Judge Aileen Cannon needs to recuse herself from Trump documents case https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/13/judge-cannon-recuse-trump-documents-indictment/

#GOPIsLikeTheMafia
#CannonIsATrainWreck
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

"A judge whose credibility is shot cannot handle the most important trial in U.S. history.

Democracy defenders and advocates for the rule of law were elated when the indictment of former president Donald Trump was unsealed, revealing a damning array of evidence that should finally vindicate the principle that the law applies to presidents and ex-presidents just as it does to all other Americans. Elation was tempered, however, when Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s name appeared on court documents. She infamously botched a civil case brought by Trump to recover the very same documents now at issue in the criminal case, a decision so lacking in logic and precedent that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit swiftly repudiated her ruling and sent Trump packing.

The 11th Circuit’s ruling was particularly dismissive in reversing Cannon: “The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.” Specifically, the panel held she didn’t have jurisdiction and should not have ruled on the case.

To make matters worse, in the civil case, Cannon posited that Trump deserved special treatment because he is a former president (“[a]s a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own”). A judge who begins with the unconstitutional premise that Trump is not subject to the law like any other defendant would have a hard time sustaining public faith in the process. Any rulings for Trump would be regarded as evidence of bias; rulings against would be seen as efforts to restore her shattered reputation.

Because Cannon seemed to be leaning over backward and/or operating untethered to basic criminal procedure, some lawyers have questioned if she should recuse herself under the U.S. code that requires a judge to “disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Legal scholars have pointed to precedent for recusal “if facts connected to the judge’s actions in the case would cause an objective observer to doubt the fairness of the proceedings," as Norman L. Eisen, Richard W. Painter and Fred Wertheimer wrote in Slate.

Constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe told Newsweek: “Judge Cannon’s rulings in favor of Donald Trump’s motion to suspend the criminal investigation … including her appointment of a special master to undertake a review that had no basis in law, certainly fits that test by establishing a strong basis for questioning her impartiality, entirely apart from the aggravating factor that she was appointed to her lifetime position on the federal bench by defendant Donald Trump.”

Other legal scholars agree. (As Stephen Gillers put it, “Now, the fact that a judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned doesn’t mean that the judge is partial. The public may simply not trust the impartiality of the judge. Because public trust in the work of the court is a value as important as the work itself, the rule says that the judge should not sit when we can’t fairly ask the public to trust what the judge does.”)
...
A trial judge has immense discretion on everything from pretrial rulings excluding evidence to empaneling a juror to dragging out the proceedings. In the case of delay, Cannon could deny the American people a verdict in advance of the 2024 election. Some erroneous decisions might be reversed on appeal, but others (e.g. seating a juror who practices jury nullification) could be hard to correct on review. Moreover, the need for consistent intervention by the 11th Circuit could turn the case into a multiyear affair. None of this benefits the federal bench (specifically the 11th Circuit), the rule of law or the American people.
...
But the risk that a wildly misguided and slipshod judge could have reformed is far too great to entrust her with the most important criminal case in our lifetimes. She and the 11th Circuit owe both Trump and the American people an expertly run trial free from the appearance of bias."

This is how you get your way when democracy doesn't give it to you. You do an end-run around democracy so you can have minority rule forever! Who needs democracy, congressmen, senators or presidents when you own the judiciary?

Court decision in clean water case is more legislating from the bench https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/supreme-court-clean-water-kavanaugh/?

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPIsTheRichsBitch
#TheRichHateDemocracy
#GreedKillsDemocracy

"The Supreme Court’s decision gutting the Clean Water Act isn’t just a disaster for efforts to control pollution, although it is that, too. It is yet another illustration of the conservative supermajority’s aggressive willingness to rewrite statutes to its liking, abandon precedent and lunge to intercede in disputes that could be easily sidestepped.
...
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh (good for him!) joined the court’s three liberal justices in a far more reasoned interpretation of the Clean Water Act that would have respected text and precedent while still finding for the Sacketts.

