Posted on 05/12/2026 8:34:07 PM PDT by Albion Wilde
Judges in the American system, of course, do not make policy. But since the 1960s, when Joe Biden graduated law school by the skin of teeth, the progressive movement has viewed the courts as the primary vehicle for social change. And before Justice Jackson had completed her first day in her new position, the president who put her there made clear what was expected of her. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee that March, Jackson, then a Court of Appeals judge, denied any desire to graft her views onto the law. 'I do not believe that there is a Living Constitution in the sense that it's changing and it's infused with my own policy perspective or, you know, the policy perspective of the day,' she testified. 'Instead, the Supreme Court has made clear that when you're interpreting the Constitution, you're looking at the text at the time of the Founding and what the meaning was then…I apply that constraint.' Republican senators expressed doubt Jackson would honor that pledge on to the Court – concerns since validated....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.com ...
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She’s not a biologist, you know.
More like the 1930s.
TYVM
Ping!
“Judges in the American system, of course, do not make policy”
LOL. Sure, Jan
YVW
Although she has been likened to Mrs Potato Head.
Those were the days, my friend!
There’s a lot more to the article than the brief intro. Open the link, people!
It's all about you, Ketanya.
It's all about you.
Thanks for the link. I read the article. What is the “explosive leak”?
I wonder how long it will be before we have a situation like the one that happened in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, back in 2011, where a far-left “justice” accused the chief justice of trying to strangle her with his bare hands, an accusation made up out of whole cloth.
Jumanji Elizondo Mountain Dew Brown Jackson.
Is there actually on article at the link? All I see are thumbnails and advertisements.
Do we really want to say, even if we believe it, that the Supreme Court is in the business of making policy?
In an age when Congress is serially abdicating its constitutional responsibilities to legislate policy in technical areas and especially in controversial subjects, decision-making is more and more conceded to the deep state and to the judicial branch.
It is not just the Supreme Court that decides sides cases but in every level of court, even state inferior courts, the courts most depend on a national consensus to abide by their decisions because the courts, without effective police forces, are essentially only advisors rather than deciders, unless their legitimacy commonly acknowledged.
The supreme court, for its part, is an anti-democratic institution because it is a pro-constitution institution. In other words, courts deny the will of the people on many issues, such as preserving the due process rights of guilty felons, to uphold the Constitution instead. So it is inevitable that the Supreme Court, and lesser courts as well, run afoul of popular sentiment. Perhaps that is the very reason why Congress has perfected the art of dumping tendentious issues onto the deep state or the courts.
So if we want to sustain an institution that upholds the Constitution we might take up Stonewall Jackson's way and refrain from identifying the court as a extraconstitutional policymaking forum, at least we might refrain so long as we can believe that the court is calling constitutional balls and constitutional strikes. General Jackson sought to protect the morale of his division from defeatist speech. Justice Jackson does not seek to preserve the court as an agency to uphold the Constitution.
She would exploit the power of the court to effect policy regardless whether that policy is constitutional. She is not only indifferent to the effect of her departure from the role of the court as a litigator of the Constitution has on the reputation of the court. In fact, if she cannot effect policy through the decision, she will be quite content, as a secondary compensation to damage the reputation of the court. The weaker she can make the court, the more she believes that the policy she favors will be enacted unhindered by the Constitution. Because the Constitution itself ultimately becomes irrelevant in a world in which her policy wet dreams prevail. She wins either way.
We lose either way because she puts us in the dilemma of weakening an institution that overall upholds the Constitution when we criticize the court. By extension, when we criticize Justice Jackson we indirectly criticized the court. Even when Justice Jackson is forced into a minority dissent, she can win with an outrageous opinion in dissent that invites opprobrium that splashes over from her onto the court. Her criticism is not really that a policy is unconstitutional but that it is undesirable because it is conservative. Her fundamental argument is repugnant to the very essence of the function of the court and the very ground upon which this constitutional institution can function.
Stonewall Jackson would have dissenters hold their tongue to preserve his institution, Justice Jackson will happily kill the institution to get her way.
Interesting article. Strange that she’s helping us more than we could have ever guessed.
I thought they’d never end...
Bfl
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