Like Most of Us, Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg Can Dislike Trump and Work at the Same Time

In another lifetime, I was a college professor. And over the course of that career, I taught thousands of students, most of whom I no longer remember, some of whom I remember for being particularly insightful or talented or funny, and a very few I remember for being absolute shitheads. Now, it just so happens that when people are lazy know-it-alls who treat their fellow students and professors like noxious refuse, they are also generally bad students who plagiarize and don’t complete assignments. Thus, it is very easy to give them an F with a full paper trail as evidence against them when they inevitably run to the department head to blame their grade on the fact that their behavior has caused a professor to dislike them. However, a few times, students who were lazy, rude, and entitled were also gifted writers and insightful readers. So despite the fact that to this day I would not acknowledge those students in public with anything more than a very specific hand gesture, they got the high marks they earned in my class because I was a professional and as such could separate my personal feelings from the requirements of my job.

And though (or perhaps because) they have most likely had to deal with unimaginable laziness, disrespect, and outright hostility from many men over the course of their own careers, I have no doubt that Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are fully able to disentangle their personal distaste for President Donald Trump from their knowledge of the law. But like a petulant 19-year-old clutching a copy of his plagiarized research paper, Trump believes that the reactions caused by his own behavior are reason enough two respected professionals to recuse themselves from a Supreme Court case regarding his subpoenaed tax, bank and financial records.

The Supreme Court will hear the case on March 31. Trump’s objections to Ginsberg stem from 2016 comments calling Trump a “faker” with “an ego,” comments she later apologized for despite their veracity. Last Friday, Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion regarding the administration’s wealth test for immigrants. Trump pouted to reporters that “She’s trying to shame people with perhaps a different view into voting her way, and that’s so inappropriate,” seemingly unaware of the fact he had just described the entire purpose of a dissenting opinion.

When reporters asked what, specifically, in Sotomeyer’s statement was grounds for recusal, he responded “You know what the statement is,” which, to a former professor, sounds an awful lot like he didn’t read the assignment. [Politico]

---

Mitch McConnell is once again using abortion restrictions as a quick way to drum up some headlines and get voters all riled up by pushing out some abortion bills for a Tuesday vote, even though neither bill has the 60-vote supermajority needed to move forward:

“But by putting them on the floor again, Mr. McConnell hopes to energize the social conservatives who helped elect Mr. Trump and whose enthusiasm will be needed to help Republicans hold on to the Senate this year, while forcing vulnerable Democrats to take uncomfortable votes on bills that frame abortion as infanticide.”

The “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act” would ban all abortion after 20 weeks, probably kill people, and require rape survivors to undergo counseling before qualifying for abortions after the cutoff date. The “Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act” would require doctors to make efforts to save infants born after attempted abortions or face jail time, something that they are already required by law to do. The CDC recently released a report stating that abortions after 20 weeks account for 1.2 percent of all abortions, and patients opting into abortions during labor is pretty much unheard of. But, of course, if facts mattered to supporters of bills like these there wouldn’t be bills like these. [New York Times]

I now feel positively brimming with sick, so let’s get to the barfing.

• Joe Biden did not get arrested attempting to visit Nelson Mandela. Who’s going to be the one to break it to him? Perhaps we’ll find out in tonight’s debate. [Washington Post]
• A man famous for turning human beings experiencing homelessness into wi-fi hotspots naturally now works for Michael Bloomberg, a man infamous for turning a great many woman employees into plaintiffs. [Buzzfeed]
• Speaking of Bloomie, in addition to that rumored 30-page comedy booklet containing the greatest hits of his sexist, racist, and homophobic one-liners, he also reportedly does the party circuit with more current material about the opioid epidemic. [Daily News]
• MSNBC is pivoting its Bernie narrative. [Vanity Fair]
• And finally, Bernie wants more voters, as one generally does in a political campaign. [New York Times]