The laws of this land have been so gutted by "the supremes" and congress which favor the wealthy that huge action must be taken to bring back anti corruption laws and enforcing anti trust laws. I've spent probably 8 hour on hold with these conglomerate asking for support and not getting it. And, last fall at least the same amount of time and things just keep getting worse. There is no customer support on products or services. Bring back people and pay them a decent living wage who have been trained and can complete tasks. No more robots on telephone or the damn so called "chat with reps" but only provide a few problems and they most of the time are not what I am calling about.
Thanks to Thom and his team for assembling this remarkable potpourri of corruption, where the rules to enable corruption were created by corrupt SCOTUS decision-makers who abuse those rules regularly. (It's kind of Escherian in its evilness.) Since the same bribery/coercion rules hold true for the one entity (Congress) that is charged with making sure that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” we are Catch-22ed.
Once again there isn’t a horrible human-caused situation that Thom writes about which isn’t caused, exacerbated, or exploited by the powers of corporate personhood, and this is a perfect example. I believe that the success of Move to Amend and their We the People Amendment is crucial if we are to reverse our backsliding democracy and compel our public sector decision-makers to satisfy their Constitutional purpose instead of their corporate and sectarian masters.
The fillibuster also needs to be abolished. The Biden Administration took a passive stance to the whole idea of expanding the court, another unfortunate lost opportunity.
Actually, for my money (or actually, for the money of those who attended the 2 law schools) the best access to supreme court justices is simply having lunch at the yale or harvard club.
Eg, The aclu has obtained information about police chief ray kelley's meetings with powerful people at the harvard club, but more on point.... paul singer (harvard law graduate) supposedly had a nice little talk with justice anthony kennedy at the harvard club, and ... voila!.... a gay marriage decision!
Fugghedabout the historical society, the harvard club is the place to be!
And you have to love CNBC for all the worthwhile information they put out even this morning Barry Sternlicht, prime and hedge fund manager was explaining how there's really no one in the world that cares about climate change. It's all AOC and any intention for a green new deal is with AOC.
Now we wouldn't expect a prominent hedge fund manager, like Sternlicht to actually read the annual report of a company like shell oil, would we? No way I mean those things are based on official company policy and they are subject to liability under strict anti-fraud statues, so why would we care about such things? Well, if we did care, we would say that oil majors just like shell are committed not only to the Paris accords but to stronger limitations on warming to even less than 2% - and they insist that an immediate transformation away from fossil fuels is absolutely necessary.
But again, who cares what major public energy companies are saying? we can just blame the whole thing on AOC and the NBC network and it's affiliates will carry this every single day!
So depressing; perhaps naively, we would like to think that the Court had some semblance of independence but, no. Can you imagine dinner with Beer Bong Brett? He'd be absolutely faced and would probably face-plant right into his dinner. I think he was hung over and probably had a few shots, maybe a line or two, the morning of his hearings. All my alcoholic-in-recovery friends think so too. We know one when we see one. Dude was crying, for God's sake. What a jerk.
I am continually perplexed as to how deeply the ‘Rot’ goes in the Supreme Court and other Republican owned government institutions . It is suffocating truth in
the Congressional House of Representatives at this time.
All of these corrupt politicians pay homage to the oil corporations and other rapists of the environment and the electoral process.
It never ends .
It doesn’t matter how criminal the member of the House is.
Kevin McCarthy, another faucet of corruption is rewarding these criminals w plum committee. assignments where they can do the most damage.
The infamous Marjorie T Greene to Homeland Security. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be laughable.
She was an open proponent of the attempted Trump Coup, who only ‘wished the attempted Coup was in fact won ‘ by these miscreants . She is a disciple of Donald Trump, the lying wannabe Dictator who arranged the coup w the help of other criminals. Louis Gosar and his gang of merry but equally corrupt bad men. All committee assignments when they should be in jail .
This of course supported by the oh so pious But more corrupt Supreme Court who has the gall to pretend they have things under control.
Ask John Roberts .
After all of the nefarious actions to establish these “Justices?”
There has been a coup in progress for the past 40 years with more and more power being assumed by right wing judges in the USA. No need to deal with democratically elected legislators doing the bidding of the right wing extremists when Supreme Court judges can change the law overnight. No available resourse as a practical matter as the Republicans only need to block the others to maintain the status quo - and that is their game. Delay progress on civil rights and block progress on climate change and above all maintain the gravey train and pork barrel spending on the ag corporations and the oil and weapons industries and our bloated military.
