"... regarding contraceptives and religious rights. The New York Times reported Saturday that Rob Schenck, who on his website identifies himself as a 'once-right-wing religious leader but now dissenting evangelical voice,' said he was told the outcome of the case, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, several weeks before it was announced. Schenck said a conservative donor to his organization relayed the information after a dinner with Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in the case, and the justice’s wife. But the donor, Gayle Wright, told the Times and affirmed in an interview Saturday that the account given by Schenck was not true, and Alito issued a statement denying it as well."
Whatever the truth is about whether Schenck really heard what he says he heard from Wright and whether Wright is accurately telling us now what she got from Alito and what she relayed to Schenck at the time — and it's easy to imagine that all 3 are kinda-sorta telling the truth! — I'd just like to say that there's a big difference between leaking the draft opinion — as was done with Dobbs — and revealing the outcome of a pending case.
With the leak of the draft opinion in Dobbs, we saw the text and we saw it before the opinion was released. With this report that the outcome was revealed in advance in Hobby Lobby, we're hearing about it after the fact and second hand.
And I wonder if there have been other times when leaks like this one — assuming it happened — have occurred. Where there is no published draft opinion to show the leak to us all, there needs to be not only a leak, but a leak to someone with a motivation to talk about it.
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55 comments:
i LOVE, that they ALWAYS refer to Rob Schenck, as a "former antiabortion activist"..
And NEVER, as a CURRENT proabortion activist
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/opinion/abortion-schenck.html
I Was an Anti-Abortion Crusader. Now I Support Roe v. Wade
Isn't that FUNNY? Doesn't it make you Laugh?
Someone on the left is a liar? no way!
“identifies himself as a 'once-right-wing religious leader but now dissenting evangelical voice,'“
Would a “dissenting evangelical” mean that using deceit as a tool to advance an agenda is not only advisable but promoted?
I have no idea what the philosophy of a “dissenting evangelical” is.
Until I find out otherwise a “dissenting evangelical” is a Musk adversary. 😉
Rank hearsay.
How many former conservatives have turned tail and fled to the other side, in most cases to earn a quick payday? MSLSD* is littered with them as hosts and guests. Follow the money.
*Scar'bro
Nicole Wallace
Michael Steele
Steve Schmidt
Frank Luntz
The left are going to use this to attempt to get Alito off the court.
Hearsay!
And I wonder if there have been other times when leaks like this one — assuming it happened — have occurred. Where there is no published draft opinion to show the leak to us all, there needs to be not only a leak, but a leak to someone with a motivation to talk about it.
I assume that SCOTUS has long given the WH and Congress a heads-up regarding controversial decisions, if for no other reason than a sort of "professional courtesy." My theory with Dobbs is that someone (*cough**cough*Sotomayor*cough**cough*) gave a copy of the draft to the WH in order to give them time to figure out their response to it. The WH decided to leak it because they needed a distraction back in April, when bad economic news, the continuing Ukraine War, the increasing pressure for student loan forgiveness, and word about the looming formula shortages all combined to create a crapstorm of bad news.
Once again we are starting a conversation pretending the WAPO is a source of news or information.
Whenever the WaPo is mentioned I have to remind that it IS a high school newspaper. A very good high school newspaper, but a high school newspaper none the less.
Always remember that The Nations High School Newspaper of Record is in the service of the political opinions of that walking circumcised penis Mr. Jeff Bezos. He built a rocket ship that looks like himself.
It’s a shame that Alito dignified this smear with a response.
Now being blamed by the left for the Dobbs leak too, what did Alito have to gain??
Are we supposed to believe Alito secretly wanted Kavanaugh's life threatened while at the same time pushing protection of the lives of the unborn back to the states?
Did Alito leak it to prepare the public for a softer landing, or did a liberal Sotomayor staffer/clerk leak it to rile up abortion is everything voters for the mid-terms, and to have the conservative justices threatened?
The latter seems much more plausible and believable.
When you look at the “letter” sent by the Rev., it is in default MS Word Arial font.
Humperdink said...
How many former conservatives have turned tail and fled to the other side, in most cases to earn a quick payday? MSLSD* is littered with them as hosts and guests. Follow the money.
*Scar'bro
Nicole Wallace
Michael Steele
Steve Schmidt
Frank Luntz
David Brock.
Note Churchill’s observation how a conservative at 20 has no heart and a liberal at 40 has no head. The saying nicely encapsulates why so many conservatives were liberal when young and became conservative over time. But the other side is impressively accurate too. Any time you hear about someone starting conservative and becoming liberal, they’re slimy, skeezy, flaky, dishonest.
