How to Influence the Supreme Court: Call Luca Brasi

Remember when Donald Trump was President and liberals had their panties in a knot because he was "flouting norms"?

When I was a litigator in federal court, which I was for most of my career, the "norm" for influencing the court was well-defined. Write your brief and argue your case. Then go home and wait for the decision. This was not real controversial.

Now occasionally there were other means to influence the court. You could write an op-ed in a paper with wide circulation. Or you could put together a friend-of-the-court (or "amicus'") brief for a case in which you were not a party but in which you had a particular interest or expertise.

Fair enough.

Almost no one thought that publishing the home addresses of judges and their children was fair game. Fewer still thought that using that information to surround their homes with menacing protesters was within bounds. And no one I knew thought that mounting an assassination attempt was the way to go.

This just shows how out of touch I am -- either that or how unimaginative when The Liberal Cause I Believe In Is More Important Than Anything Else a/k/a You Can Stuff Your Norms.

Last night I happened to come across this story from Fox News. Its opening is (emphasis added);

Pro-choice group Ruth Sent Us hinted at targeting protests at Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett after the attempted attack on Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Ruth Sent Us posted a call for demonstrations at Barrett's home and church in response to speculation that she will concur with a previously leaked draft court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade....

"If you’re in the DC metro area, join us. Our protests at Barrett’s home moved the needle to this coverage," the group said on Twitter.

Ruth Sent Us specifically noted the Barrett family's daily schedule and the school her children attend.

But at least we know that schools couldn’t be the site of any, as they say, "gun violence” a’ la the Kavanaugh episode. I mean, we do know that..............right?

They wrote, "Falls Church is a People of Praise stronghold. She sends her seven kids to a People of Praise school that she sat on the Board of Directors for. She attends church daily."

No wonder the Left thinks Justice Barrett deserves to “pay the price” (as Chuck Schumer might say). What a rube! Not a Manhattan sophisticate like Senator Schumer. And she attends some weirdo church named "People of Praise." Do these people even bathe?

The tweet was posted on the morning of June 8 – after the early morning arrest of Nicholas John Roske but before [his being taken into custody for the attempted murder of Justice Kavanaugh] was first reported.

Oh, well, yes — there was that.

Roske of Simi Valley, California, was carrying a gun, ammunition, a knife, pepper spray, a screwdriver, zip ties and other gear when he was arrested by Montgomery County Police Department officers Wednesday morning near Kavanaugh’s Maryland home, according to a criminal complaint.

Joe Biden's White House had previously gushingly endorsed a friendly visit to the homes of justices (as long as there was — it scrambled to add in a slightly embarrassed afterthought — no violence) (The known fact that mobs have an inherent tendency to be the petri dish of violence didn't make it into the White House's statement).

Of course the account of the protesters at Justice Barrett's home is a minor story compared to previous blockbuster news of the assassination attempt against Kavanaugh — whose home had also been mobbed.

Or — was it really a blockbuster? That’s a better question than you might think.

Maybe we wouldn't want to go overboard with the Kavanaugh story. Instead, we might do better, as the Left ceaselessly tells us when it wants us to look the other way, to “take a deep breath” — by, for example, following the New York Times in putting the assassination story on Page 20.

That's not a typo. The New York Times carried the story about the attempted murder of a sitting Supreme Court Justice on Page 20. (Whether Donald Trump made 33 or 34 calls on January 6 of last year was, I think, on Page 1, although I'm not sure of that and readers should check me).

And just for comparison: The attempted assassination was reported the next day as the 10th story at CNN, 7th at NBC, 2nd at CBS, 17th at ABC (behind stories about Hillary Swank’s finding a dog and turtles going to the ocean), 12th at NPR (behind a story on a beef/buffalo hybrid), and 13th at the on-line @nytimes, behind a story on the South Dakota election .

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What the Left actually thinks of the norms it was so breathless about only such a short time ago is now out there for all to see -- just don’t look for it in the mainstream press.