Supreme Court

The chief justice likes to say his court isn’t partisan; that’s because people believing that helps him be partisan. But it’s actually worse. The Roberts Five have become virtual delivery boys for big Republican donor interests, almost daring us to point out the obvious pattern. Sheldon Whitehouse (7/1/2019)

We had to endure the travesty of Bush versus Gore, one of the most egregious tramplings of democratic practice imaginable, then watch the sickening product of that judicial rape: the swaggering wars based on lies, the torture, the doubling of the national debt, the environmental depredations, the economic melt-down, and the raison-d’etre for it all: the radical shifting of wealth from the 300 million of us to the one-tenth of one percent who own everything in sight. David Michael Green

...the Supreme Court became such a threat to American democracy thanks to a system of government that allowed a political party that most Americans do not support to stack the Court with loyal Conservatives.
The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court is Reshaping America by Ian Millhiser

"John Marshall was wrong: it is emphatically the province and duty of the American people, not of the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court, to say what the Constitution is. A national reappraisal of the all-powerful court chosen by judicial roulette is crucial if American democracy is to meet the rising challenges of the twenty-first century."
(From the last page of James McGregor Burns' Packing the Court.)

The Supreme Court Just Erased Part of the Constitution (3/4/2024)

The Supreme Court’s Assault on Government Could Make the Far-Right’s Dreams Come True (2/15/2024)

Supreme Court put on notice by legal expert that slow-walking Trump cases hurts Americans (1/2/2024)

‘Plain historical falsehoods’: How amicus briefs bolstered Supreme Court conservatives (12/4/2023)

What Ginni Thomas and Leonard Leo wrought: How a justice’s wife and a key activist started a movement (9/10/2023)

Hard Right Billionaires are Spending Lavishly to Reshape State and Federal Courts (10/26/2023)

‘Get the right cases to the supreme court’: inside Charles Koch’s network (10/26/2023)

Rightwing activist helps fund ‘predatory payday lenders’ in supreme court case (10/2/2023)

Biden worries ‘extreme’ supreme court can’t be relied on to uphold rule of law (10/1/2023)

GOP governors defy Supreme Court, federal government (7/25/2023)

‘Democracy is at risk’: inside the fight for supreme court reform (7/9/2023)

The common denominator across multiple opinions in the last two years is that they concentrate power in one place: the Supreme Court. The Imperial Supreme Court - The Harvard Law Review

the way the Supreme Court got rid of campaign finance reform and allowed open, unlimited secret buying of elections is the height of corruption. Top Ten Signs the US is the most Corrupt nation in the World Juan Cole 02/22/2018

It is difficult to overstate the hostility of the Roberts court to organized labor and the rights of American workers. Jamelle Bouie in the NYT (6/6/2023)

Judges . . . have become the most consequential policymakers in the nation. They have gutted America’s campaign finance law and dismantled much of the Voting Rights Act. They have allowed states to deny health coverage to millions of Americans. They’ve held that religion can be wielded as a sword to cut away the rights of others. They’ve drastically watered down the federal ban on sexual harassment. And that barely scratches the surface. How Trump’s judges will change America (12/9/2019)

Clarence Thomas

Yet while the party appears to have no legislative agenda, it’s a mistake to conclude that it has no policy agenda. Because Republicans do: They have an extraordinarily ambitious agenda to roll back voting rights, to strip the government of much of its power to regulate, to give broad legal immunity to religious conservatives and to immunize many businesses from a wide range of laws. It’s just that the Republican Party doesn’t plan to pass its agenda through either one of the elected branches. Its agenda lives in the judiciary — and especially in the Supreme Court. Republicans Have an Ambitious Agenda for the Supreme Court (3/30/2021)

The Supreme Court is paving the way toward an oligarchic form of society in which a handful of billionaires like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson will control our political process. Senator Bernie Sanders

The king of dark money effectively controls the US supreme court now (6/30/2023)

US supreme court pursuing rightwing agenda via 'shadow docket', book says (5/15/2023)

Corruption: Supreme Court Justices party at $25,000-a-head Soirees with Corporations that have cases before the Court (2/1/2023)

An ‘Imperial Supreme Court’ Asserts Its Power, Alarming Scholars (12/19/2022)

Leonard Leo’s mysterious $200 million dark money war chest (12/7/2022) By Robert Maguire

Moore v. Harper, Explained

The Supreme Court Isn’t Listening, and It’s No Secret Why (10/1/2022) NYT

US courts must stop shielding government surveillance programs from accountability Patrick Toomey and Alex Abdo (9/26/2022) Guardian

How the Supreme Court Set Up the Criminal Takeover of America (9/23/2022)

The Supreme Court’s EPA decision heralds a broad assault on democracy (7/1/2022)

Supreme Court to consider radical independent legislature theory (7/1/2022)

The Supreme Court just took away an EPA tool to fight climate change — what happens next? (6/30/2022)

Government

Constitution

Democracy

Elections

Presidency

Wealth Inequality

Citizens United

Law

Corporations

Labor

Race

Guns

Religion

Privacy

Abortion

International Law

Secrecy

Corruption

FISA Court

National Security State

Torture

Right

Conservatives

Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Trump

Bush v Gore

Empire

Fascism

Constitutional Convention

Fix the Court: term limit the justices.

Leonard Leo

Opus Dei’s Influence on the U.S. Judiciary

Report of the Commission on the Supreme Court

SCOTUSblog

HearTheNine

ActionSources.org

Balkinization

Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court of the United States

Cameras Not Allowed in SCOTUS

If you want to topple a democracy, you take over the courts. Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by almost 3m votes, and yet has appointed one-third of supreme court, three youthful far-right judges who will be spending decades there. The Roberts court has for more than a decade consistently enabled an attack on democracy, by hollowing out the Voting Rights Act over time, unleashing unlimited corporate money into elections, and allowing clearly partisan gerrymanders of elections. There is every reason to believe that the court will allow even the semblance of democracy to crumble, as long as laws are passed by gerrymandered Republican statehouses that make anti-democratic practices, including stealing elections, legal. Jason Stanley in the Guardian. (12/22/2021)

The Supreme Court [SCOTUS] has set a Poor National Direction

Government is as good as the decisions it makes.

Decision making is best done when there is reliable information, ethics, expertise, transparency and public participation. Religion is not a basis for good decisions, and the current SCOTUS majority are Catholics.

But the US has a priesthood of unaccountable, partisan justices staring at a centuries old document. SCOTUS has made a number of bad, anti-democratic decisions on guns, abortion, voting rights, torture, corruption, labor, regulatory agencies,the environment, that threaten democracy, women and the republic itself. Like Wiemar, the US is headed toward a collapse of democracy, authoritarian government, theocracy, and destruction.

The Constitution did not give the Supreme Court final say over the law, but the Court took it on itself, and it has turned out to be a sad mistake. There is nothing in the Constitution about the number of 9 justices. The republicans minority got to pick most justices, so with a right wing Court, things will likely get much worse: elections that don't matter, inoperable checks and balances, human rights abuse, mass surveillance, authoritarian government that is unwilling and unable to address even existential challenges like climate.

SCOTUS has no code of ethics, and we now know that is a problem. It does not allow cameras in the Court and much of its deliberations are secret. Immoral behavior of government is covered up by the FISA Court.

Men in robes are not qualified to judge medical issues. Every medical society opposed overturning ROE. It breaks the wall between church and state, looks like another instance of religion vs science. Worse, SCOTUS has been making bad law for a long time, it has been revealed that SCOTUS is corrupt, assaults democracy and the legitimacy of government.