OT: Oh no. Mass shooting at gay nightclub in Colorado Springs.
Anderson Lee Alderich(sp?) age 22 - the suspect. Some inside aided in subduing the suspect. (heroes)
Police arrived within 3 minutes. I'm listening to live press conf.
This news was not fit to print.
I believe Alito over the Propagandists who have been lying to us for the last 10 years.
De-fund the police?
Insane.
The police arrived within 3 minutes after being summoned.
Kinda sorta.
Democracy died in dumbness.
So it's Schenk v. United States all over again.
I would suppose justices do talk about possible cases with people. They have to talk to somebody. But they don't leak the text of decisions. Also, rumors grow as they're transmitted. A vague sentence or two becomes something far more serious as it moves from person to person. Certainly, that's even more true when political opposition is involved, but apart from that there's a tendency to assume that if one can remember things that things that were said years ago then what one heard would have had to be more definite and more significant than it really was.
remember that the obama administration was trying to crush hobby lobby because they could, at that instance,
One third hand (?) source. Information denied by primary and secondary source.
So the WaPo runs with it?
The idea that any supreme court judge would allow themselves to leak something?
I don't buy it. Not any of them...
Now we can conclude that the Dobbs leaker was a liberal Justice, and that that information is about to come out. This article lays the groundwork for an “everybody does it” defense.
Is Alito's wife a Musk supporter?
I've heard of Judge Thomas wife in negative news stories before. Never anything about Alito's wife.
The Justice Wives Club. A Netflix series.
This is news worth printing? Hey, New York Times, I have a friend who says Obama eats puppies. How about a front page story?
My interpretation of this story- the Dobbs leaker's identity is about to drop, and it ain't one of the conservative justices either.
There's a big Hobby Lobby next to the new Costco in Athens Georgia.
I went in there and it looks like Martha Stwart meets Dollar Tree.
"Now we can conclude that the Dobbs leaker was a liberal Justice, and that that information is about to come out. This article lays the groundwork for an “everybody does it” defense." Bingo.
And the IRS targeted liberal groups too.
And the Bernie Madoff wanna be gave money to both parties.
So nothing to see here.
Original source denies it, secondary source denies it, third source in the food chain shouts it from the rooftops, WaPoo prints it.
Recall the mainstream refused to report the Hunter laptop scandal because of the lack of corroboration. Frauds head to toe.
Well, if WaPoo says it, it must be true.
Didn’t what’s her name have a direct channel to RBG for years?
Blasey Ford insists Alito bed-bounced her in high school. Up next.
Lock him up!
From a former human rights activist, huh. NOW, a human rites advocate. What forced the transition?
demos-cracy is aborted in darkness h/t WaPoo
Julie Swetnick corroborates the pro-abortionist's story. She gets around.
The letter is also dated early June but wasn't actually mailed until July, because he was that upset and concerned to write a letter but not so much to send it.
The Dobbs decision is a 1-2 compromise to mitigate progress through Constitutional means. The Pro-Choice ethical religious penumbra was the anachronistic residue of confederate interests. Ironically, Schumer has come out to bray the consequences of sexual dysfunction, social contagion, and the wicked solution to the present and forward-looking viability of our society. Next up: progressive prices are the third rail.
First. Schenk is lying.
I have that out of the way.
It is possible someone asked Alito, at social event, asked if the constitution says X, SCOTUS must rule in favor of Hobby Lobby. Alito expands on that thought quoting several cases as precedent.
Did Alito leak leak the Hobby Lobby ruling? Of course the opposite could have happened. With someone voicing a scenario where Hobby Lobby would go the other way, and Alito again cites precedent contradicting the speaker.
The skunk in the room is the media, giving any of this air. And, as pointed out, this has nothing to do with Hobbs. Not analogous.
The idea that any supreme court judge would allow themselves to leak something?
I don't buy it. Not any of them..
I wouldn't have thought so, but the longer it goes without the leaker being found out, the more I think it's someone that must be protected for the sake of the reputation of the Court. A half decent IT person could have figured out fairly quickly who the leaker was. It would certainly not take months and months.
Rob Schenck is a rather interesting fellow. He's the twin brother of Paul Chaim Schenck. Both were born to a Jewish Father and a mother who converted to Judaism. Both attended Jewish religious schools. Both became "born again Christians". Both later on became "Anti-abortion activists". After 2010, both flipped to being being pro-choice and stopped being "Pro-life' activists.
Funny no? In 2019, Reverend Bob wrote a NYT op-ed page saying Roe v. Wade should not be overturned. He's also a Minister on Capital hill SINCE 1994 ministering to Congressmen and their aides. He's part of the U.S. Senate Chaplain's Pastoral Response Team. In 2015, he was the subject of an admiring documenatry where he attacked Evangelicals for suppporting Gun rights.
In his blog, he says that One of my New Year's resolutions is to stop apologizing for comparing Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and the Republican Party to the National Socialists of 1930s Germany.
Now, isn't it INTERESTING that he proudly states that he "Wanted to get closer to Alioto" so had two of FRIENDS pose as Conservative Christians, worm their way into the Judges inner circle, and then spy on him and report back to Rev Bob about what the Justice was saying at Dinner party.
Frankly, this character strikes me as a complete fraud. And I wouldn't trust him. If he said the sun rose in the east this morning, I'd double check it.
The story has long circulated that Justice Frankfurter gave FDR a heads-up about Korematsu, and that the issuance of the decision in late 1944 was delayed to allow FDR’s administration to take action ending the internment camps to try to defuse the political impact. Frankfurter was a frequent guest at the FDR White House, and it’s unlikely the conversation stuck to non-political topics.
This whole stunt is disinformation. Its designed to fool the ignorant and the stupid into thinking Alioto is one who LEAKED THE DOBBS OPINION. The leak, as stated by Althouse, was the DRAFT OPINION. Which was a grave breach of trust.
This is just about Alioto telling people at a private dinner party that Roe might be overturned. From reading books about the SCOTUS, this happens all the time. There is no law or tradition that prevents Justices from chit-chating with other people about current cases, and it would seem that RBG constantly told her friends Nina Totenberg and Linda Greenhouse what was going in the SCOTUS, off the record.
Why in the hell would we assume this happened. Looks to me like a hit job. Why anyone would give this any credibility at all is beyond me. The preponderance of the evidence points to the asshole flat lying about hearsay. I would think every lawyer in the country would be pointing at this guy and laughing.
We need some Russians to salvage an old Alito family laptop.
I went in there and it looks like Martha Stwart meets Dollar Tree.
Dollar Tree? Really?
The one time I went into a HL looking to get something for my wife, I found the stuff to be outrageously over-priced. Never went back.
I wonder if there have been other times when leaks like this one — assuming it happened — have occurred
You're doing more than "assuming."
What makes the most logical sense is that Alito and the guest are telling the truth. There is ZERO basis to say otherwise or even to "assume" they are lying.
What further makes the most sense is that plenty of commentators musing that it was likely that the Court would rule as it did in Hobby Lobby. Any fair person would have done so. Would it be a leap to guess that maybe Alito would write it? Again, not a stretch. Such things happen in practically every major case.
readering: "We need some Russians to salvage an old Alito family laptop."
Wow. Still going with the debunked lies re: russian disinformation = Hunters laptop.
Well, I cant think of anything that better summarizes your entire posting history at Althouse blog.
The best jokes are the ones that trigger Drago.
Justice Felix Frankfurter helped write the lend-lease bill of 1941, while he was on the SCOTUS. He was also getting briefings from the FDR and the Secretary of War on Darlan Deal and other Defense and Foriegn policy matters. That he would tell FDR about the SCOTUS cases doesn't surprise me.
The best jokes are the ones that trigger Drago.
It is hard to tell if you are joking because my research conclusively shows that leftists have exactly zero sense of humor.
Blogger readering said...
We need some Russians to salvage an old Alito family laptop.
readering thinks this is a clever comment on Hunter Biden's laptop. The left doesn't get it most of the time.
readering: "We need some Russians to salvage an old Alito family laptop."
Russians by way of DNC passing through [Clinton's] Water Closet braying WaPoo... NYeT, never.
Readering: "The best jokes are the ones that trigger Drago."
Oh, you are going to go with the [uh, yeah, it was just a joke!] ploy when called out on your stupidity.
I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. That's also Howards modus operandi, as is gadfly's...and Inga's....
Hey, I believe a pattern can be discerned here.
See if you can guess what it is.
The pattern is, I comment about the post and you comment some insult about me. sometimes throwing in your other favorite targets for good measure. I spotted it a long time ago. For some reason, it never gets old with you. Mostly I shrug, dogs on the internet.
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