An anti-Muslim ad campaign is about to start a new run in the New York City subway, in spite of protests from Metropolitan Transit Authority officials. The ads, which also ran in San Francisco last month, have garnered much criticism from community activists.
The MTA refused to approve the ad campaign earlier this year, but, citing the First Amendment, a federal court ruled that the MTA must run the ads. Now, in the wake of tensions over mocking depictions of the Prophet Mohammad, 10 more NYC subway cars will soon have to display the ad posters, which imply that Muslims are “uncivilized” and call upon commuters to “Support Israel…Defeat Jihad.”
The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), founded by Pamela Geller of the group Stop Islamization of America, created the ads. (Geller is featured prominently in CAP’s recent report on the Islamophobia network in the United States.) AFDI celebrates their new campaign on its website, calling MTA “craven quislings.”
AFDI bought ad-space in Washington, DC to run the same campaign, but the the DC metro transit authority delayed running the ads ads “out of a concern for public safety, given current world events.” In New York, the MTA is looking at changes to their advertisement policy to allow for similar protections. For now, spokesman Aaron Donovan says “our hands are tied.” The ads are due to appear next week.
For decades, attacks on “activist judges” were part of the conservative catechism. As President George W. Bush told the conservative Federalist Society, “such judicial lawlessness is a threat to our democracy, and it needs to stop.” Last month, however, President Obama offered a similar warning against judicial activism after it appeared likely that the Supreme Court would thumb its nose at the text of the Constitution and nearly 200 years of precedent to strike down health reform — and conservatives across the country suddenly found themselves in desperate need of a fainting couch. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) called Obama “stupid” for echoing decades of conservative rhetoric against activist judging. A Republican judge on the Fifth Circuit issued a partisan order trying to force the Justice Department to criticize President Obama. Even the president of the American Bar Association, who has historically not dragged his organization into partisan fights despite his own history as a major Republican donor, could not resist the urge to throw mud at President Obama.
On Fox News this morning, Florida Attorney General and Affordable Care Act nemesis Pam Bondi (R) got into the game, attacking the president for daring to criticize the Supreme Court and then offering a surprising promise of her own:
I mean, they’re our highest Court in the land. And I’m going to respect their decision. I’m never going to criticize the United States Supreme Court, no matter what happens. And, um, we argued our case, and if you heard any of the arguments — I’m sure you did — um, you know, the justices asked some very compelling questions.
Watch it:
Of course, there’s a small problem with Bondi’s pledge that she would never, ever lower herself to speak ill of the nine justices:
So Bondi’s hypocrisy is pretty glaring here, but her statement is also disturbing on a much more important front. There’s something deeply authoritarian about her suggestion that no one should ever criticize nine of the most powerful politicians in the country. The justices of the Supreme Court are not oracles and they are not gods. They are just as fallible as any other human being entrusted with power, and their decisions deserve to be discussed and evaluated just like any other government action should be subject to criticism in a free society.
Indeed, if anything, our present justices are far more fallible than most Americans. Their decision in Citizens United gave billionaires and wealty corporations a license to buy and sell democracy, and there are also more Americans who believe in “spells or witchcraft” than agree with Citizens United‘s reasoning. The Court’s forced arbitration decisions leave countless American workers and consumers powerless against corporations who break the law. And their disregard for workers such as Lilly Ledbetter is a direct blow to America’s promise of equal pay for equal work. Americans deserve the opportunity to criticize these erroneous decisions and to advocate for better judges and justices who will overrule them if given the chance.
Likewise, while Bondi is wrong about what the Constitution has to say about health reform, she has every right to criticize the nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent establishing that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Health reform’s opponents love to rail about their abiding love for freedom, but one of the first freedoms the framers added into our Constitution is the freedom to criticize our government.
