March 3, 2020
By Jonathan Turley
One of my favorite stories (click here) about Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is from one of his train trips to Washington. Holmes forgot his ticket but the train conductor reassured him, “Do not worry about your ticket. We all know who you are. When you get to your destination, you can find it and just mail it to us.” Holmes responded, “My dear man, the problem is not my ticket. The problem is, where am I going?”
Chief Justice John Roberts may have the same uncertainty this week as he finds himself on track to two decisions that will define him and the court. Once heralded as a reliable conservative, Roberts became the swing vote with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Now conservatives are unsure if Roberts will deliver or deflect a coup de grâce with decisions on ObamaCare and abortion. In both cases, he will grapple with his previous views that would push him to vote for decisions with sweeping impacts. For a chief justice who gets sticker shock at such moments, Roberts may find himself evading his prior self in shaping the future court....
I believe power has gone to the brain of Justice Roberts. I think he is rehearsing for the "Boss Chair" on Celebrity Apprentice. Appearing in the US Senate and having a say to the impeachment proceedings has sincerely loosened the lips of the Chief now seeking to be the Commander and Chief of the Supreme Court. His demeanor with the issue of a Democratic rally is completely wrong with no exceptions. I also believe Senator Schumer who is the minority leader of the US Senate was absolutely correct in his criticism.
So, besides Alito there is another ideologue in the Chief's chair. It took him awhile, but, he is finding his voice.
The issue here is the idea that the USA is a melting pot. It is not a melting pot although it allows the Republicans to characterize their moralizing as upholding the USA Constitution. Since the Warren Burger was Chief Justice (click here) there has been a chronic deterioration of both the Republican Party, but, also individual rights along with them.
...Although Burger was a lifelong Republican, many of the landmark decisions issued during his tenure represented clear liberal victories. For example, In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education (1971), the Court issued a unanimous ruling supporting busing as a pragmatic approach to reduce de facto racial segregation in schools. However, Burger’s conservatism can be seen in opinions such as his concurring opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which upheld a Georgia law criminalizing sodomy.
When Burger retired in September of 1986, he was the longest serving Chief Justice of the 20th century. He was also a fundamental proponent of Alternative Dispute Resolution, citing its ability to alleviate an overburdened judicial system....
...Conclusions (click here)
Warren Burger served seventeen years at Chief Justice. “His” Court was a transitional court, pragmatic and flexible, consolidating Warren Court jurisprudence in some areas, turning away from it in others and creating some new law on its own. As Chief Justice, Burger was not the intellectual leader of his court, if, indeed, his court had such a leader. While nobody can gainsay the enormous energy and commitment Burger brought to his office, arguably he might have spread himself too thin to have been at his most effective in attempting to lead the Supreme Court. Part of Burger’s legacy can, of course, be seen in his opinions. This paper suggests that in areas such as First Amendment speech, press and religion, racial civil rights and separation of powers, those opinions and others have so far survived the test of time. Burger also made an important contribution to federal and state judicial administration by helping to create important new institutions and spurring innovations that aided efficiency....
On a rare occasion I am asked by one who reads this blog, "How can you embrace the people of another country with ferocious alliance and yet stand to protect abortion in the USA. Isn't that fundamentally flawed and illogical." "No, it isn't." But, first one has to accept the fact the USA, according to the First Amendment, is not a melting pot at all, while accepting one's own morals as only one's own and not a burden to others.
I always believed the Burger Court was the beginning of the real implications of the US Constitution by upholding the fact each American has personal identity and power that does not cross to violations of the Rule of Law.
It is a fine balance that Warren Burger adhered in his a long stretch of authority as Chief Justice. He realize the laws of the USA have broad sweeping authority and while well intentioned also impact individuals adversely. I am not defending the sodomy issue, that is not moralizing so much as understanding as far as I am concerned. There was no "OUTING" during this period of time in the USA and any underground that was established by J. Edgar Hoover (click here) is a national shame today.
Fortas (click here) has been in the news recently because of inaccurate Republican claims about the history of the filibuster and the history of judicial appointments. In 1968 Fortas, who had served as an Associate Justice since 1965, was nominated by President Lyndon Johnson to replace Earl Warren as Chief Justice. Fortas was denied confirmation because of a Republican-led filibuster in the U.S. Senate. According to historians who have studied the episode, the filibuster was motivated in part by concerns about financial improprieties and in part by objections to Fortas’s close ties to Johnson (the two reasons commonly invoked by journalists), but also by false allegations made by Senator Strom Thurmond (and others) about Fortas’s roles in a set of rape and obscenity cases and by anti-Semitic objections to what would have been the nation’s first Jewish Chief Justice. Because of the timing of these developments, Republican Richard Nixon, elected in November 1968, gained the power to appoint Warren’s successor, and in 1969 the Democratic-led Senate confirmed Nixon’s nominee Warren Burger. Fortas resigned from the Court in 1969 and was replaced by Harry Blackmun, also nominated by Nixon....
Kalman writes (on page 375),
Other gossip was more startling. No one who knew of Fortas’s enthusiastic heterosexuality would ever have accused him of homosexuality, but [New York Times reporter Fred] Graham and [Life magazine reporter William] Lambert were told, presumably by sources within the government who offered to ‘bootleg’ the information ‘out of the FBI’, that the FBI had a morals file on Fortas that included allegations he had once been involved in a sexual relationship with a teenage boy. Regardless of their truth, such stories were damaging....
But, to return to the idea the USA as a melting pot is important. Most of the people in the USA are from decedents that came to the USA for a new life. The ONLY people in the USA that can state otherwise are Native Americans and with that enters a subject called genocidal. Power of the gun can corrupt absolutely. There is also a strong argument that African Americans are the victims of power as well.
The idea the USA is a melting pot came during the years of immigration through Ellis Island. The idea of a melting pot is not only incorrect, but, stigmatizing and in the 'wordiness' of the GOP as it describes the RIGHT to demand assimilation rather than individuality. We saw the idea of "assimilation" during the years of "W" as president. That entire concept needs to be buried under vast amounts of court documents never to return again.
The USA, according to the First Amendment, allows for many beliefs including that of agnostic and atheism. The human being is safe in the USA so long as they recognize and obey the Rule of Law., even then their safety is demanded the four writs (click here).
I believe Robert's is stepping outside of his judicial robes as an ideologue willing to be talked about in the fan club of FOX News. To with that reality comes the question to his fitness for the public trust.
There are a few things at play with the so called conservative judges. First the corruption handed them by the private sector is known to some Americans, but, not all. Why not become corrupt in the core beliefs of one's practice if it pays off in free golf outings and otherwise.
October 3, 2011
By Pam Martens
For the past three years (click here) the U.S. has been served up a heaping dose of free market creative destruction that is the sine qua non of legions of corporate funded front groups. First Wall Street, then housing, now the nation’s highest court have been brought low by its force. As it turns out, creative destruction is 90 percent corruption and 10 percent creative.
The Citizens United case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010, opened the spigots to unlimited corporate money in elections and put free speech for inanimate, unfeeling corporations on equal footing with free speech for humans with a brain and a heart. But it didn’t pass the smell test from day one; four of the nine Justices on the court said so in a scathing dissent that raised the issue of unprincipled behavior on the part of the 5-judge majority which ruled on issues that were not legally before the court.
The unpleasant aroma of that decision enveloped Justice Clarence Thomas over his all-expenses-paid, four-day luxury trip to the January 2008 Koch brothers confab in the Palm Springs area of California. (According to his 2008 disclosure form and the Supreme Court’s public information office, his expenses for that trip were paid by the Federalist Society, a conservative nonprofit that the Koch foundations have given $1.9 million to, from 1991 through 2009.)...
The corruption of the conservative judges is real, obvious, overt and allowed, after all they are Americans, too. Other Americans can enjoy free travel gifts why can't the Supreme Court?
The obvious answer is that corruption of any kind should never be tolerated in the USA. Ever! And such corruption should result in impeachment of judges in the federal system and possibly state systems where federal authority joins with the states in decisions.
Corruption has been imposing itself on the USA governments from local to federal and it is that imposition that is not punished in respect of the Rule of Law. The STATUS QUO alienates the power structure of the USA from it's people. It is wrong and needs to end. Roberts is a good example of many things. Alito is just pathetic.
I remember Alito at his confirmation hearings, the question regarding the display of religious artifacts in public spaces was answered to the Republican Senator as "I believe the public square should be robust." That, of course, means put Jesus' manger in every corner of America. That answer brings me to the Second lesson of Justice Roberts' revelations of US Senator Schumer.
June 3, 2019
By Dylan Matthews and Byrd Pinkerton
Amanda Hollis-Brusky (click here) explains how a student group came to control GOP court nominations....
...As part of our research on the Olin Foundation for the Future Perfect podcast, we talked to Amanda Hollis-Brusky, a political scientist at Pomona College who wrote a book on the Federalist Society. She described the group’s origins, its current power, and the role that funding plays in its success. We couldn’t include the interview on the podcast itself, but it’s a valuable conversation. So we decided to share it here, lightly edited for length and clarity....
...You now have a five-justice majority on the Supreme Court, all of whom are [connected to] the Federalist Society: Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas — who has been called by Federalist Society members the closest thing to a pure Federalist Society judge — and, of course, Trump’s appointments, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh....
...The money enables them to expand. It enables them to hire someone like Leonard Leo, who is the vice president....