There are many areas in which the Supreme Court should not make decisions. The catastrophic Bush v Gore decision showed that the Court should be forbidden from interrupting vote counting or deciding elections. Overturning Roe is causing chaos. The Radical Justices are weakening the administrative State, so far undermining the EPA's ability to regulate for clean water or clean air. SCOTUS attacks on elections, campaign finance, gerrymandering, big corrupting money, have made the US a breeding ground for fascism.

The Constitution is hard to change, but the Supreme Court has the power to shape it any way it sees fit. Constitutional originalism, in the absence of a functioning Congress, means government by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), not government by the people.

Theocracies are the most backward countries and SCOTUS is headed that way.

The Federalist Society headed by Leonard Leo, that placed the last 3 justices on the bench, has been given $1.5 Billion by a dedicated Catholic supporter to continue its work.

Although the Constitution never said so, SCOTUS decided that it had the final word. It was ok until the Court was packed with religious radicals, but now it's time to rethink. Real democracy means majority rules. The larger the number of people making decisions, the better.

The Constitution should be amended by the national popular vote, which in many cases would over rule SCOTUS. If government is found to be in violation of international law, particularly agreements that the US has signed, that should trigger a question on the national ballot. Torture violates the Constitution and international law and SCOTUS covered it up.

The Patriot Act inverts the constitutional requirement that people's lives be private and the work of government officials be public; it instead crafts a set of conditions in which our inner lives become transparent and the workings of the government become opaque. Either one of these outcomes would imperil democracy; together they not only injure the country but also cut off the avenues of repair. Elaine Scarry

The Preamble to the Constitution set out high-minded goals for government, but never seemed the basis of law. The general Welfare would have been much better served if the Court had not decided that States could refuse Medicaid help, and women would be much safer if they let Roe stand. We would be a whole lot better off if the 4th Amendment were about privacy, which the justices can find nowhere in the Constitution.

What’s missing from our law today is an emphasis on the common good, a concept that from the founding era onward was central to the American legal tradition, embodied in the references to the “general welfare” in both the preamble to the Constitution and its text. The classical legal tradition, the mainstream of the Western legal tradition until the 20th century, holds that laws should be interpreted in light of the legitimate aim of government, which is the flourishing of the community as a community. Classical constitutionalism holds that our political community can succeed only as a whole, rather than as a collection of warring interests, competing ideologies and isolated individuals — the underlying logic of modern jurisprudence. The aim of constitutional government and legal interpretation should be to promote the classical ideals of peace, justice and abundance. Supreme Court Justices Have Forgotten What the Law Is For (2/3/2022) NYT

It’s worth noting that, of the five justices picked by Republicans, including Judge Kavanaugh, four were nominated by presidents who first took office after losing the popular vote. And the slim majority of senators who said they would vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh on Saturday represent tens of millions fewer Americans than the minority of senators who voted to reject him. The nation’s founders were wise to design the court as a counter-majoritarian institution, but they couldn’t have been picturing this. New York Times Editorial: The High Court Brought Low (10/5/2018)

SCOTUS is inherently undemocratic, but not only that it is anti-democratic, like the GOP.

If we look back ten years or so, we see a trend gradually emerging. The Republicans could not repeal the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, or get rid of the Voting Rights Act. But the Roberts Court took care of the problem through constitutional interpretation. The Republicans could not knee-cap class actions or assault public sector unions through legislation. But the Roberts Court did it for them. Constitutional Rot Reaches the Supreme Court (10/5/2018)

SCOTUS lies

To help the GOP with elections, SCOTUS overturned the Voting Rights Act, allowed gerrymandering, overturned McCain-Feingold Campaign law, allowed big dark money into politics, Citizens United, loosened rules on corruption. It is about to rule in a case that argues that State Legislatures can over-ride the will of voters, that could threaten the very existence of the republic.

SCOTUS decided that: Corporations are people, profit is their only obligation, and money is speech. Citizens United assured that corporations rule. The Court committed a treasonous crime by taking the US government from the people and giving it to corporations. As Lawrence Lessig has written so well, we have lost our republic. A country ruled by corporations is, by definition, fascist.

Being partial to corporations, it is no surprise that the Court is unfavorable to labor, unions, consumers, and regulators such as the EPA which is supposed to watch out for clean air, water, pollutants, etc. All those things that contribute to the General Welfare.

Worse, ignoring dire warnings of climate science, the Court stopped the move to clean energy, put in question the ability of the EPA to do anything and assured that the US will not meet the climate obligations that it agreed to. It is an essential function of government to regulate, but the Court is seemingly prepared to cripple that.

When the partisan Supreme Court selected Bush President, the result was gratuitous wars at a cost estimated at $4 trillion, tax breaks for the wealthiest, full-scale assault on civil liberties, an invasive and ineffective 'homeland security' bureaucracy, renditions, secret prisons, torture, mass surveillance. SCOTUS had no problem with any of that, even though it violated international laws that we had signed.

Truly immoral US activity was classified and covered up in the FISA Court, which is why the US can not join the International Criminal Court.

We all learned in our school indoctrination that the Constitution incorporated checks and balances. However they have fallen into sad disrepair. The Congress all but surrendered war power to the President, the Court has deferred to him even when he refuses oversight, secrecy in government means no one trusts it, we have no functioning democracy, and it certainly does not function for the general welfare of the people as the preamble says.

Trump radically changed the Court by installing three new Catholic justices, who, having lied in their confirmation testimony, overturned Roe, allowed prayer at school functions, mandated that tax dollars go to religious schools, broke a hole in the wall between church and state. Big dark money was behind the selection of the new justices. SCOTUS has no code of ethics. It is clear in the first amendment that government may not endorse religion, but SCOTUS reads the Constitution differently.

About 22% of the US is Catholic, but 66% of the Supreme Court is. Former US district court judge Albert Levitt estimated that 140 principles of the Catholic Church were in conflict with the Constitution. (See The Court and The Cross, the Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court a 2008 book by Frederick S. Lane.)

The real reason we have a majority of Catholic conservatives ruling in Supreme Court robes, is that they have shown themselves to be the most amenable to the corruption of keeping the American aristocracy at the top. Mitch and Trump and Barr have said as much. Own the courts, own the law, own the poor. comment in the New York Times.
Fascism & Conservatives on the Supreme Court

The Court does not reflect the wishes of the majority, and is a threat to what’s left of democracy. US democracy is almost non-existent. Republicans are depending on the Court to implement a very unpopular agenda, which they cannot pass through the Congress.

“From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than forty foreign governments and to crush more than thirty populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the U.S. bombed some twenty-five countries, caused the end of life for several million people and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.” William Blum, former State Department employee.

The cumulative effect of undemocratic SCOTUS decisions and deference to an imperial President, cloaked much of government activity in secrecy, has been a close brush with fascism. The insurrection is not over. Right wing government is never good. The crisis is not over since changes to voting laws may soon bring one party authoritarian rule and the end of the republic. The US looks a lot like 1933 Wiemar Germany.

As currently structured, our politics is oblivious or incapable of addressing grand challenges, most of which are transnational.

All the biggest challenges of our time are transnational: mass migration, growing inequality, the onset of ecological Armageddon. It's arguable that the politics of the nation state have become at best irrelevant, and at worst a hindrance, to tackling such global challenges. The outlook is grim. Democracy and Truth, A Short History: Sophia Rosenfeld

The Constitution is long overdue for an overhaul.

