Chief Justice John Roberts Just Summed Up His Entire Tenure in One Pathetic Dissent

1 min readIn his own meek, shambling way, Chief Justice John Roberts managed to sum up his entire tenure as putative leader of the United States Supreme Court.At question was whether or not the president should be allowed to continue building his stupid ballroom despite the objections of preservationists and other citizens who are not vulgar talking yams.Five members of Roberts' carefully manufactured conservative majority ruled that the preservationists did not have "standing" to bring the action, although, if they don't have standing regarding the vulgarization of the White House, who would? The heirs to James Hoban? The descendants of the slaves who built the place? This, however, was finally too much even for him. Roberts joined the liberal rear-guard, lost the decision 5-4, and in his dissent, he wrote:“That construction is likely unlawful.”Wait. That's it? Did I fall asleep when "unlawful" and "illegal" stopped being synonymous? Was I out of the room when it stopped being the job of judges to root out that which is illegal? And, if the Chief Freaking Justice of the Supreme Court judges something to be illegal, isn't it his job to explain that to the rest of the Court? Imagine Earl Warren saying that separate-but-equal was "likely unlawful" and just leaving it at that.And, not for nothing, Justice Amy Coney Barrett can take a few plays off, too.