...National Lawyers Convention, which is like a ball for the who’s who in the conservative legal movement, and a national student convention...
...Where the funding has made the most difference is in the kinds of events that you see in the law schools. Students tell me and faculty tell me, no matter what side of the political spectrum they come from, they’ll always attend the Federal Society events because they have the best food and the best alcohol.
Their events have more of the trappings of power....
The Federalist Society is singularly toxic and money enables their demise of the USA Constitution.
July 9, 2018
By Jay Michaelson
...At the center of the network (click here) is Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, the association of legal professionals that has been the pipeline for nearly all of Trump’s judicial nominees. (Leo is on leave from the Federalist Society to personally assist Trump in picking a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy.) His formal title is executive vice president, but that role belies Leo’s influence....
And the Federalist Society demand for PROMINENT RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE of singularly the far right. They pick on Pope Francis as a leisure time activity. So, Leo is not only demanding judges out of the Federalist Society to demise the USA Constitution, he also loves his power and believes the Pope is in error of understanding the scripture. Really?
...Leo is a member of the secretive, extremely conservative Knights of Malta, a Catholic order founded in the 12th century that functions as a quasi-independent sovereign nation with its own diplomatic corps (separate from the Vatican), United Nations status, and a tremendous amount of money and land.
The Knights, which recently have tussled with Pope Francis and resisted his calls for reform, take their own set of vows, as monks do. On the surface, the primary work of the order is humanitarian work around the globe, but it is also home to noted Catholic conservatives including Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, a frequent foe of the reformist pope.
“Leonard’s faith is paramount to him,” Carter said. “When he traveled, staff members had to find him a church near where he was staying so he could say [attend] Mass every day.”...
...In 2011, Leo played a leading role in successfully opposing an Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York that was maligned by the right as the “Ground Zero Mosque” (it wasn’t a mosque and was several blocks from Ground Zero). Leo was the director of Liberty Central, a Tea Party affiliated group he co-founded with Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, that organized a petition against the center....
So, the right wing is an extremist group. If they have their way, the USA Constitution will never again bring about equity in voting, education or religious beliefs and women need to learn their proper place in the larger scheme of things. Baby making is paramount to any woman's dream before her career of choice and her ability to support large families. That in turn, by the way, has lead to impoverished families losing their children to capitalism and "the system" because their financial allegiance is so very bad to support capitalism. After all, children are innocent and it is not their fault they were born into a poor family with no interest in high finance and Wall Street, yet alone the inability to pull themselves out of poverty.
As to abortion:
It is not a minority or majority issue, it directly relates to the health of a woman.
Does poor reproductive health (click here) prevent poor women from escaping poverty? Despite the plethora of survey data showing that poor households tend to be larger and that poor women tend to have higher rates of fertility, experts have debated whether these conditions cause poverty or are symptoms of poverty. In research funded by the MacArthur Foundation and published by the World Bank, Thomas Merrick and I found that poor reproductive health outcomes—early childbearing, maternal mortality/morbidity, and unintended/ mistimed pregnancy—have negative effects on overall health, and, under certain circumstances, on education and household well-being....
First abortion is outlawed and then contraception is on the chopping block. The right wing of the USA is not the authority most women need in life. Take for instance the rumors about Judge Alito's wife having an affair and seeking an abortion to the fact the baby she was carrying was not the Justice's conception.
Those scenarios are true to women and when a country like the USA doesn't pay women an equal wage or opportunity, there are all sorts of decisions that have to be made for a variety of reasons.
Then with the idea an abortion doctor has to have admitting privileges to carry out a practice in abortion leaves many, many questions to the "Out of Hospital" procedures that have become so famously demanded by the Health Care Insurance Lobby. "Back on your feet and back to work everyone." It is good for their bottom line.
If abortion clinic physicians are demanded to have hospital admitting privileges what do we do with "The Hospitalist" movement? Many General Practitioners in the USA use HOSPITALIST (a growing specialist movement) to care for their hospitalized patients. What happens then to the General Practitioners and the demand they have admitting privileges. Do General Practitioners not call Paramedics that don't have admitting privileges to bring their patients to the ER where an Emergency Room Physician (normally having a surgical background) will assess, order and treat and possibly admit a patient to the hospital?
The entire ATTITUDE by Alito and Roberts have heavy consequences to the American landscape. Besides being misogynists, they are also uprooting decades of change for the American Health Care Paradigm and literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The implication of assigning abortions a special standing in the demands for admitting privileges is absolute gender discrimination and will not be contained to abortions only over time. Such judges have to be taken seriously in their hatred of autonomous thinking by women. Their own ideologies MUST be their downfall.
Corruption this deep in the USA democracy is a threat to all Americans and it's STATUS QUO standing is dangerous.
Throw the bums out and all the legislators that see the world as tainted as Alito and Roberts, too!