I am nearing the end of my life but if I was graduating from high school at this point in time I would deciding to which country to emigrate and further my education and establish a new life in a democracy.
The current R majority on the Supreme Court is comprised of corrupt, ideological and religious zealots. They are reactionary and radical, not "Conservative". Their strategy is to promote Insurrectionist Ginni Thomas's far-right-wing and her affiliate's agenda and undermine our democracy. They are also shameless. The empirical consequences of their decisions to gut the Voting Rights Act, Citizens United, and Roe belie their stated rationales and show zero respect for decades of bi-partisan, congressionally enacted laws. They have taken us back to Jim Crow, the Robber Barons, and back-alley abortions by design, while legislating from the bench. Their rulings mock our Founder's efforts to create a living Constitution.
In fact, women and families had more reproductive freedom while the Constitution was being written than they do today in several States. The logic of the 1st ,4th, 13th and 14th amendment has been completely violated by the current majority. You don't have the protection of religious freedom when States are allowed to determine if and when conception begins and other religious and personal criteria of viability and bodily autonomy. We don't have protections against illegal search and seizure when the SCOTUS supports efforts to reward vigilantes who may spy on private citizens searching for evidence of pregnancy, and the private and personal decisions made between doctors and patients. Feingold and McCain was passed as recently as 2002 for good reason and represented almost 100 years of congressional, bi-partisan legislation to limit the amount of money in politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act
Yet, the R majority on the SCOTUS, in defiance of our democracy and the will of the people overruled these efforts on behalf of corporations and right-wing billionaires who have more interest in autocracy than democracy. This radical, reactionary Court postulated without verifiable evidence we no longer needed to protect voting rights, and even after they were proven incorrect, they've continued to persist with their legislation, in defiance of Congress, Americans, and reality:
This makes me disrespect every person that has been on the Court since the 70's. It is the fact that they never told us or talked about it. The whole scenario is a study in corruption and undue influence.
I have been through several things in my work-life where I had to choose between my integrity and some folks I really liked and worked with or for. I chose to do my job, speak up, and do the right thing.
When someone has their level of knowledge of the law, recusal and corruption are rudimentary.
They call themselves Justice? Mark me down for thoroughly disgusted!
The current R majority on the Supreme Court is comprised of corrupt, ideological and religious zealots. Their only rationale is to promote Ginni Thomas's far right-wing, religious and ideological agendas, and undermine our democracy. They are also shameless. The empirical results of their decisions to gut the Voting Rights Act and Citizen United belie their stated rationales and show zero respect for decades of bi-partisan, Congressionally enacted laws. They have taken us back to Jim Crow and Robber Barons by design, as a result of their legislating and violating the Constitution from the bench.
I hate to nitpick, but.... Referring to former Chief Justice as Warren Berger - it's Burger - detracts from the extreme seriousness of the piece. It makes Hartmann appear sloppy, which I know he isn't.
This is exactly why the Court needs to enact a Judicial Code of Conduct. But they wont. The congress needs to use their power- under the Constitution- to rein in these corrupt pack of Justices. Jefferson was correct in his fear of too much power the Judiciary was given. He was especially furious after the courts Marbury v Madison decision. This is when his cousin; Chief Justice John Marshall, actually expanded the courts Judicial Review process. Marshall drew a distinction between political and individual rights. In Gordon S. Wood's "Empire of Liberty" he sites Marshall's reasoning for this expansion of Judicial Review. Marshall examined the difference between political and individual rights. Due to the length of Woods writing; I will only give a part of Woods description. Marshall writes "...questions involving the vested rights of individuals were different (from political); they were in their nature judicial, and must be tried by the judicial authority." By turning all questions of individual rights into exclusively judicial issues, Marshall appropriated an enormous amount of authority for the courts. Woods book is an amazing read of American History. "Empire of Liberty" A history of the Early Republic 1789-1815.
So mega-thousands of dollars pour into the SCOTUS "Historical Society." Other than benefiting from private jet flights and resort trips, can justices dip into this fund for personal use and is there any evidence they have?
The laws of this land have been so gutted by "the supremes" and congress which favor the wealthy that huge action must be taken to bring back anti corruption laws and enforcing anti trust laws. I've spent probably 8 hour on hold with these conglomerate asking for support and not getting it. And, last fall at least the same amount of time and things just keep getting worse. There is no customer support on products or services. Bring back people and pay them a decent living wage who have been trained and can complete tasks. No more robots on telephone or the damn so called "chat with reps" but only provide a few problems and they most of the time are not what I am calling about.