Since the Constitution weights rural voters heavily, the Electoral College leans right, GOP can win the Presidency and the Senate without the popular vote, so they can select most justices. Structural election bias resulted in a Court composed of radical Catholic cult members appointed by the science denying GOP. Packing the Courts is the first step to a one party, authoritarian state. Right wing government is never good.

Today’s supreme court majority is a group of knee-jerk conservatives whose intellectual leader (to the extent they have one) is Samuel Alito, perhaps the most conceptually rigid and cognitively dishonest justice since Chief Justice Roger Taney. Five of today’s supreme court majority were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote; three of them by a president who instigated a coup against the United States. The US supreme court is now cruel, partisan – and squandering its moral authority by Robert Reich in the Guardian (9/2/2021)

The Supreme Court, by adopting an a historical and improperly narrow view of corruption, has shut down an exploration of the very real threat that unrestricted campaign spending actually posses to our democracy....corruption, broadly understood as placing private interests over the public good in public office, is at the root of what ails American democracy. (from David Cole's, New York Review of Books review of, Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United: Zeyphyr Teachout.)

Congress, Don’t Lose the Plot on Judicial Ethics (5/23/2022)

The US supreme court just made yet another devastating decision for humanity (6/30/2022)

The Supreme Court guards its privacy. Too bad it doesn't care about yours and mine (5/14/2022)

The US supreme court’s assault on voting rights hits a new low (3/31/2022) Guardian

Supreme Court says state-secrets doctrine protects disclosure of 'black site' locations in torture allegation case (3/3/2022) Guardian

The Supreme Court's vaccine mandate ruling is the start of something far worse (1/24/2022) David Cole

Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? (1/31/2022)

Exposé Reveals Ginni Thomas’ Ties to ‘Many Groups Directly Involved in Controversial Cases’ Before the Supreme Court (1/21/2022)

Why the Supreme Court needs an ethics code (11/12/2021)

America’s Judges Are Putting My Life on the Line (11/11/2021) NYT

In Two Rulings, Supreme Court Bolsters Legal Shield for Police (10/18/2021) NYT

The Supreme Court Deals a Major Blow to Qualified Immunity Reform (10/18/2021)

God Has No Place in Supreme Court Opinions (9/9/2021)

Supreme Court leaves Texas abortion ban in place (9/2/2021)

Supreme Court denies Biden administration efforts to end 'Remain in Mexico' policy (8/24/2021)

The Supreme Court Abandons Voting Rights (7/1/2021)

The Supreme Court Is Putting Democracy at Risk (7/1/2021)

How the Courts Failed Us (5/7/2021)

How to Fix the Supreme Court (10/27/2020)

Trump's Road to Tyranny Runs Through the Supreme Court (10/19/2020)

The original Constitution was designed so that checks and balances would prevent accumulation of power, but the Court has failed to protect and maintain them. It turned a blind eye to lies that sent us to wars initiated by Presidents, torture, renditions, wide scale surveillance. secret prisons, Guantanamo, When the President ignored oversight, and claimed he could do anything and not be prosecuted, SCOTUS was not just silent but created the FISA Court to be sure it all remained secret. Republicans have sought to enhance the power of the Presidency so that he is now much more powerful than the king we sought to overthrow. It shrouded illegal, immoral activity in the secret FISA Court. Secret law means the end is near.

Undermining Elections

Campaign finance law is the foundation of all other law and we can only get our republic back if Citizen's United is overturned. Citizens United allowed big, dark money to buy elections.

The Citizens United and McKutcheon rulings will complete our transition to an oligarchy and destroy US governance as we know it to allow virtually unlimited amounts of money to buy elections and corrupt politics. Lawrence Lessig has made the case in his book, "Republic, Lost" that money in politics is corrupting. . . and so it is. See his video

SCOTUS is an enemy of democracy

SCOTUS rolled back the Voting Rights Act which immediately resulted in Southern States suppressing minority vote, and they turned a blind eye to gerrymandering which distorts elections. They have pretty much destroyed the rest of the Voting Rights Act which may give the GOP permanent control of a one party State, like Hungary.

The Supreme Court … permitted redistricting laws that transformed legislative elections into little more than a formality in many States – because Republicans were all but certain to win no matter what the voters decided. Thanks to this Supreme Court, we already live in a world where state election laws can render the will of the people irrelevant (pg 50) The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court is Reshaping America by Ian Millhiser

Voter suppression and other election cons empower a wealthy minority to extract wealth from the rest of the population. This appears to be a partisan GOP technique to assure extreme wealth inequality and minority rule.

Elections clearly are for sale now and they are seriously flawed. There is no reason to think that the system will self-correct barring structural change.

Making the President Unaccountable

SCOTUS enhanced the power of the Presidency, a dangerous Republican value. If the President does something, and there are no consequences, that action is presumed Constitutional. Trump, in effect, shaped the Constitution himself.

...conservatives -- in the executive branch and on the courts -- have sought to create unprecedented, unchecked executive power, including the power to torture and detain individuals indefinitely without a trial or even due process. They have sought to obliterate the long standing wall separating church and state, allowing the government almost unlimited authority to support religion and to make religion a part of government activities. They have sought to abolish any constitutional protection for privacy and, most of all to eliminate constitutional protections for abortions. They have sought to greatly reduce constitutional protections for criminal defendants, including their ability to ask a federal court for protection from unconstitutional state procedures or results. They have worked to eliminate all affirmative action and to institute a vision of the Constitution that will perpetuate deep racial inequalities in American society. More successfully, they have closed the courthouse doors, especially to people bringing civil rights claims. Erwin Chemerinsky: The Conservative Assault on the Constitution. (p 30)

SCOTUS’ Bush v Gore selected George W. Bush President in what turned out to be arguably the most disastrous decision ever made. 9/11 was treated as pretext for forever wars that continue today, cost trillions of dollars, untolled lives, cloaked war crimes in the secret FISA Court, ratcheted up ‘homeland security’ irreversibly at the cost of American’s civil liberties and their well-being. At the same time, rejecting Gore assured that the coming climate disaster would be ignored when it was more possible to slow it.

Congress surrendered war power with the AUMF, the forever wars based on lies began with illegal, bankrupting wars in Afghanistan and expanded to Iraq and the wider middle east. After 20 years, millions of lives, horrendous environment damage, and trillions later they solved nothing. When the President goes to war, which is usually, SCOTUS is silent.

The President is, for all practical purposes, above the law. SCOTUS defers to him, he cannot be prosecuted while in office, can ignore Congressional oversight or even flaunt it. Ronald Reagan engaged in dirty, illegal Central American wars even though Congress prohibited it. Bush engaged in torture, renditions and created secret prisons and Guantanamo to escape US law, and implemented universal surveillance.

Trump ignored Congressional oversight and the Court was silent. It is questionable that those checks and balances are functional.

The Supreme Court … has not shown even-handed skepticism toward executive power. It was quite permissive of President Trump’s ability to aggressively wield such power, even as it is working to dismantle future presidents’ ability to protect the environment, to expand access to health care, or to ensure that workers receive a fair wage. The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court is Reshaping America by Ian Millhiser

The Court turned a blind eye to the surveillance state, torture, and imperial war. Torture, secret prisons, Guantanamo, verified the loss of US moral values. The FISA Court made secret law to cover it all up.

