcome memos, DOGE's team was already deep inside the payment systems. No committees. No approvals. No red tape. Just four coders with unprecedented access and algorithms ready to run.
"The beautiful thing about payment systems," noted a transition official watching their screens, "is that they don't lie. You can spin policy all day long, but money leaves a trail."
That trail led to staggering discoveries. Programs marked as independent revealed coordinated funding streams. Grants labeled as humanitarian aid showed curious detours through complex networks. Black budgets once shrouded in secrecy began to unravel under algorithmic scrutiny.
By 6 AM, Treasury's career officials began arriving for work. They found systems they thought impenetrable already mapped. Networks they believed hidden already exposed. Power structures built over decades revealed in hours.
Their traditional defenses—slow-walking decisions, leaking damaging stories, stonewalling requests—proved useless against an opponent moving faster than their systems could react. By the time they drafted their first memo objecting to this breach, three more systems had already been mapped.
"Pull this thread," a senior official warned, watching patterns emerge across DOGE's screens, "and the whole sweater unravels."
He wasn't wrong. But he misunderstood something crucial: That was exactly the point.
This wasn't just another transition. This wasn't just another reform effort. This was the start of something unprecedented: a revolution powered by preparation, presidential will, and technological precision.
The storm had arrived. And Treasury was just the beginning.
THE FOUNDATION
"Personnel is policy."
For decades, this principle, articulated by conservative strategist Troup Hemenway, remained more theory than practice. Previous administrations spent months, even years, trying to staff key positions. Trump's first term saw barely 100 political appointees confirmed by February 2017.
Every delay meant another victory for the permanent bureaucracy.
But this time was different.
While media focused on campaign rallies and political theater, a quiet army was being assembled. In offices across DC, veteran strategists mapped the administrative state's pressure points. Think tanks developed action plans for every agency. Policy institutes trained rapid deployment teams. Former appointees shared battlefield intelligence from previous administrations' failures.
By Inauguration Day, over 1,000 pre-vetted personnel stood ready—each armed with clear objectives, mapped legal authorities, and direct lines to support networks. This wasn't just staffing; it was a battle plan decades in the making.
"This is the new normal," Vice President JD Vance declared from his West Wing office, studying real-time data flows across agency systems. "He's having the time of his life," he added, referring to the President's relentless drive. "We've done more in two weeks than others did in years."
#2
Over this weekend a renegade federal judge simply issued a court order to prevent the Secretary of the Treasury from examining the operations of the Treasury. Why the Supremes haven't already struck this down is beyond me.
[RedState] Congress illegally spent at least $516 billion in 2024 on programs for which there was no authorization. Yes, billion, with a "b." A stunning report by the Congressional Budget Office underscores the reason for the legal assault upon President Trump's right to audit payments by the Treasury Department.
In a report titled "Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024," the CBO observes: "Historically, House and Senate rules restrict lawmakers from considering an appropriation if it lacks a current authorization." Nevertheless, "CBO estimates that $516 billion was appropriated for 2024 for activities with expired authorizations, which the agency identified for each House and Senate authorizing committee and appropriations subcommittee." That $516 billion in illegal payments cover "1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations of appropriations that were set to expire by the end of fiscal year 2024." The legal authority for some of these payments expired 40 — that's not a typo — years ago.
This data reveals a couple of things. First, Congress has established a shadow funding stream for pet projects of either the institution or of senior members that allows money to be shoveled into a porkulus spending bill under the guise of preventing a government shutdown. The money is paid even though there is no legal authority for the disbursement. This is what, among lesser beings, would be called embezzlement, but no word exists to describe the activity on this scale. Where embezzlement gets the plebians a stiff jail term, it gets members of Congress reelected and seats on corporate boards.
Making this all the more intriguing is that it would seem that the President could stop those payments without worrying about violating the Impoundment Control Act as they are not legal appropriations by Congress's rules.
I will guarantee you that when DOGE really digs into this, they are going to find other ongoing illegal payments on a Biblical scale.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
02/09/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
Now that he knows (and I bet my life Chuckie Schumer knows) he can act. Please act swiftly President Trump. And consider appropriate punishment for the thieves in Congress, be the Dem or Pub.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/09/2025 2:48 Comments ||
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Posted by: Bobby ||
02/09/2025 8:37 Comments ||
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#5
Congress actually does not spend much money itself. The most likely initial jail birds will be bureaucrats. The kickbacks will be what gets the Congressmen and Senators. That won’t be Musk; that will be Bondi and Kash.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/09/2025 10:32 Comments ||
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#6
subsequent to DOGE being blocked at Treasury, DOGE and the Dept worked out a method to do at least part of what needs to be done, that is, completing data for every payment
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/09/2025 11:34 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
"I think my Court would probably gather more public support if it went a little more slowly in undoing precedent," Sotomayor said on Feb. 5 in remarks at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law in Kentucky.
[EKO Loves You] The clock struck 2 AM on Jan 21, 2025.