Thanks to Thom and his team for assembling this remarkable potpourri of corruption, where the rules to enable corruption were created by corrupt SCOTUS decision-makers who abuse those rules regularly. (It's kind of Escherian in its evilness.) Since the same bribery/coercion rules hold true for the one entity (Congress) that is charged with making sure that “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” we are Catch-22ed.
Once again there isn’t a horrible human-caused situation that Thom writes about which isn’t caused, exacerbated, or exploited by the powers of corporate personhood, and this is a perfect example. I believe that the success of Move to Amend and their We the People Amendment is crucial if we are to reverse our backsliding democracy and compel our public sector decision-makers to satisfy their Constitutional purpose instead of their corporate and sectarian masters.
The fillibuster also needs to be abolished. The Biden Administration took a passive stance to the whole idea of expanding the court, another unfortunate lost opportunity.
Actually, for my money (or actually, for the money of those who attended the 2 law schools) the best access to supreme court justices is simply having lunch at the yale or harvard club.
Eg, The aclu has obtained information about police chief ray kelley's meetings with powerful people at the harvard club, but more on point.... paul singer (harvard law graduate) supposedly had a nice little talk with justice anthony kennedy at the harvard club, and ... voila!.... a gay marriage decision!
Fugghedabout the historical society, the harvard club is the place to be!
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/6/28/law-profs-same-sex-marriage/
Oh no .... Even msnbc is on to this little secret....
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/26/the-hedge-fund-managers-who-pushed-for-gay-marriage.html
Cnbc that it is.
And you have to love CNBC for all the worthwhile information they put out even this morning Barry Sternlicht, prime and hedge fund manager was explaining how there's really no one in the world that cares about climate change. It's all AOC and any intention for a green new deal is with AOC.
Now we wouldn't expect a prominent hedge fund manager, like Sternlicht to actually read the annual report of a company like shell oil, would we? No way I mean those things are based on official company policy and they are subject to liability under strict anti-fraud statues, so why would we care about such things? Well, if we did care, we would say that oil majors just like shell are committed not only to the Paris accords but to stronger limitations on warming to even less than 2% - and they insist that an immediate transformation away from fossil fuels is absolutely necessary.
But again, who cares what major public energy companies are saying? we can just blame the whole thing on AOC and the NBC network and it's affiliates will carry this every single day!
Read the real thing here:
https://reports.shell.com/annual-report/2021/strategic-report/climate-change-and-energy-transition.html
A Better link is here, but be sure to get past the disclaimer and read shell's actual sections on climate transition
https://reports.shell.com/sustainability-report/2021/
So depressing; perhaps naively, we would like to think that the Court had some semblance of independence but, no. Can you imagine dinner with Beer Bong Brett? He'd be absolutely faced and would probably face-plant right into his dinner. I think he was hung over and probably had a few shots, maybe a line or two, the morning of his hearings. All my alcoholic-in-recovery friends think so too. We know one when we see one. Dude was crying, for God's sake. What a jerk.
I am continually perplexed as to how deeply the ‘Rot’ goes in the Supreme Court and other Republican owned government institutions . It is suffocating truth in
the Congressional House of Representatives at this time.
All of these corrupt politicians pay homage to the oil corporations and other rapists of the environment and the electoral process.
It never ends .
It doesn’t matter how criminal the member of the House is.
Kevin McCarthy, another faucet of corruption is rewarding these criminals w plum committee. assignments where they can do the most damage.
The infamous Marjorie T Greene to Homeland Security. If it wasn’t so tragic it would be laughable.
She was an open proponent of the attempted Trump Coup, who only ‘wished the attempted Coup was in fact won ‘ by these miscreants . She is a disciple of Donald Trump, the lying wannabe Dictator who arranged the coup w the help of other criminals. Louis Gosar and his gang of merry but equally corrupt bad men. All committee assignments when they should be in jail .
This of course supported by the oh so pious But more corrupt Supreme Court who has the gall to pretend they have things under control.
Ask John Roberts .
After all of the nefarious actions to establish these “Justices?”
One has to wonder .
Do they think they are fooling us?
Please.
There has been a coup in progress for the past 40 years with more and more power being assumed by right wing judges in the USA. No need to deal with democratically elected legislators doing the bidding of the right wing extremists when Supreme Court judges can change the law overnight. No available resourse as a practical matter as the Republicans only need to block the others to maintain the status quo - and that is their game. Delay progress on civil rights and block progress on climate change and above all maintain the gravey train and pork barrel spending on the ag corporations and the oil and weapons industries and our bloated military.
