Let me start with a completely uncontroversial stipulation: Stolen power is illegitimate power.

Just as a stolen car does not belong to the thief, and stolen merchandise is not the rightful property of the shoplifter, stolen political power does not belong to the thieves who connived and conspired to steal it.

And today’s Supreme Court had been delegitimized by a critical mass of stolen seats on the bench. Let’s run down the list:

• Mitch McConnell stole a Supreme Court vacancy from President Obama by refusing to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Antonin Scalia. Scalia passed away on February 13, 2016. McConnell’s pretense was that it was wrong to fill a vacancy so close to an election. (February is not at all close to an election.) That’s Stolen Seat #1.
• Mitch McConnell stole another Supreme Court seat from the winner of the 2020 election by ramming through the appointment and filling of the vacancy left by the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18, 2020 – less than two months before the 2020 election – in utter disregard for his own previously made-up “rule” against filling a vacancy “so close to the election.” McConnell invented this “rule” to justify refusing to fill the vacancy that rightfully belonged to President Obama. By McConnell’s own made-up rule, the vacancy created by the passing of Ginsburg rightfully belonged to the next president. That’s Stolen Seat #2.
• Brett Kavanaugh lied in his confirmation hearing to get on the Supreme Court, claiming that Roe v. Wade was “settled law.” That’s Stolen Seat #3, obtained by defrauding the confirmation hearings.
• Samuel Alito lied in his confirmation hearing to get on the Supreme Court when he said that he doesn’t have an agenda and doesn’t seek preferred outcomes in any case. In fact, he clearly has both an agenda and seeks preferred outcomes. Alito was also a member of the Federalist Society when he was nominated by President George W. Bush. Membership in the Federalist Society is an agenda by definition, since a political agenda is the very reason for the organization’s existence. That’s Stolen Seat #4, obtained by defrauding the confirmation hearings.
• Also a factor: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have proven their total unfitness to remain on the bench by exhibiting overt, intense partisanship. Alito flies an American flag in a manner that demonstrates extreme radicalization, and Clarence Thomas disqualifies himself by his close ties to the January 6th insurrection and extensive corruption that has recently come out into the open.

The four stolen seats are enough to invalidate nearly every split decision that the Supreme Court has handed down, and the effective self-disqualification of Alito and Thomas leave the Supreme Court with just four legitimate Supreme Court justices.

In other words, five of the nine judges – a majority – are illegitimate and possess their power illegitimately.

Therefore, there exist solid moral justification for disregarding every ruling by this Supreme Court, the outcome of which would have been different had the votes by the stolen seats been excluded from consideration.

And, by the same token, there exists solid moral justification for restoring legitimacy to the Court by any means, whether it’s adding seats, impeaching judges, or anything else.