SAY WHAT? - In a stunning escalation of the barbarism pervading our national discourse, Honorable (sic) Justice 'Beer Boy' Brett Kavanaugh was "unduly harassed" at a swanky D.C. steakhouse last week by some "unruly protestors" who had the audacity to claim they have the freedom to decide what to do with their own bodies; thus did they ruthlessly "trample" the lying, deeply illegitimate justice's "freedom (to) eat dinner," which according to the court's deranged legal luminaries is almost equivalent to the freedom not to have to bear your rapist's baby or otherwise submit to forced child-bearing, but maybe not quite. The appalling act of incivility by mouthy rabble took place at the baroque, Good-Fellas-like Morton's Steakhouse - "We answer the question: What if Outback was expensive as fuck?" - which boasts it caters to "DC's "power elite" and "decision-makers" even if they're really, really terrible decisions. And they have a dress code to prove it. Its pale customers must wear "business attire or smart casual" - no hoodies, ball caps, baggy pants - to enjoy the $25 Lump Crab Cake and $35 Margarita Millonaria before tucking into their $129 Tomahawk Rib-Eye and $12.50 loaded (1430 calories) baked potato and finishing off with a $16 espresso and $14 let-them-eat-Legendary-Hot-Chocolate Cake.
After ShutDownDC got a tip that Frat Boy was there, a handful of pro-choice advocates ominously gathered outside the restaurant; the Justice "did not hear or see the protesters and ate a full meal," but reportedly, tragically snuck out a back door before getting his just dessert. While some noted he at least he got to see what a back alley looks like, the folks at Morton's were outraged by the unseemly assault the "honorable" judge endured. "Politics (should) not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner," they huffed. "Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and void of decency.” Yes, they said "decency" while defending the privacy rights of a sniveling, arrogant, unelected Christian hack and sexual predator who just claimed the power to force many thousands of poor women and girls as young as 10 to either give birth, travel hundreds of miles not to, or die of an ectopic pregnancy if they live in the wrong state. Of course, many upright patriots agreed with them. "I feel terribly for Justice Kavanaugh," wrote one. "He tried to make a choice, namely where his body should be and what should be inside it. Then a small group of people unrelated to him showed up and made it impossible for him to make that choice....Hey, wait a minute..."
Just kidding. In fact, everyone except Fox idiot Peter Doocy - "What about his privacy?" - was some pissed that fans of a court who ruled anti-choice zealots have the "right" to harass patients outside women's health clinics but schoolchildren lack the "right" not to be slaughtered by AR-15's are whining about their "rights" to eat dinner in peace. It didn't help that, per Clarence Thomas' "fanciful jurisprudence," it turns out neither Morton's nor the right to eat over-priced dinner topped off with meh tiramisu is in the Constitution; it's not even in England's medieval "sumptuary laws." Under bonkers originalist doctrine, it is thus not "protected from abridgement of any kind, even by the states," though of course white men will always find a way, because "there is no right (that) cannot vanish like a ghostly mist the second someone remembers there might be a medieval text somewhere out there that disagrees." Hence, the furious hashtags - #FuckMortonsSteakhouse - and righteous rants: "My kid needs a bulletproof backpack and can be selected by any rapist for forced motherhood. Kavanaugh can kiss my ass...Sorry, an anti-witch judge from 400 years ago told me I should shout at demons while they're eating...Thoughts and prayers for his uneaten creme brule...He should have thought about his right to privacy before he took away half the population's, also mine."
Beyond the farcical claim that Justice Drunken Frat Boy's "right to dine shall not be infringed" lies the terrifying fact there is little if any recourse to halt the brazen taking-away-of-rights now emblematic of a right-wing judicial coup masquerading as the highest court in the land. After the unseemly melee at Morton's, activists responded by flooding the chain with reservations from imaginary diners: Arnold Benedict, Abortion Rights, Ben Dover, Jane Doe, Roe Wade, Fuck You. And granted, Kavanaugh - a lyinghack nominated by a lying hack of a president who lost the popular vote, like four of five right-wing justices, and was confirmed by a Senate (thanks Susan Collins) representing a white minority - is one of the worst. Still, do those in power who make the rules we all live by ever face consequences for poor decisions in public office? Where and how do we exercise our rights "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"? You can't freely protest in public, on sidewalks at justices' homes, outside the Supreme Court. Nor, writes Aaron Rupar, can you vote out a "nine-person SuperCongress" that's shown it is not accountable to truth, expertise, reason or the public. "Dobbs (Roe v Wade) is a proclamation of absolute judicial dictatorship," he writes. "The judges may choose not to take certain rights away quite yet. But if rights exist solely at the whim of five robed tyrants, then no one really has any rights at all. We don’t live in a democracy; we live in a judgeocracy." By all means and at the very least, then, bring on the duly harassing.
(Abby Zimet has written CD's Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: [email protected])
