Is it just me, or is there something rather inapt in the UPI headline “Big 5 stealing liberal justices’ lunch money”? The article is simply discussing the recent, often 5-4, conservative Supreme Court rulings.
It seems to me there are some substantive weaknesses in the article. It doesn’t mention the recent high-profile constitutional cases in which four of the conservatives lost to the liberals plus Justice Kennedy, or the fact that even two liberals (Justices Stevens and Ginsburg) joined the conservatives in one of the three 1995-2000 cases holding that Congress exceeded its enumerated powers (City of Boerne v. Flores, which held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act exceeded federal power as applied to the states). It also speaks of “the steady trimming of commerce clause power” under the conservatives’ decisions in two of the 1995-2000 cases (noting also the “only break” in that, the medical marijuana decision), which strikes me as rather exaggerating what is mostly a symbolic and minor movement, though of course others may well disagree with me on that. But the headline is what most struck me.
Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer.