Though I'm sure I disagree with Judge Amy Coney Barrett about vasectomies, IUDs, rubbers, tubal ligations, and the divinity virginity of Mary, my opposition to her sitting on the Supreme Court is that Trump has made it clear that he needs nine justices now so that, when the election result is challenged, any 4-4 decision will be nudged to 5-4. He might as well broadcast that he has selected her to be the fifth vote for the election lawsuit that he's planning in the likely event that he loses but not in a landslide visible on Election Night. Under these circumstances, an honorable person would not accept his nomination. The same logic applies to the nomination of a non-Catholic. The nominator has poured poison down the well and now no one should drink.
To divert attention from nightmare scenarios concerning the disintegration of our democracy, I've been reading the decisions of federal court judges. Remember Karen McDougal? She's Playboy's runner-up for "Playmate of the '90s" who, back in the aughts, was boinking our current president. In a deal arranged by Trump's fixer Michael Cohen, she sold for $150,000 the rights to her story about the affair to National Enquirer, which never published it—a "catch-and-kill" scheme that amounted to a hush payment to McDougal. After this all came to light, Carlson claimed on his primetime Fox News show that McDougal had extorted from Trump the money she received. She then sued Fox News for defamation. The judge this week ruled in favor of Fox and, in her decision, cited an argument that had been advanced at trial by the defense:
I'll translate from the legalese: it's impossible for Tucker Carlson to defame anyone, because all reasonable people understand that he's a gasbag and a liar whose statements can't be trusted. This was the argument of lawyers for Fox! And it worked!