Supreme Court
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The king of dark money effectively controls the US supreme court now (6/30/2023)
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Fix the Court: term limit the justices. Opus Dei’s Influence on the U.S. Judiciary Report of the Commission on the Supreme Court Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court [SCOTUS] has set a Poor National DirectionGovernment 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.
SCOTUS is inherently undemocratic, but not only that it is anti-democratic, like the GOP.
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. 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.
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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 ElectionsCampaign 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 democracySCOTUS 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 UnaccountableSCOTUS 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.
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 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 LawSCOTUS 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
Guns for Everyone
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
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 SupremacyThe 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 DamageAll 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 StateSince 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.
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 AgreementsThe 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 CourtSupreme 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 bleakOligopoly 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.
"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)
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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)
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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:
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)
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