a) "Um, no", but times a thousand! b) Quibbling? Have you ever practiced law or been involved in it? If not, prepare yourself; you are in for a frustrating e

a) "Um, no", but times a thousand! b) Quibbling? Have you ever practiced law or been involved in it? If not, prepare yourself; you are in for a frustrating experience. What you call quibbling is what you pay several thousand dollars an hour for. That is the essential function of the legal profession. To quibble. However, it is not "quibbling" to state that SCOTUS has no power of judicial review granted in the US Constitution. It is an assumed power; an assumption which could just as easily be undone by another accident of history. Therefore, they are hardly best described as the "ultimate" arbiter. That power remains one of the consent of the governed. Clear? The examples you state are of the executive branch exercising (illegally) State power for political purposes. It is not the marshals of the SCOTUS directing the US Army or some nonsense. As for your "lack of memory" regarding the legislative and executive ignoring the dictates of SCOTUS you need look no further back in history than the same civil rights era you point to. Most of the opinions regarding civil rights emanating from the Warren court were flatly ignored for years. It was the force of public political will and some may argue an ascendant media that changed public policy. See above? To what? I hate to tell you this, but an opinion of SCOTUS is not a magic incantation. According to your view I suppose if SCOTUS decided some absurd conclusion in clear contradiction of the Constitution it would simply be law? Consider a more realistic scenario. For example if a future Court decides that the absurd Roberts opinion in the "Obamacare" decision and its legal gymnastics regarding the commerce clause is reversible. Do you think the executive and legislative will refund all the taxes and penalties they will have collected in the interim? If we follow your line of reasoning, a future SCOTUS makes the law void as of the date it was enacted, magically as if it never existed. This may be what they teach in high school civics classes (do they still teach those?) but it is not how power ebbs. The judiciary has no real power other than that of apparent authority. Why do you think they have resisted for so long cameras in the courtroom? Why do they engage in absurd theater of black robes (thankfully no wigs)? Because once people see how the sausage is made that apparent authority evaporates and they are just another arbitrary institution. SCOTUS and most, but definitely not all, supreme courts throughout history thankfully have been nothing more than theater.