The US cannot join the ICCC because of its criminality. Congress said it would invade the Netherlands if it investigated the US. Clearly unconstitutional considering the original intent. SCOTUS is silent.

The Patriot Act and Homeland Security ushered in the National Security State, the AUMF gave the President imperial power. Edward Snowden revealed widespread surveillance, the ultimate betrayal of civil liberties. Reality Winner exposed Russian election interference but was silenced and kept in jail.

Elaine Scarry writes “Nuclear weapons undo governments and undo anything that could be meant by democracy ...We had a choice: get rid of nuclear weapons or get rid of Congress and the citizens. We got rid of Congress and the citizens.” from Thermonuclear Monarchy, Choosing Between Democracy and Doom by Elaine Scarry

What we should learn from Bush v Gore is that the Supreme Court should never be allowed to decide an election again. If there is any question, the National Popular Vote should decide.

Loosening Corruption Law

SCOTUS loosened laws on corruption to make it virtually non-existent. Money corrupts, speech does not. The Court ruled that money is speech, substantially increased the influence of money in elections with citizens united, campaign finance, nullified the Voting Rights Act removing barriers to Republican voter suppression, allowed gerrymandering so voters have less choice, expanded gun rights

The Supreme Court, by adopting an a historical and improperly narrow view of corruption, has shut down an exploration of the very real threat that unrestricted campaign spending actually posses to our democracy....corruption, broadly understood as placing private interests over the public good in public office, is at the root of what ails American democracy. (from David Cole's, New York Review of Books review of, Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United: Zeyphyr Teachout.)

Guns for Everyone

Many are startled to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun until 2008, when District of Columbia v. Heller struck down the capital’s law effectively banning handguns in the home. In fact, every other time the court had ruled previously, it had ruled otherwise. Why such a head-snapping turnaround? Don’t look for answers in dusty law books or the arcane reaches of theory. How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment (5/2014)

Although the Constitution specifies "a well regulated militia", SCOTUS defined gun rights expansively which has resulted in the US becoming number one in mass shootings, police that terrorize minorities,and are a public health hazard. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun Chairman Mao

well regulated militia

SCOTUS’ Heller decision ignored the original Constitution’s clause that requires ‘a well organized militia’ was the reason to carry a gun. " ,,,the U.S. Supreme Court didn't rule that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to own a gun until 2008, when District of Columbia v. Heller struck down the capital's law effectively banning handguns in the home. In fact, every other time the court had ruled previously, it had ruled otherwise. Why such a head-snapping turnaround ? Don't look for answers in dusty law books or the arcane reaches of theory." How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment (5/2014)

SCOTUS can be credited with rising mass shootings, armed, racial violence, and the rise of Trump fascism. See Charles Derber's book 'The Wilding of America, How Greed and Violence are Eroding Our Nation's Character

Corporate Supremacy

The fix is in now that the Supreme Court consistently sides with Corporations and against labor, consumers, and the public interest. It decided that corporations are people, some with religious beliefs, money is speech, and the only motive for corporations is profit. That is why the U.S. is an oligopoly, no longer a republic.

It was bad enough that the Supreme Court ruled the Corporation is a person with all the rights that implies, it was worse when it ruled that the only purpose of the Corporation is profit.

Made Corporations legal people, super-people in fact, who never die and enjoy rights that real people can only dream of. SCOTUS ruled that corporations are people whose only motive is profit for shareholders, which is why they are sociopaths. Government controlled by corporations is , by definition, Fascist.

A corporate person whose only motive is profit is a sociopath. It doesn't care if the planet is destroyed by pollution. It has no loyalty to community. It is no patriot for it has no binds of citizenship and will move to the lowest wage, least regulated country, avoids all taxes by keeping profits offshore, and will buy as many politicians as necessary to mold policy in his favor. and so it is that corporations have set us on a (geologically) fast path to destruction.

Republicans allowed lobbyists to draft legislation for monopoly industries and they created ALEC. Their policy has led to weak anti-trust enforcement, massive redistribution of income (upward), restructuring of the economy, corrupt politics, extreme wealth inequality, and an economy that is unfair, unjust. unstable, and unsustainable.

The Republican Court was profoundly wrong on corporate supremacy, union busting, consumer rights, Bush v Gore, guns, voting rights, money in politics, gerrymandering, Medicaid expansion, corruption, the death penalty, and failed to maintain checks and balances. Congress should not be allowed to surrender war powers.

Mussolini defined fascism as government by corporations.

Economic Damage

All of the economic gains for the last three decades have gone to the very top. The Court propelled the U.S. to extreme wealth inequality with the social pathology that brings: oligarchy, class warfare, corruption, money driven political dysfunction, and Fascism.

... the hegemony of the ruling class is more of a reality in America than it is in comparison nations. Further, the Supreme Court of the United States, remote and aloof from the people, has played a major role in the development and perpetuation of this class ideology. Time and again the Court has used the Constitution to hammer the lower classes into ideological submission. It would be difficult to devise a more useful method of achieving ideological conformity than a revered, almost holy, document and an untouchable priesthood charged with interpreting it. The People Who Own the Country Ought to Govern It: The Supreme Court, hegemony, and Its Consequences (1983)

SCOTUS gave States the option not to participate in the expansion of Medicaid, denying millions healthcare resulting in thousands of preventable deaths. Throwing millions off healthcare should rightfully nullify the legitimacy of the Court. The Constitution begins with a a goal to promote the general welfare. SCOTUS seems to have missed that.

Breaking down the Wall between Church and State

Since Congress is paralyzed, SCOTUS, packed with religious ideologues, makes policy and is not only wrecking democracy and governance. The Constitution says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”, but SCOTUS is shaping law to do just that.

The separation of Church and State is in sad state now that a majority of the Court are Catholic, who lied to revoke a women's right to choose, for which the Constitution says nothing and had been settled for 50 years.

"In the Hobby Lobby cases, five male Justices of the Supreme Court, who are all members of the Catholic faith and who each were appointed by a President who hailed from the Republican party, decided that a huge corporation, with thousands of employees and gargantuan revenues, was a “person” entitled to assert a religious objection to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate because that corporation was “closely held” by family members. To the average person, the result looks stupid and smells worse. To most people, the decision looks stupid ’cause corporations are not persons, all the legal mumbo jumbo notwithstanding. The decision looks misogynist because the majority were all men. It looks partisan because all were appointed by a Republican. The decision looks religiously motivated because each member of the majority belongs to the Catholic church, and that religious organization is opposed to contraception. While “looks” don’t matter to the logic of the law (and I am not saying the Justices are actually motivated by such things), all of us know from experience that appearances matter to the public’s acceptance of the law."
Federal Judge Richard George Kopf

A National Journal article about the Religious Right quoted far-right activist Richard Land about the Right’s aggressive decades-long effort to change the makeup of the federal judiciary. “Alito and Roberts are the gifts that keep on giving, and we would have gotten neither one of those without our involvement,” Land said, predicting that Roe v. Wade will soon be “thrown onto the ash heap of history.”

63% of the people support Roe v Wade, but the Supreme Court overturned it. Catholic ideologues on SCOTUS do not support democracy, and are breaking to wall between church and state.

Disdain for International Agreements

The Supreme Court shows no respect for international law, and defers to the President who freely ignores it, including agreements the US previously signed. So, for example, the Nuclear Proliferation Agreement specified that nations with nuclear weapons would reduce them, but the US continues to speed ahead with new ones. Torture is illegal under international law, but the US just keeps it secret. The President can whiplash foreign policy by reversing long-standing agreements like the one with Iran. Result: the US can not be relied on to keep an agreement. SCOTUS is ok with that.

The Supreme Court, if it was upholding moral values, would see that the US not become a criminal State. Instead, to protect warmongers, torturers and other criminals, it created the secret FISA Court, established Secret Courts that make secret law, and allowed secret prisons, torture, and universal mass surveillance. It was silent as the US became an empire, and allowed the President to wage a forever war, all of which the Constitution plainly prohibited.

Fix the Court

Supreme Court was already partisan, Trump pledged to make it more so, and he did.

The Supreme Court should have term limits, more judges, it should be held to the same moral values as the lower courts, and it should not have the power of ultimate review of the law because, message to the originalists, the Constitution never said so. People should rule, not the Court. Congress can not over-ride SCOTUS bad decisions unless Republicans are voted out.

Republican ideologues on the Supreme Court committed a treasonous crime by taking the US government from one that is accountable to the people to one that is run by corporations and the wealthy. We have, as Lawrence Lessig has documented so well, lost our Republic. See Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It: Lawrence Lessig links).

The cumulative effect of SCOTUS bad decisions has brought us to a close brush with fascism. It is a looming threat.

As gerrymandered districts, voter suppression, big dark campaign cash from major corporations corrupt elections, and partisan appointments to election counters, Trump may yet become a dictator and he seems to think the Court will help install him, just as they did with Bush v Gore. The Court might have stopped our slide into dystopia, but it did nothing as the Constitution has been all but shredded.

It is time to fix the court, and the Constitution itself, although there is little political will to do it. The forecast is grim.

The Outlook is bleak

Oligopoly vs Democracy is a thread that is repeated throughout recorded history. We have lost every war Iraq, Afghanistan, WWII itself, and even the Civil War.

We are close to fascism, lost our republic, and even the planet.

US Constitution, a centuries old compromise, was not well structured, so for good government it needs to be rewritten to reflect the principle of 'one-person/one-vote'. Ideally, we would learn from better performing Nordic model. That would mean updating our Constitution, or facing apocalypse.

Our politics are incapable of addressing the challenges ahead, whether climate collapse, mass migration, looming pandemic, nuclear holocaust, a hostile climate. SCOTUS is no help.

The Constitution does not say what a Constitutional Convention would look like. It should certainly be a carefully designed process that would include experts and public representatives to write a new draft that a majority of people should approve. Beware of partisans.

Some thoughts.

The lesson of history seems clear enough: During a period of advanced constitutional rot and high political polarization the federal courts are unlikely to be an instrument of constitutional renewal. Renewal will have to come from political mobilization instead. Constitutional Rot Reaches the Supreme Court (10/6/2018)

...do we really need a Supreme Court? The UK gets along quite well without it. Sure, a SC can overturn some bad laws, but they often, to our detriment, overturn good laws. Without the SC bad laws will be eventually repealed or overturned by Congress and/or the President because of actions by strong leaders or grassroots activity--laws such as, elimination of slavery, voting rights, civil rights, gay rights, etc." Comment on Harper's

"TeleSur" - An international poll found that the United States is ranked far in the lead as “the biggest threat to world peace today,” far ahead of second-place Pakistan, with no one else even close. (1/17/2015) or (10/21/2014)
The Supreme Court itself is unelected and unaccountable, and its members enjoy lifetime tenure. No Justice has ever been re-moved from the Court for any reason, with the exception of WardHunt (1873-1882) who served for five years while mentally incompetent until a special law allowed him to retire on full salary. One can scarcely imagine a less democratic institution existing in a democracy, a system of government in which the governed supposedly possess the power to hold decision-makers accountable for their decisions. The People Who Own the Country Ought to Govern It: The Supreme Court, hegemony, and Its Consequences (1983)

Most Americans want to end lifetime Supreme Court appointments (63%)

Why Amy Coney Barrett Should Not Be On The Supreme Court (9/27/2020)

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women (9/28/2020)

The Court of God: How a Catholic Secret Society Took Over SCOTUS (9/28/2020)

Is Amy Coney Barrett Joining a Supreme Court Built for the Wealthy? (9/27/2020)

The Supreme Court is finished: Republicans have killed it. Now it's time to fight back (9/26/2020)

How the Supreme Court revived Jim Crow voter suppression tactics (9/21/2020)

The Supreme Court’s Most Partisan Decisions Are Flying Under the Radar (8/11/2020)

The Supreme Court, Too, Is on the Brink (6/4/2020)

How the Supreme Court Lets Cops Get Away With Murder (5/29/2020)

Trump’s Bid to Stand Above the Law (5/8/2020)

Money is Speech

The Supreme Court Fails Us (4/9/2020)

The Supreme Court’s Wisconsin Election Decision Is 2020’s Bush v. Gore (4/7/2020)

A Supreme Court for the Rich (2/21/2020)

By now, it is a truism that Chief Justice John Roberts' statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee that a Supreme Court justice's role is the passive one of a neutral baseball "umpire who [merely] calls the balls and strikes" was a masterpiece of disingenuousness. Roberts' misleading testimony inevitably comes to mind when one considers the course of decision-making by the Court over which he presides. This is so because the Roberts Court has been anything but passive. Rather, the Court's hard right majority is actively participating in undermining American democracy. Indeed, the Roberts Court has contributed to insuring that the political system in the United States pays little attention to ordinary Americans and responds only to the wishes of a relatively small number of powerful corporations and individuals. U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Adelman (3/10/2020)

Trump demands two female Supreme Court justices recuse themselves from all of his cases: ‘I only ask for fairness’ (2/24/2020)

SUPREME INEQUALITY, The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America (2/21/2020)

Justice Sotomayor warns the Supreme Court is doing special favors for the Trump administration (2/22/2020)

Business can pay for the best counsel money can buy. The average citizen cannot. That´s just the reality. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Supreme Court’s Final Exam (12/19/2019)

Watch Out, America — The Supreme Court Is Back in Session (10/5/2019)

Mad About Kavanaugh and Gorsuch? The Best Way to Get Even Is to Pack the Court (9/17/2019)

Elizabeth Warren goes on the attack against Neil Gorsuch’s first major decision (7/7/2019)

A Day of Sorrow for American Democracy (7/3/2019)

Supreme Court allows severe partisan gerrymandering to continue (6/27/2019)

Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears

Justice Kennedy resignation

Over 3 A.M. Dissent, Supreme Court Says Alabama Execution May Proceed (4/11/2019)

SCOTUS Will Decide Citizenship Question in April (2/15/2019)

Just in Time for Supreme Court, Kavanaugh’s Cancer Powder Keg Blows Up (12/17/2018)

Off-Balance: Five Strategies for a Judiciary that Supports Democracy (11/13/2018)

The Racism Exposed In The Midterm Election Was Brought To You By John Roberts (11/7/2018)

The Supreme Court is about to decide if the children’s climate lawsuit can proceed (10/30/2018))

How Billionaires Bought Kavanaugh’s Seat on the Supreme Court (10/22/2018)

how the gutting of the voting rights act led to hundreds of closed polls (10/16/2018)

Kavanaugh’s appointment isn’t a step backward. It’s a head-first plunge into an ugly past (10/7/2018)

The Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Crisis (10/5/2018)

The Supreme Court Is an Antidemocratic Hot Mess—and We Should Change That (9/11/2018)

White House Withholds 100,000 Pages of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Records (9/1/2018)

Paul Krugman Warns Republicans Will 'Destroy the Legitimacy' of the Supreme Court by Confirming Kavanaugh (9/6/2018)

Did Anthony Kennedy Resign from the Supreme Court to Protect His Son?

What’s the Point of the Supreme Court? (9/3/2018)

Trump's Supreme Court Seat: The Art of the Steal

Brett Kavanaugh, Who Has Ruled Against Campaign Finance Regulations, Could Bring an Avalanche of Big Money to Elections (7/12/2018)

In Brett Kavanaugh, workers have a justice who will always side with big business (7/11/2018)

How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment (6/30/2018)

The Supreme Court Gets Trumpier (6/30/2018) video

It’s time for term limits for Supreme Court justices (6/27/2018)

Court Packing Is The Way To Save The Court From The U.S. Senate (4/7/2017))

The Gorsuch Court is Crushing Workers and Democracy: Can Dems find the Courage to Fight Back? (6/29/2018)

Supreme Court makes it quite clear it won’t lift a finger to stop ruthless gerrymandering (6/28/2018)

Supreme Court delivers blow to labor unions (6/28/2018)

John Roberts just validated religious discrimination (6/26/2018)

Supreme Court Decides to Let Political Extremists Run Wild in Key Election Case (6/18/2018)

The Supreme Court Sticks It to Workers, Again (5/24/2018)

While Few Notice, the Supreme Court Is Making Corporate Human Rights Abuses Easier (5/23/2018)

Do You Believe Her Now? The Case for Impeaching Clarence Thomas , (2/19/2018)

The Menendez trial revealed everything that's gone wrong with US bribery law (11/17/2017)

Report: Single donor gave $28.5 million to 'dark money' group touting Gorsuch for Supreme Court (11/22/2017)

Justice Roberts used bad Data to end Voting Rights Act & other shoddy SCOTUS Mistakes (10/18/2017)

The country deserves a compromise Supreme Court nominee. Neil Gorsuch isn’t one. (2/3/2017)

Citizens United Anniversary: How Anthony Kennedy Turned American Democracy Into an 'Open Sewer'

Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private, but Sandra Day O'Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenged the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. (3/10/2006)

"What the Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court did in their Citizens United decision was simply to carry this privatization-ideology more fully into the sphere of U.S. political campaigns. The five fascist ‘Justices’ didn’t refer to Benito Mussolini, but, if they had been honest, they would have — and they wouldn’t have referred at all to the U.S. Constitution, which, certainly in its original intent, was anti-corporate." Eric Zuesse

"Today, the Court has enthroned corporations, permitting them not only all kinds of special economic rights but now, amazingly, moving to grant them the same political rights as the people. This is a moment of high danger for democracy so we must act quickly to spell out in the Constitution what the people have always understood: that corporations do not enjoy the political and free speech rights that belong to the people of the United States." Professor Jamie Raskin, constitutional law expert at American University's Washington College of Law and Maryland state senatorSCOTUS Dance on Chaney Goodman Schwerner Graves

...the Roberts Court is sending a clear message: that for those that do not share the values of the rich, powerful, Christian (and probably white) male, justice in the United States is probably not for you. Crystal Shepeard

You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves. Thomas Jefferson (from Wikipedia)

The Supreme Court has now closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice process, from stops and searches to plea bargaining and sentencing. The system of mass incarceration is now, for all practical purposes, thoroughly immunized from claims of racial bias. Staggering racial disparities in the drug war continue but rarely make the news. The Obama administration has indicated it supports abolition of the hundred-to-one disparity in sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine - the most obvious and embarrassing example of racial bias in a system that purports to be colorblind....The legal rules adopted by the Supreme Court guarantee that those who find themselves locked up and permanently locked out due to the drug war are overwhelmingly black and brown. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow

THE Supreme Court’s momentous decisions... on affirmative action, voting rights and same-sex marriage overshadowed a disturbing trend: in the final two weeks of its term, the court ruled in favor of big business and closed the courthouse doors to employees, consumers and small businesses seeking remedy for serious injuries. Erwin Chemerinsky (7/2/2013)

This sour, scowling, and snarky Supreme Court Justice personifies the dictionary definition of absurd: "Utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false." A right-wing dogmatist and extreme judicial activist who's full of himself, Scalia has been the court's chief monkey-wrencher for corporate interests, constantly messing with the Constitution to enthrone plutocratic money over our people's democratic politics. By black-robed fiat, he and his four fellow corporatists on the bench have managed to twist language and pervert nature itself by declaring that corporations are "people" and money is "speech." Thus, in their now infamous Citizens United edict of 2010, the five decreed that these huge, lifeless, paper constructs--without brains, hearts, souls, or tongues--must be free to "speak" in our elections by spending unlimited (and undisclosed) amounts of their shareholders' money to determine who wins public office. Jim Hightower

Supreme Court is partisan, Trump pledged to make it more so, and he has done that. Here's a sample of what it has done so far:

  • Bush v Gore selected W as President and not Al Gore. Results were catastrophic in that climate measures were not taken when it mattered, the forever wars began with bankrupting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider middle east. The Patriot Act and Homeland Security ushered in the National Security State, the AUMF gave the President imperial power. Edward Snowden revealed the widespread surveillance that has become routine. Torture, secret prisons, verified the loss of US values. The FISA Court made secret law. What we should learn from Bush v Gore is that the Supreme Court should never be allowed to decide an election again. If there is any question, the popular vote should decide.
  • Because the Court has not maintained functioning checks and balances, the Constitution is broken and government is dysfunctional.
  • Made Corporations legal people, super-people in fact, who never die and enjoy rights that real people can only dream of. Their only legal obligation is to make a profit, which is why they are sociopaths. Government controlled by corporations is , by definition, Fascist.
  • Ruled that corporations are people whose only motive is profit for shareholders.
  • Ruled that money is speech. Money corrupts, speech does not.
  • Selected George W. Bush as President in what turned out to be the most disastrous decision ever made. It resulted in forever wars that continue today and cost trillions of dollars, untolled lives, ratcheted up ‘homeland security’ irreversibly and at the cost of Americans civil liberties and their well-being. At the same time, rejecting Gore assured that the coming climate disaster would be ignored.
  • Citizens United allowed big, dark money to buy elections.
  • Rolled back the Voting Rights Act which immediately resulted in Southern States suppressing minority vote. Voter suppression and other election cons empower a wealthy minority to extract wealth from the rest of the population. This appears to be a partisan GOP technique to assure minority rule.
  • Loosened laws on corruption to make it virtually non-existent.
  • Defined gun rights expansively which has resulted in the US becoming number one in mass shootings.
  • Gave States the option not to participate in the expansion of Medicaid, denying millions healthcare resulting in thousands of preventable deaths.
  • Established Secret Courts that make secret law, and allowed universal mass surveillance.
  • So called ‘originalists’ did away with the Fourth Amendment. Most likely this will make the US a dystopia.
  • They overturned a 50 year decision about a women's right to choose.
  • There is nothing in the Constitution about the number of 9 justices.
  • Republican justices are now in the majority, so things will likely get much worse.

Like each of the above, the Republican Court is profoundly wrong. Unfortunately, unless the Constitution is amended, a very difficult process, the Court has the last word even though the Constitution didn't say so. I think we have lost our republic and maybe the planet. Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It: Lawrence Lessig links).

The Court has propelled the U.S. to extreme income inequality with the social pathology that brings: oligarchy, class warfare, corruption, money driven political dysfunction, and Fascism.

Top 5 Reasons Senate Dems should block all Trump Supreme Court Nominees, Forever (12/21/2016)

How the Supreme Court gets corruption totally wrong (5/5/2016)

Supreme Court conservatives block Clean Energy Plan (2/10/2016)

The Supreme Court’s Secret Power (9/24/2015)

Craziest Quotes 2014: John Roberts

'Rabidly Partison' Judges threaten obamacare based on a typo (11/10/2014)

The Supreme Court’s First Decision In Its New Term Is A Decision Making It Harder To Vote (9/29/2014)

How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops (8/26/2014)

It's Time to Reform the Supreme Court (7/15/2014)

Harris v. Quinn is a Blow to the Economically Vulnerable (6/30/2014)

The Burlesque “Originalism” of Antonin Scalia (6/30/2014)

Why the Buffer Zone Decision Is Wrong (6/27/2014)

McCutcheon Should Become A Rallying Cry for A Campaign to ‘End the Rule of Money’ (4/5/2014)

Wide Majorities Losing Faith In John Roberts' Supreme Court, Want Term Limits (5/7/2014)

Can't We Just Say the Roberts Court Is Corrupt? (4/7/2014)

On Our Highest Court, A Former Lobbyist Guts Campaign Finance Reform (4/4/2014)

Supreme Court Removes Limits on Campaign Donations (4/2/2013)

Bush is gone but his judges are here to stay (11/1/2013)

You Don't Need A Law Degree To Know Right From Wrong (8/16/2013)

The Republicans of the Supreme Court (7/2/2013)

What the Supreme Court Doesn't Understand About The Voting Rights Act (6/25/2013)

Big Corporations Get Big Protection From the Supreme Court (6/24/2013)

Kiobel decision leads US away from global trends on accountability (4/24/2013)

Perverting the Constitution For Power (3/3/2013)

6 Ways the US Supreme Court Has Defiled Our Constitution (3/3/2013)

Chief justice Roberts' Long War Against The Voting Rights Act (2/27/2013)

Citizens United 2.0: Supreme Court Could Further Open Door To Money In Politics (2/23/2013)

The Supreme Court: Ruling Government by the Corporations, Not the People.

The 1% Court

Affirmative Action To Warrentless Wiretapping: The Upcoming Supreme Court Term (10/1/2012)

Activist Supreme Court makes separate rules for Corporations and Unions (Take Action)

The Beast of Citizens United Slouches Forward (7/4/2012)

Should We Expand the Supreme Court ? (6/26/2012)

How the Supreme Court Aids Government-Controlled Speech (5/25/2012)

Why the Supreme Court Matters (4/14/2012)

GOP Five's Code: Power is power (4/8/2012)

Are The GOP Justices Political Hacks ? (3/26/2012)

Supreme Court's Religious Frenzy (3/27/2012)

Scalia And Thomas Dine With Healthcare Law Challengers As Court Takes The Case (11/14/2011)

The Corporate Supreme Court (Ralph Nader) (7/18/2011)

Chris Murphy Calls For Investigation of Clarence Thomas (6/24/2011)

Supreme Court Rules For Wal-Mart (6/20/2011)

Bush V. Gore's Dark American Decade (12/12/2010)

Citizens United conspiracy, Complete with two Supremes (10/22/2010) *

Supreme Court Casts a Vote For Millionaires (6/27/2008)

SUPREME COURT ROULETTE (8/8/2000)


Don't ever claim that Republican judges are not activists. They are partisan hacks and they have destroyed our Republic. They have committed a treasonous crime by taking the US government from the people and giving it to the corporations.

The Court has sided with corporate interests consistently for a long time: It decided that corporations are people, some with religious beliefs, money is speech, and the only motive for corporations is profit. That is why the U.S. is an oligopoly, no longer a republic.

Republican ideologues on the Supreme Court have committed a treasonous crime by taking the US government from one that is accountable to the people to one that is run by corporations and the wealthy. We have, as Lawrence Lessig has documented so well, lost our Republic.

Government run by corporations is, by definition, fascist.

It was bad enough that the Supreme Court ruled the Corporation is a person with all the rights that implies, it was worse when it ruled that the only purpose of the Corporation is profit. Citizens United and McCutcheon almost certainly will destroy US governance as we know it to allow virtually unlimited amounts of money to buy elections. Lawrence Lessig has made the case in his book, "Republic, Lost" that money in politics is corrupting. . . and so it is. See his video

A corporate person whose only motive is profit is a sociopath. He doesn't care if the planet is destroyed by his pollution. He has no loyalty to community. He is no patriot for he has no binds of citizenship and will move to the lowest wage, least regulated country, avoids all taxes by keeping profits offshore, and will buy as many politicians as necessary to mold policy in his favor. and so it is that corporations have set us on a (geologically) fast path to destruction.

Republicans allowed lobbyists to draft legislation for monopoly industries and they created ALEC. This policy has led to massive redistribution of income (upward), restructuring of the economy, corrupt politics, extreme income inequality, and an economy that is unfair, unjust. unstable, and unsustainable.

The Court substantially increased the influence of money in elections with citizens united, expanded gun rights, and removed barriers to Republican voter suppression.

The Citizens United and McKutcheon rulings will complete our transition to an oligarchy. Elections clearly are for sale now. There is no reason to think that the system will self-correct barring structural change.

All of the economic gains for the last three decades have gone to the very top.

Recent studies show that Congress responds to the preferences of the wealthy, not the people. The Federal budget is about the reverse of what people, when polled, would want. We have reached new extremes of income inequality and, according to scholar Thomas Piketty, it's going to get worse. The U.S. is now an oligopoly, not a democracy.

Republicans allowed lobbyists to draft legislation for monopoly industries and they created ALEC. This policy has led to massive concentration of power in private hands, corrupt media, redistributed income upward, restructured the economy, corrupted politics, and led to extreme income inequality. The economy is unfair, unjust. unstable, and unsustainable.

None of this is accidental, it is the result of policy. Lawrence Lessig's book, Republic, Lost documents that we have a government that is responsive to the funders, not the people. The Supreme Court has been treasonous in facilitating this fascist coup.

The Court has been oblivious to other threats to civil liberties or rights of privacy that are essential to freedom. In its 2012-2013 term The Court ruled against journalists and other civil liberties advocates who tried to oppose surveillance. The all-Republican majority ruled that the plaintiffs have no right to litigate because they could not prove that the secret techniques harmed them. Thus they destroyed Americans privacy rights. Universal surveillance will make Orwell's vision look tame.

Selecting Bush President resulted in two wars at a cost estimated at $4 trillion accompanied by tax breaks for the wealthiest, a full-scale assault on civil liberties, a an invasive, ineffective 'homeland security' bureaucracy, criminal acts including torture, rendition, warrentless wiretapping, secret government, and an agenda that will make us a fascist militarized empire. In selecting Bush, the Court assured the wreck of our republic. Glenn Greenwald writes in his book "With Liberty and Justice For Some" that the law no longer applies to the elite, but is harsh for everyone else.

We have the world's largest military policing the empire, the largest prison population, rotting infrastructure, the worst income disparity, weak social programs. financially devastating education, and universal surveillance. All of the economic gains for the last three decades have gone to the very top.


The Republican justices don't believe that international law should have a bearing on our laws. A world shrunk by globalization requires the stabilizing efforts of global institutions. Republicans are not prepared to join the global community of nations. Unlike the EU, we still have the death penalty.

Because a single justice can be the swing vote for many decisions, it is important to expand the number of judges.

Corporations are not people.

Profit is not the highest motive.

Money is not speech.

See this letter from Ralph Nader: http://www.nancho.net/corperson/cpnadrsa.html

Reform

  • Pass legislation that the Supreme Court must adhere to the same ethical standards as the lower Courts.
  • Amend the Constitution to roll back Corporate personhood, Citizens United, and McCutchceon.
  • Increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court because the Court is divided in such a way that a single individual can make fundamental decisions. More judges on the Court, as most other countries have, would make for better decisions. FDR attempted this, and he should have succeeded.
  • Nullify the Court's right of review. James McGregor Burns wrote: "John Marshall was wrong: it is emphatically the province and duty of the American people, not of the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court, to say what the Constitution is. A national reappraisal of the all-powerful court chosen by judicial roulette is crucial if American democracy is to meet the rising challenges of the twenty-first century." (From the last page of Burns' Packing the Court.)

Meanwhile, sign this Petition

and this petition

Get involved at Move to Amend

Pledge For Democracy

a Constitutional Convention.

We should expand the Supreme Court

Nullify the Court's right of review.

James McGregor Burns put it this way:
"John Marshall was wrong: it is emphatically the province and duty of the American people, not of the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court, to say what the Constitution is. A national reappraisal of the all-powerful court chosen by judicial roulette is crucial if American democracy is to meet the rising challenges of the twenty-first century." (From the last page of James McGregor Burns' Packing the Court.)

The Constitutional "originalists" will not find the judicial right of review anywhere in the Constitution.

Sign the petition at rootsaction.

Fooling With Democracy (4/9/2014)

Chris Murphy Bill To End Supreme Court Immunity to Judicial Ethics Law (2/18/2011)

Justice Roberts: A hard lesson in Why Elections Matter (3/18/2010)

A Supreme Injustice

The Corporate Takeover of U.S. Democracy (2/3/2010)

5-4 Fascism One Court, One Man, One Vote, One Tyranny

Don’t Let Supreme Court Giveaway to Corporations Wreck Our Economy (2/2/2010)

Worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case (1/22/2010)

How Dubya’s court may undo democracy (9/20/2009)

Lawrence Lessig video

Sundays I wait patiently for the start of the "60 minutes" program which is one of the last vestiges of television journalism. It is almost invariably delayed by a sports program, which undoubtedly confuses TIVO and keeps viewership down. "60 minutes" like other corporate conglomerate broadcasts, is increasingly undisguised right-wing propaganda.

One of the direct results of corporate rule is rendering media dysfunctional.

For example, when Supreme Court Justice Scalia was profiled on 60 minutes, he spoke on varied subjects, but on Bush v Gore, which selected Bush as President in 2000, he said simply "Get over it." Thanks to Greg Palast, writing for the British press, we now know that there was wholesale election rigging in Florida that year. An honest recount of the votes would likely have made Gore President. Scalia was unrepentant. Now the whole world can see that the Court's decision was likely the worst one ever made. Bush proved it. Instead of two pre-emptive wars, we might have addressed climate change before it was too late. It does not take a Supreme Court Judge to know we shouldn't get over the idea that elections no longer have meaning.

Scalia claimed to be an 'originalist', which he explained is the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted as the framers intended. However, when V.P. Cheney met with people to decide energy policy and kept it secret, Scalia, Cheney's good friend, ruled that Congress could not know details of those meetings. The Constitution clearly intended that Congress should have oversight powers because, without that, there can be no 'checks and balances'. Given two new Bush additions to the Court, it is unlikely that the Bush administration's concept of the imperial Presidency will be overturned. This Scalia decision wiped out Congressional oversight, checks and balances, and certainly crippled the Constitution. In the interview Scalia, like many Republicans, just couldn't seem to figure out what torture is either. Citizens United propelled us toward fascism, now reached now that Trump has reached office.

Scalia strongly defended executive power, opposes the Freedom of Information Act, and weakens the checks and balances that the Constitution incorporated. Without good information there can be no democracy. He is an enemy of good government.

After Scalia's profile, there followed exciting pictures of the Israeli air force preparing for action against Iran. Such pictures are reminiscent of propaganda leading to the War with Iraq: If the President wants to go to war with Iran, is anyone in position to stop him ? The Constitution gives the power to make war to the Congress because the framers knew the danger. Does it matter what the Constitution says ?

None of the later Presidential candidates rejected Bush's aggressive power grab, nor have they rejected his secretiveness, his signing statements, or his refusal to be accountable. It is questionable whether we can have a meaningful Constitution if Bush is not held accountable. Scalia's hypocrisy is evident for anyone that cares to look. Trump has pledged to appoint justices just like him and has likely succeeded.

Media had a large role in (s)electing Bush, cheerled his wars, broadcast his propaganda, and are continuing to consolidate their oligopoly and are largely responsible for our path to fascism, but the Supreme Court sealed the deal with Citizens United.

SCALIA THINKS IT'S OK TO EXECUTE SOMEONE FOUND INNOCENT BY THE COURTS (8/18/2009)

Jon Wiener | Rupert Murdoch paid Clarence Thomas $1.5 million for his new memoir. Doesn't that create an "appearance of impropriety"?

Bibliography

The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America by Michael Waldman

The Scheme, How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse & Jennifer Mueller

NINE BLACK ROBES: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences, by Joan Biskupic

Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences by Joan Biskupic

???????? by Dahlia Lithwick

The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America By Adam Cohen

PRESUMED GUILTY,How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights by Erwin Chemerinsky

Justice Deferred, Race and the Supreme Court By Orville Vernon Burton and Armand Derfner

Dissent: The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court by Jackie Calmes.

The Court and The Cross, the Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court Frederick S. Lane. (2008)

Law and Legitimacy in the Supreme Court by Richard H. Fallon Jr

The Agenda: How a Republican Supreme Court is Reshaping America by Ian Millhiser

The People Who Own the Country Ought to Govern It: The Supreme Court, hegemony, and Its Consequences (1983)

SUPREME INEQUALITY: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America, Adam Cohen

The Political Constitution: The Case Against Judicial Supremacy. Greg Weiner

The Most Dangerous Branch, Inside the Supreme Court's Assault on the Constitution: David A. Kaplan

The Case Against The Supreme Court: Erwin Chermerinsky

American Oligarchy, The permanent Political Class: Ron Formisano

The Court and the World, American Law and the New Global Realities: Stephen Breyer

Celebrity Justice, Supreme Court Edition: Richard L. Hasen

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It: Lawrence Lessig (links). Free pdf download

Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People: Jamin Raskin

Dollarocracy: John Nichols and Robert W McChesney

With Liberty and Justice for Some, how the law is used to destroy equality and protect the powerful: Glenn Greenwald

The Conservative Assault on the Constitution: Erwin Chemerinsky

Packing the Court: James MacGregor Burns

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court: Jeffrey Toobin

Storm Center : Professor David O’Brien

Strange Justice, the Selling of Clarence Thomas: Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson. Read this awesome book to appreciate Republicans in action. Read it all.

Vincent Bugliosi, The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, (2001) ISBN 1-56025-355-X

Supreme Injustice: How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000, (2001) Alan M. Dershowitz, ISBN 0-19-514827-4