Courts Do The Darndest Things

How Original?

April 2, 2026

The Supreme Trump Court is poised to decide on the constitutionality of the Fourteenth Amendment, which coincidentally is in the Constitution. So, that’s that. Right? They also have in their democracy-strangling hands the issue of mail-in voting.

Allegedly brilliant, objectively hypocritical and dishonest, and currently dead Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia spent his years on the high court hiding behind his pathetically transparent veil of what he called “originalism”. This was intended to make anyone who disagreed with Scalia cower. This self-important gasbag insisted that he knew what every word in the Constitution penned by the founders meant – then and now. This, despite the fact that 1) the founders routinely disagreed with each other as they worked toward countless compromises – something unheard of today – and, 2) not infrequently many of them disagreed with themselves over time.

Funny thing though, to Scalia and his fellow travelers there is no such thing as now when it comes to the Constitution. There is only then – when it was framed – and the words were immutable for all time…except when these “originalists” wanted to drastically change what the founders most likely meant in order to suit their own, almost always increasingly anti-democratic purposes. Despite the founders’ understanding that times might change and then so too might the Constitution. And times have indeed changed, as has the Constitution. Long before Antonin Scalia did not just become part of another spot on the wet side of the bed.

Even if Scalia had some claim to the time machine that does not exist, there have been amendments over the years, not the least of which abolished a little thing allowed and excused (at least) in the original Constitution called slavery. And then another slight ‘oversight’ – allowing women to vote, which took over half a century longer to rectify than the abolition of slavery.

Let us, for the sake of argument (and reality) agree that this originalism bullshit is bullshit.

For better or worse – actually, for much worse – there’s a new bunch of originalists in town. However, these treacherous cretins have added a new twist. An amendment to originalism if you will. This is neo-originalism. I know what you’re thinking: neo-originalism as a concept makes no fucking sense whatsoever and smells like even shittier, more Orwellian bullshit than the original originalist bullshit.

You my friend have an excellent sense of smell.

Full Speed Ahead Into The Past

These hyper-partisan, activist neo-originalists and their ilk have found it necessary to throw the law, the Constitution and this nation into full reverse while looking straight ahead, unconcerned with the possibility, in fact the great likelihood that some unseen, un-looked-for and extremely volatile obstruction sits in wait for the inevitable impact. Either that, or the cliff overlooking the abyss.

For most of this nation’s history, changes to the Constitution, and laws in general were heavily weighted toward expanding rights and freedoms. Kiss that shit good-bye.

As we see with the Court’s latest in an ever-increasing poisonous smorgasbord of anti-democratic decisions to neo-originalize the Fourteenth Amendment’s birthright citizenship, and to further degrade voting rights, these classless clowns know no bounds. There is also a worryingly non-zero chance that what is now a lengthy chain of horrific decisions is aiming straight for the two-term limitation on the presidency codified in the Twenty-second Amendment. Watch your back democracy.

Just a spoonful of mendacity (and a rogue, criminal Supreme Court) forces the medicine down. That and Scalia’s long-time-mime sidekick Clarence “Uncle” Thomas and his partner in crime – literally – Sammy “The Shitman” Alito.

For the moment, most Court watchers seem convinced that there will be a lopsided decision to not fuck with the Fourteenth Amendment, even after Donald Jeffrey Epstein Trump showed up to glare at the justices and attempt to intimidate them into further fucking the Constitution into the ground, while his hand-picked attorney argued the case as stupidly as humanly possible. After wheezing a statement made by filthy pig Alito that compared to the 19^th century, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, “we’re in a new world now”, Chief racist…I mean, Justice John Roberts replied, “Well, it’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” To which I must reply, “Since when?” and “Okay, that’s one for our side. It’s about fucking time.”

With great originality and originalism, of course.

I. Mangrey reporting. Now with more angst.