smittyoneeach's Journal: I Guess SCOTUS Decisions Are Constitutional Amendments?

Via Legal Insurrection, it appears that, per the Biden Administration's illustrious peat muppetPress Secretary, SCOTUS decisions are tantamount to Constitutional Amendments:

âoeThis is really, really important and I know the American people are really tracking this, as they should be. Dobbs decision, that was something that was decided on a year ago. Really took away the freedoms from women. I think about abortion, I think about reproductive rights. And that was unprecedented. Now you fast-forward to what we saw last week, affirmative action. Again, taking away important constitutional rights that have been in place for a long time,â Jean-Pierre said.

One is tempted to indulge in a little bit of fremdschaemen, when one feels embarrassment on behalf of someone too thick to realize that they should be ashamed.

But, in defense of Karine Jean-Pierre, we don't declare war or budget along Constitutionally coherent lines either. So possibly she makes a good point in passing: we need to either get this ship back on course, or just scuttle the whole mess.

You dropped an important word there

[damn_registrars]

From the line you quoted:

SCOTUS decisions are tantamount to Constitutional Amendments

The word tantamount is key here. Let's dig in to it. Merriam-Webster defines tantamount: [merriam-webster.com]

equivalent in value, significance, or effect

In other words, not the exact same, but equal. It's an important distinction. If I say the importance of football in the American psyche is tantamount to the importance of basketball in the American psyche I'm not saying they are identical, I'm saying they are equivalent. I am acknowledging the two are different but they have an important equivalence to them. I could say hummingbirds a

Re:

[smittyoneeach]

You're putting too fine a point on it. Saying "I guess..." in the title is tantamount to using tantamount.