I am nearing the end of my life but if I was graduating from high school at this point in time I would deciding to which country to emigrate and further my education and establish a new life in a democracy.
The current R majority on the Supreme Court is comprised of corrupt, ideological and religious zealots. They are reactionary and radical, not "Conservative". Their strategy is to promote Insurrectionist Ginni Thomas's far-right-wing and her affiliate's agenda and undermine our democracy. They are also shameless. The empirical consequences of their decisions to gut the Voting Rights Act, Citizens United, and Roe belie their stated rationales and show zero respect for decades of bi-partisan, congressionally enacted laws. They have taken us back to Jim Crow, the Robber Barons, and back-alley abortions by design, while legislating from the bench. Their rulings mock our Founder's efforts to create a living Constitution.
In fact, women and families had more reproductive freedom while the Constitution was being written than they do today in several States. The logic of the 1st ,4th, 13th and 14th amendment has been completely violated by the current majority. You don't have the protection of religious freedom when States are allowed to determine if and when conception begins and other religious and personal criteria of viability and bodily autonomy. We don't have protections against illegal search and seizure when the SCOTUS supports efforts to reward vigilantes who may spy on private citizens searching for evidence of pregnancy, and the private and personal decisions made between doctors and patients. Feingold and McCain was passed as recently as 2002 for good reason and represented almost 100 years of congressional, bi-partisan legislation to limit the amount of money in politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipartisan_Campaign_Reform_Act
Yet, the R majority on the SCOTUS, in defiance of our democracy and the will of the people overruled these efforts on behalf of corporations and right-wing billionaires who have more interest in autocracy than democracy. This radical, reactionary Court postulated without verifiable evidence we no longer needed to protect voting rights, and even after they were proven incorrect, they've continued to persist with their legislation, in defiance of Congress, Americans, and reality:
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voting-restrictions-america
Here's how it's happened and continues:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
This comes to mind. "The capitalist will sell us the rope with which we will hang them". Vladimir Lenin
This makes me disrespect every person that has been on the Court since the 70's. It is the fact that they never told us or talked about it. The whole scenario is a study in corruption and undue influence.
I have been through several things in my work-life where I had to choose between my integrity and some folks I really liked and worked with or for. I chose to do my job, speak up, and do the right thing.
When someone has their level of knowledge of the law, recusal and corruption are rudimentary.
They call themselves Justice? Mark me down for thoroughly disgusted!
The current R majority on the Supreme Court is comprised of corrupt, ideological and religious zealots. Their only rationale is to promote Ginni Thomas's far right-wing, religious and ideological agendas, and undermine our democracy. They are also shameless. The empirical results of their decisions to gut the Voting Rights Act and Citizen United belie their stated rationales and show zero respect for decades of bi-partisan, Congressionally enacted laws. They have taken us back to Jim Crow and Robber Barons by design, as a result of their legislating and violating the Constitution from the bench.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/magazine/clarence-thomas-ginni-thomas.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I hate to nitpick, but.... Referring to former Chief Justice as Warren Berger - it's Burger - detracts from the extreme seriousness of the piece. It makes Hartmann appear sloppy, which I know he isn't.
Nitpit appreciated: I just fixed the article. Thanks!
This is exactly why the Court needs to enact a Judicial Code of Conduct. But they wont. The congress needs to use their power- under the Constitution- to rein in these corrupt pack of Justices. Jefferson was correct in his fear of too much power the Judiciary was given. He was especially furious after the courts Marbury v Madison decision. This is when his cousin; Chief Justice John Marshall, actually expanded the courts Judicial Review process. Marshall drew a distinction between political and individual rights. In Gordon S. Wood's "Empire of Liberty" he sites Marshall's reasoning for this expansion of Judicial Review. Marshall examined the difference between political and individual rights. Due to the length of Woods writing; I will only give a part of Woods description. Marshall writes "...questions involving the vested rights of individuals were different (from political); they were in their nature judicial, and must be tried by the judicial authority." By turning all questions of individual rights into exclusively judicial issues, Marshall appropriated an enormous amount of authority for the courts. Woods book is an amazing read of American History. "Empire of Liberty" A history of the Early Republic 1789-1815.
So mega-thousands of dollars pour into the SCOTUS "Historical Society." Other than benefiting from private jet flights and resort trips, can justices dip into this fund for personal use and is there any evidence they have?