I’m an avid TPM reader and member. One of the features they’ve added in recent years is the Morning Memo. It’s usually compiled and written by TPM executive editor David Kurtz.

Kurtz is a fellow member of the lapsed lawyer club, so I take his opinions on legal issues seriously. He also has Louisiana roots: He graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1993. We have a mutual friend in the late Greg Peters of Suspect Device fame who coined a phrase I’ve used frequently, “Lazy quoting of better writers.”

As you’re well aware, one of my hobby horses is reminding people that current members of the GOP are radicals and reactionaries, not conservatives, which is a positive word to most Americans.

Repeat after me: Don’t Call Them Conservatives.

I’m pleased that the estimable Mr. Kurtz has mounted the same hobby horse in regard to the radical SCOTUS opinion on the Clean Waters Act:

I’ve been working on paring back the conservative v. liberal construct in describing the Supreme Court. “Conservative jurisprudence,” as existed as recently as 20 years ago, arguably had an internal logic and consistency to it. It could be applied – though it wasn’t always, of course – in a consistent and even-handed way that defied particular outcomes. There was a discipline to it, at least in theory. It possessed some intellectual rigor that was worth grappling with even if you were a progressive. There is very little that remains “conservative” about the current Supreme Court majority or what we think of as the Federalist Society’s conservative legal movement. It’s right-wing radicalism that is more outcome-based than they ever accused liberals of being.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. John Marshall Harlan the younger, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Lewis Powell were conservatives. Sam the Sham Alito is a right-wing radical. His opinion in this case was too extreme even for Justice Bro DBA Brett Kavanaugh.

Repeat after me: Don’t Call Them Conservatives.

The other legal docket quote comes from the judge who sentenced Elmer Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in jail for seditious conspiracy.

After the Oath Keeper leader postured and preened for the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian, Judge Amit Mehta admonished the convicted felon thusly:

I dare say Mr. Rhodes, and I have never said this to anyone I have sentenced: You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, the republic and the very fabric of democracy.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Repeat after me: Don’t Call Them Political Prisoners.

Finally, there was some post-sentencing dick waving about the death penalty for seditionists. First, it’s not on the judicial sentencing menu. Second, I am opposed to the death penalty in all cases. I don’t change my position based on how much I detest the defendant. That’s how Trumpers think, which is another reason why they are not conservatives.

The last word goes to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with a searing anti-death penalty anthem: