Next, Rightwingers on the Court Want to Take Your First Amendment Rights

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9

In that famous verse, Solomon could have been writing about the Republicans who control today’s Supreme Court. Having helped blow up the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch now want to dial the First Amendment back to 1798.

And, given that it’s the 4th of July and the day we celebrate actions by our Founding generation, its the perfect time to examine the behavior of the rightwingers on today’s Supreme Court in the light of our Founder’s reactions to a similar effort when they were still alive. You’ll find it both enlightening and shocking.

Last week the Court passed — for the moment — on a case from a hate group disputing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of them as a hate group, wanting instead to sue the Center into bankruptcy by claiming the hate designation was a form of libel.

Thomas dissented, whining that the media and commentators “cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.”

Lest you think it’s meaningless that Clarence Thomas is saying there’s no right of free speech against rich and powerful people in the First Amendment, remember that Thomas has, in previous dissents, argued that there’s no right to abortion, no right to vote for president, and no…