Once again, the conservative justices reveal themselves to be textualists of convenience. The Clean Water Act requires a permit for dumping pollutants — and this includes the backfilling that the Sacketts were doing to prepare their lot — into the “waters of the United States.” Such waters are explicitly defined to include “wetlands” that are “adjacent” to streams, rivers and other navigable bodies of water covered by the law.

The majority agrees on all this but then waves its magic statutory wand to redefine, and narrow, the meaning of “adjacent.” It transforms the definition to apply solely to wetlands that are actually adjoining — that have a “continuous surface connection” — to the larger body.

This disrespects — actually, it ignores — the law’s text and traditional methods of statutory interpretation. As Kavanaugh noted, dictionary “definitions of ‘adjacent’ are notably explicit that two things need not touch each other in order to be adjacent.”
...
No longer, according to the majority, in an opinion written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Kavanaugh charitably labeled the majority’s approach “unorthodox” and “atextual.” Another word might be lawless. The majority’s approach blithely dismissed some 45 years of consistent interpretation through eight presidential administrations, Republican as well as Democrat. Even the Trump EPA thought adjacent meant adjacent.
...
Sackett reinforces what we already knew: This is a court that doesn’t like government regulation and it is going to do what it can — text and precedent be damned — to neuter it. Thus the majority, in last year’s West Virginia v. EPA, invented a “major purpose” test to limit the reach of another major environmental law, the Clean Air Act. In this case, it adopts another new test — when Congress exercises such power “over private property” it must use “exceedingly clear language” — to rewrite the Clean Water Act to its liking.

As Justice Elena Kagan explained in a concurrence joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, this is nothing short of another judicial power grab. “The vice in both instances is the same: the Court’s appointment of itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy,” Kagan wrote.

And why? Not because the law compels it, but because the majority doesn’t like the law. “Congress, the majority scolds, has unleashed the EPA to regulate ‘swimming pools and puddles,’ wreaking untold havoc on ‘a staggering array of land-owners,’” Kagan observed. “Surely something has to be done; and who else to do it but this Court? It must rescue property owners from Congress’s too-ambitious program of pollution control.”

More judicial power-grabbing to follow. The court next term will consider whether to ditch the four-decade old practice, known as Chevron deference, of having courts defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the laws they administer when the statutes are ambiguous. If Chevron falls, as seems all but inevitable, courts will be even more firmly in the driver’s seat to control policymaking.

This isn’t right, and it is also unnecessary. When the court reached out to take Sackett, the Biden administration was in the midst of rewriting the rules on how the Clean Water Act applied to wetlands. But the majority had its votes. Why wait? Why hold back? That could be the motto of this radical and impatient court."

The neutering of our government so it only works for them has been the goal of the obscenely rich for decades. They finally have the judicial, political and media pawns all lined up to do their bidding so our "democracy" only serves them.

Neil Gorsuch is Preparing His Revenge: Gutting America's Protective Agencies https://hartmannreport.com/p/neil-gorsuch-is-preparing-his-revenge?

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GreedKillsDemocracy

"Fulfilling Bannon’s and Trump’s promise to dismantle — or eviscerate — most of America’s regulatory agencies, leaving us all subject to the tender mercies of the country’s billionaires & CEOs…

Republicans on the Supreme Court are, it appears, planning to gut most of America’s regulatory agencies, in what could be the most consequential re-write of the protective “deep state” since it was largely created during the New Deal in the 1930s.

If they pull it off, they could destroy the ability of:

— the EPA to regulate pollutants,
— the USDA to keep our food supply safe,
— the FDA to oversee drugs going onto the market,
— OSHA to protect workers,
— the CPSC to keep dangerous toys and consumer products off the market,
— the FTC to regulate monopolies,
— the DOT to come up with highway and automobile safety standards,
— the ATF to regulate guns,
— the Interior Department to regulate drilling and mining on federal lands,
— the Forest Service to protect our woodlands and rivers,
— and the Department of Labor to protect workers’ rights.

Among other things on the rightwing billionaire wish-list: virtually the entirety of America’s ability to protect its citizens from corporate predation rests on what’s called the Chevron deference (more on that in a moment), which the Court appears prepared to overturn with a case they just accepted last week.
...
Far-right conservatives and libertarians have been working for this destruction of agencies — the ultimate in deregulation — ever since the first regulatory agencies came into being with the 1906 creation of the Pure Food and Drugs Act...

Gutting these agencies is what Steve Bannon meant when Trump brought him into the White House and he said one of the main goals of that administration was to “deconstruct the administrative state.” If there’s any coherent explanation of the phrase “deep state” as used by Republicans, it’s our nation’s regulatory agencies.

The modern effort to destroy or at least neuter America’s protective agencies began when Ronald Reagan put Anne Gorsuch in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

She directed the agency to dial back restrictions on expansion of factories and other operations that were already polluting the atmosphere. That provoked a challenge to the Supreme Court, Natural Resources Defense Council, v. Gorsuch, where the Court overruled the Reagan administration.

Gorsuch nonetheless continued her efforts to gut the EPA. In her first year heading the agency, there was a 79 percent decline in enforcement cases, and a 69 percent drop in cases the EPA referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. She pushed a 25 percent cut in her own agency’s funding into Reagan’s first budget proposal.

It took Congress years to overturn her cuts to the Clean Air Act “on everything from automobiles to furniture manufacturers,” according to Phil Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.

She took a meataxe to President Carter’s renewable energy programs and “set solar back a decade” according to Clapp.

Gorsuch finally resigned her office to avoid prosecution for what Newsweek described as “a nasty scandal involving political manipulation, [Super]fund mismanagement, perjury, and destruction of subpoenaed documents, among other things.”

Her son, Neil Gorsuch, was devastated by his mother’s resignation. In her memoir Are You Tough Enough? she tells the story of how Neil confronted her when she resigned:

“Neil,” she wrote, “got very upset. Halfway through Georgetown prep and smart as a whip, Neil knew from the beginning the seriousness of my problems. He also had an unerring sense of fairness, as do so many people his age.

“‘You should never have resigned,’ he said firmly. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president [Reagan] ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?’

“He was really upset,” she added.

Now, it appears, her son is preparing his revenge.

To get there, he and at least three other Republicans on the Court (the number required to accept a case) appear hell-bent-for-leather to turn regulatory agency rule-making upside-down."

Clarence Thomas is an unethical, despicable, self-serving, resentful, mentally imbalanced and grudge-holding piece of work that is not qualified or worthy of being on the supreme court. He was only nominated to further the right's long-orchestrated attempt to use the judiciary to seize power from the democratically elected branches of government so that the GOP and their obscenely wealthy donors could get their way even if they can't via elections.

How the Clarence Thomas Scandals Explain His Right-Wing Rulings – Mother Jones https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/05/video-clarence-thomas-scandals-harlan-crow-billionaire-black-nationalism/

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#EndRunAroundDemocracy
#TheRichHateAvgAmericans
#GreedKillsDemocracy

"“Live through Jim Crow, so you can live off of Harlan Crow.”

That’s how MoJo’s Garrison Hayes archly summarizes the hypocrisies of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in light of recent blockbuster revelations that he accepted elite private school tuition money from the real estate mogul for his grandnephew, alongside other lavish, all-expense-paid holidays and gifts from the Texas billionaire.

“If these things are true,” Garrison observes, ironically, in his new video about the many contradictions of Thomas, “your favorite Black conservative appears to be the most exaggerated version of a welfare queen, feeding off the generosity of a wealthy white benefactor who showers him and his family with unlimited trips.”

Since discovering that Thomas once identified as a Black nationalist, Garrison has been fascinated with better understanding the events that led him to become one of the most prominent figures in right-wing politics. Garrison has spent the last few weeks diving deeply into Thomas’ on-the-record speeches, biographies, interviews, and judicial opinions. In this video, he highlights instances where Thomas has opposed programs designed to help Black communities, despite personally benefiting from similar programs. Thomas attended Yale’s law school in 1971 through an affirmative action program but later opposed a similar program in a judicial opinion. When he couldn’t find a legal job after graduation, he saw affirmative action as the reason for his difficulties, writing in his 2007 memoir, “Now I knew what a law degree from Yale was worth when it bore the taint of racial preference. I was humiliated—and desperate.”

Despite receiving extraordinary opportunities and assistance throughout his life, Justice Thomas, Garrison concludes, seems committed to subjecting other groups—particularly Black people—to a rigid “bootstrap” individualism. In other words: opportunity for me, but not for thee.

Watch Garrison’s latest video below:" Click on the link to the article to watch this very informative, interesting video...

First of all, people who invested enough time and energy into merely acquiring obscene amounts of money, are imbalanced, warped and dysfunctional in some way. Then you see these same emotionally warped people certain that the world would be better if they were in charge and committed to making even more money by gaming control of our political system, and the extent of the problems they are causing for all of us begins to come into focus.

Time to clamp down on all donations/legalized bribery and reduce the excess money they have lying around that they feel they can use to by our system by taxing the hell out of them and their estates!

Clarence Thomas' Citizens United vote enabled billionaire benefactor to boost political power
"The Crows used their fortune to buy access to and curry favor" with elites, one advocate said
https://www.salon.com/2023/05/03/clarence-thomas-citizens-united-vote-enabled-billionaire-benefactor-to-boost-political-power_partner/

#GOPInBedWithTheRich
#TheRichBoughtTheGOP
#CampaignFinanceReform
#TheGOPIsTheBitchOfTheRich
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

"A report published Monday highlights potential connections between the political influence of Harlan Crow's family and the billionaire GOP megadonor's yearslong endeavor to shower U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with lavish vacations and other undisclosed gifts.
...
In "Travel Rewards: What the Crow Family May Have Bought by Hosting Those Luxury Trips for Justice Thomas," ATF shows how Thomas' vote in the 5-4 decision that effectively legalized unlimited political spending has allowed the Crows to increase their average annual campaign contributions by 862%, from $163,241 pre-Citizens United to $1.57 million post-ruling.
...
"The Crows used their fortune to buy access to and curry favor with one of the most powerful officials in Washington, then benefited from his central role in loosening rules meant to limit the influence of money over politics and policy," said ATF executive director David Kass.

"It's a vicious cycle that can only be short-circuited by restoring meaningful campaign finance rules and by demanding a much fairer share of taxes from billionaires, which, among other good results, will leave them less money to distort our democratic process," Kass added.

"The Crows' influence-buying and political spending are emblematic of a larger problem: the ongoing attempt by billionaires to purchase our democracy."
...
In a report published last summer, the group documented how "billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters' voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation's economy—especially the tax system."

Not counting dark money contributions, billionaires dumped $1.2 billion into the 2020 elections, 65 times more than the $16 million they donated in 2008, the report found. By last June, a few dozen billionaires had already pumped tens of millions of dollars into the 2022 midterms—mostly to support Republican candidates, including several election deniers—in a bid to ensure that Congress is full of lawmakers willing "to make their wealthy benefactors even richer."

"Billionaires shouldn't be able to buy political access and influence with their enormous fortunes," ATF tweeted Monday. "It's well beyond time for Citizens United to go, and to put real action towards making billionaires pay their fair share in taxes. Our democracy depends on it."
...
For instance, four years after Thomas helped deliver a victory to U.S. oligarchs in Citizens United, Crow purchased a property owned by Thomas for $130,000 and made improvements to it while the judge's mother continued to live there.

Thomas is not alone when it comes to conflicts of interest on the high court. Last week, Politico revealed that just days after his April 2017 confirmation, Justice Neil Gorsuch and his business partners sold a 40-acre Colorado ranch for almost $2 million to an undisclosed person. The buyer, Brian Duffy, is the CEO of a law firm that has since been involved in 22 cases before the court.

Despite growing evidence of possible corruption, Chief Justice John Roberts has refused to accept an invitation to testify at an upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on potential reforms to the Supreme Court, which is currently controlled by six far-right justices, most of whom were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote.

Progressives have demanded far-reaching changes to disempower the country's "rogue" justices, including adding seats—a move that has been made seven times throughout U.S. history—and enacting robust ethics rules."

Thomas always seemed like an asshole, selling out his people to the white men that have held them down, but the incredible amount of corruption and bribery he has taken is astounding! Is he dumb enough to believe that conservative crap or is he just sold out and in it only for himself. Either way, he should never be a judge, let alone on the Supreme Court!

Article: Thomas benefactor Harlan Crow covered tuition, too

"Clarence Thomas benefactor Harlan Crow revealed to have paid for relative's private school tuition.

Crow paid for private school for Thomas' great-nephew. Yet that fact remained previously undisclosed"

https://flip.it/wtjbYl
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#SupremeCorruption

Those right wing Supreme Court Justices were Republican partisans before they were nominated and they are still hopelessly Republican partisans now. They lied and misrepresented themselves to get on the court, they've made bizarrely rationalized, nonsensical, partisan rulings, why should we be surprised they are still incorrigibly, ethically compromised now! They aren't going to step down and stop being Republican partisans because they got caught with their whole arm in the cookie jar, unless we force them to!

Article: Details around the income of Chief Justice Roberts' wife raise more ethical red flags at the Supreme Court

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

https://flip.it/RvsJv_

The leaders of the right are becoming ever more aligned around autocracy and oligarchy as their preferred outcome. They have increasingly given up on democracy and no longer have any interest in sharing power or governing from the center. Part of this is attributable to their imbibing far too much of their own kool-aid and part is due to their power-hunger and greed.

They have been working toward their goal of single-party, oligarchic rule for decades--with a touch of Christian nationalism thrown in for "moral" cover. Their ongoing, and now relatively successful, capture of the judiciary as an end-run around democracy, is just one prong of their overarching plan. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, allowing unlimited money/bribery into our elections, eroding the security of the middle class, and propagandistic indoctrination of the susceptible, are all parts of this same plan.

They have been patiently moving toward dismantling our democracy and then fortunately for us, Trump came along and coopted many of the pieces of their plan, for his own, selfish, narcissistic purposes, before it was fully ready to be rolled out. They fought him initially, concerned that he would ruin their well-planned strategy, but then eventually went along with him in the hopes that their desired outcome could be achieved even more quickly than they had hoped. All the pieces were not in place, some of our democratic checks and balances and guardrails held, and that is what saved us.

Make no mistake about it, they wanted to put together an Orban-like, illiberal "democracy-in-name-only" but it wasn't fully successful. Recognizing that this was their plan all along and that they haven't abandoned it but instead doubled down, is what we need to wake up and work together to protect our democracy from this ongoing insurrection. The GOP is not a partner in our democracy any longer!!

American Autocratic Threats: Ted Cruz and John Roberts https://politicususa.substack.com/p/american-autocratic-threats-ted-cruz?

#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPIsThePartyOfTheRich
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#ImprisonSeditionists

"The U.S. is facing ongoing pressure from the right to become an autocracy, as proven by the secret Ted Cruz tapes and Justice John Roberts' refusal to testify regarding SCOTUS' ethics challenges.

It’s been a banger of a week so far, with sexual harassment scandals bringing down major TV news stars and a CEO and then on Tuesday more breaking news as we heard the secret Ted Cruz (R-TX) tapes in which he laid out the plot to steal America. At the same time, news broke that Republican Chief Justice John Roberts refused Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) request to testify regarding the massive ethics scandals infecting the Supreme Court.

Both sides of this coin are a symptom of an oppressive, out-of-control reactionary and right-wing patriarchy that feels so threatened by change that it is working to seize power and actively escalating democratic backsliding. This is not normal.

The Secret Authoritarian Plot Hatched at the Highest Levels of U.S. Government
The secret recordings of Cruz revealed his coup plot to overturn Biden’s 2020 win and kept Trump in the White House. Cruz is a U.S. Senator, who is supposed to be loyal to the United States and her government. Plotting a coup is the opposite of loyalty.

It was a deeply somber moment as Ari Melber, on whose MSNBC show the Ted Cruz tapes debuted, warned Americans not to dismiss the threat of rising autocracy evidenced by the Republican plan to steal an election.

Melber made the most important point from all of this news when he warned not to underestimate authoritarian plans. I’ve been warning about this since the Right started taking lessons from Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban — they are serious about turning the United States into a democracy in name only and the takeover isn’t going to be a violent Civil War, but rather what you see right now: using the courts to steal power, culture war propaganda and media dominance.

Melber said, "There are also those who would look at this tape with this plan and say, Ari, this sounds pretty farfetched. That sounds unlikely to get anywhere. They might want to dismiss it. They might say, hey, Ari, this wasn't going to really happen. And it didn't happen, we didn't see a fake commission popped up to do this. Let me tell you this tonight -- underestimating authoritarian plans hatched at the highest levels of your government would be a mistake. This was hidden for a reason they don't want to you know about it, don't want to you take it seriously."

It's not like these breaches of ethics are going to stop occurring. The whole court has been gamed to give partisan advantage to the GOP. They can't effect the policies they want through democracy, so they have abandoned democracy and created a court that undemocratically has resorted to creating and changing laws and policies that are outside its purview. The court keeps accruing to itself power it should never have and making decisions that aren't just or well-reasoned but purely partisan in nature. it is a rightwing attempt to end-run around democracy and seize power.

'This defines the Roberts Court': Chief justice's wife earns millions placing lawyers at firms that argue cases - Alternet.org https://www.alternet.org/this-defines-the-roberts-court/

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#PartisanSupremeCourt
#SupremeCourtEthics
#JudiciaryEndRunAroundDemocracy
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPHatesDemocracy

"The highly controversial and highly unpopular U.S. Supreme Court isn’t just facing a historic loss of confidence, it’s now facing yet another ethics scandal that is likely to lower even further public opinion of the far-right institution that in under two decades has seen its approval rating slashed.

Although it will not hear arguments, the issue before the Supreme Court and the American people’s view of it, is, should a justice’s spouse – in this case the spouse of Chief Justice John Roberts – be able to make millions of dollars recruiting attorneys who are placed into top law firms that argue cases before it?

That’s the latest allegation, and already a spokesperson for the Court has issued a statement denying any ethical violations.

The New York Times reports that “a former colleague of Mrs. Roberts has raised concerns that her recruiting work poses potential ethics issues for the chief justice. Seeking an inquiry, the ex-colleague has provided records to the Justice Department and Congress indicating Mrs. Roberts has been paid millions of dollars in commissions for placing lawyers at firms — some of which have business before the Supreme Court, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.”

This republican supreme court--and they are first and foremost republicans, not justices--has run amock! They have betrayed their oaths of office and revealed themselves as the partisans they always have been, even before joining the court. Our government can't effectively function with a supreme court that has been crafted as an end-run around democracy and that continues to exercise power that it awarded itself and was never granted by the constitution. Who needs to win elections or coups when you can take over the government through soft insurrections like these?

Psst: You want to know who leaked the Supreme Court's Dobbs opinion? https://robertreich.substack.com/p/psst-you-want-to-know-who-leaked

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#SupremeCourtCorrupt
#GOPEndRunAroundDemocracy

"Even if uncontroverted evidence emerges that Alito leaked the Dobbs decision, there’s nothing the Supreme Court could do to discipline him. The Court has no code of conduct or rules of ethics. (Think Clarence Thomas.) Partly for this reason, public trust in the Supreme Court has been plummeting.

The last Congress introduced the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act which would, among other things, require the Court to adopt a binding code of conduct. With Republicans in control of the House, the current Congress is unlikely to do the same.

But the Court need not await Congress. If Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t want to be remembered as the Chief who allowed the Court to drown in disrepute, he will take the lead in creating clear ethical rules that all Supreme Court justices will swear to abide."

The GOP and their wealthy benefactor's orchestration of a partisan capture of the judiciary were always meant to be a means to control the government and get their way by doing an end-run around democracy.

"The Court has become a handmaiden to the corporate elites trying to increase their dominance over us."

Opinion | It's Time to Admit This Right-Wing U.S. Supreme Court Is a Corrupt, Autocratic Tribune | Common Dreams -- JIM HIGHTOWER https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/supreme-court-is-corrupt

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#SupremePartisans
#JudicialEndRunAroundDemocracy
#GOPIsTheRichsTool
#WantTheirSerfsBack
#GOPHatesDemocracy

Question: How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Answer: Four — calling the tail a leg doesn't make it one.

Likewise, calling a small group of partisan lawyers a "supreme" court doesn't make it one. There's nothing supreme about the six-pack of far-right-wing political activists who are presently soiling our people's ideals of justice by proclaiming their own antidemocratic biases to be the law of the land. On issues of economic fairness, women's rights, racial justice, corporate supremacy, environmental protection, theocratic rule and other fundamentals, these unelected, black-robed extremists are imposing an illegitimate elitist agenda on America that the people do not want and ultimately will not tolerate.

Indeed, the imperiousness of the six ruling judges has already caused the court's public approval rating to plummet, to a mere 38%, an historic low that ranks down there with former President Donald Trump, and threatens to go as low as Congress.

This has led to a flurry of officials attesting to the honesty and political impartiality of the reigning supremes. Unfortunately for the court, these ardent defenders were the six culprits themselves.

The "integrity of the judiciary is in my bones," pontificated Neil Gorsuch, who now stands accused of having lied to senators to win his lifetime appointment.

We don't have to accept rule by an illegitimate court.

"(We are not) a bunch of partisan hacks," wailed Amy Coney Barrett, a partisan extremist jammed onto the court in a partisan ploy by Trump in the last few hours of his presidency.

"Judges are not politicians," protested John Roberts, who became Chief Justice because he was a rabid political lawyer who pushed the Supreme Court in 2000 to reject the rights of voters and install George W. Bush as president.

As many of its own members privately admit, Congress has become a pay-to-play lawmaking casino — closed to commoners but offering full-service access to corporate powers.

But the Supreme Court is another government entity that's even more aloof from workaday people — and it has become a handmaiden to the corporate elites trying to increase their dominance over us. The six-member, right-wing majority on this secretive powerhouse now routinely vetoes efforts by workers, environmentalist, students, local officials, voters and all others who try to rein in corporate greed and abuses.

Appointed for lifetime terms, this autocratic tribune takes pride in being sealed off from democracy, even bragging that they make rulings without being influenced by special interests. But wait — in makeup and ideology, today's court majority is a special interest, for it consists of corporate and right-wing lawyers who've obtained their wealth and position by loyally serving corporate power. And far from now being isolated from moneyed elites, the judges regularly socialize with them and attend their closed-door political meetings.

There's even a special little club, called The Supreme Court Historical Society, that frequently reveals the cozy, symbiotic relationship that exists between today's judicial and corporate cliques. Such giants as Chevron, Goldman Sachs, AT&T and Home Depot pay millions of dollars to this clubby society, gaining notice by and the appreciation of the supremes. And, yes, these special interest gifts to the court are gratefully accepted, even when the corporations have active cases before the court, seeking favorable rulings from the very judges they're glad-handing at Society soirees.

Of course, the judges insist there's no conflict of interest, because this access to them is "open to all." Sure — all who can pay $25,000 and up to get inside! Yet the clueless judges wonder why their credibility is in the ditch. Remember, in America, The People are supreme! We don't have to accept rule by an illegitimate court. For reform, go to FixTheCourt.com.""

The "conservative" justices act like partisans because that is what they always have been. They are part of a long-standing right-wing plan to use the judiciary as an end-run around democracy to enact their preferred policies, which they can't achieve through elections.

The Supreme Court's reputation is shattered thanks to its conservative justices https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/12/supreme-courts-reputation-shattered-thanks-conservative-justices/

#PartisanJudges
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GOPVersionOfJustice
#JudicialEndRunAroundDemocracy

"...Just to show you where their loyalties lie, Alito, Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch showed up at a gala dinner in November held by the Federalist Society, the right-wing legal group that vetted Trump’s judicial appointees, where they received a long ovation for their ruling overturning abortion rights.

Such disregard for the appearance of neutrality is possible because the Supreme Court doesn’t have any ethical guidelines – literally. Unlike any other judicial body in the U.S., the Court relies upon the integrity of the justices to police itself.

Look at where that’s gotten us.

No wonder the public’s trust in the Supreme Court is at historic lows. The conservative wing’s insistence on imposing its own view of society, even if that means overturning precedents, has made the Court seem like just another political player and not a group of legal giants. The attitude of Alito and company seems to be, “Who cares?” As long as they have the power, society can get lost.

As for the Court, it will take years to rebuild the reputation that the right’s disregard for basic ethics has destroyed. Meanwhile, you can count on the partying and praying to keep happening, despite the conflicts they may represent."

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” The wealthy have been owning media for generations to be able to control the country, make more money and undermine democracy. We can't have a democracy without a truly free press!

Project Censored, Part 1: Billionaire Press Domination - The American Prospect https://prospect.org/power/project-censored-part-1-billionaire-press-domination/

#WantTheirSerfsBack
#RichWantAllTheMoney&Control
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

"5) Dark Money Interference in U.S. Politics Undermines Democracy
PC-5.jpg
The same group of conservative dark money organizations that opposed President Joe Biden’s

Supreme Court nomination — Judicial Crisis Network [JCN], The 85 Fund and their affiliated groups — also funded entities that played a role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to a report by the watchdog group Accountable.US. They’re closely linked to Leonard Leo, co-chair of the Federalist Society, with money coming from Donors Trust (a dark-money group backed by the Koch network) and the Bradley Foundation.

“These dark money groups not only funded Leo’s network of organizations to the sum of over $52 million in 2020, but also funded entities in 2020 that played a role in the insurrection to the sum of over $37 million,” Accountable.US reported.

While there has been coverage of dark money spending on Supreme Court nominations, Igor Derysh at Salon was alone in reporting this — the related involvement in Jan. 6.

Just one group, JCN, spent $2.5 million “before Biden even named his nominee” Ketanji Brown Jackson, Derysh reported, “accusing Biden of caving in to leftists by promising a ‘Supreme Court nominee who will be a liberal activist.’" On the other hand, “JCN spent tens of millions helping to confirm Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, according to Open Secrets, and launched a $25 million effort to confirm Justice Amy Coney Barrett just weeks before the 2020 election,” he reported.

But more disturbingly, “Donors Trust has funneled more than $28 million to groups that pushed election lies or in some way funded the rally ahead of the Capitol riot,” while “Members of the Federalist Society played key roles in Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the election,” including attorney John Eastman, architect of Trump’s plan to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election, senators Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who led the objections to the certification of Trump's loss after the riot, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed a lawsuit to throw out election results in key states, effectively overturning Biden's victory. In addition, 13 of the 17 other Republican attorneys general who joined Paxton's suit were also Federalist Society members.

“It should worry us all that the groups leading the fight against Biden’s historic nomination of Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court are tied to the Jan. 6 insurrection and efforts to undermine confidence in the 2020 election,” Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, told Salon.

“The influence of dark money — political spending by organizations that are not required to disclose their donors — presents a major challenge to the swift functioning of the judicial nomination and confirmation process, and the US government as a whole,” Project Censored noted. “[D]ark money deeply influences political decisions in favor of select individuals’ or groups’ agendas rather than in support of the public’s best interests.”

Rightwing dark money’s role in fighting Judge Jackson’s nomination and confirmation process was highlighted by Business Insider in February 2022, along with op-eds in both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post covered the discussion of dark money during Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearings, and a March 2022 Mother Jones report. “However,” Project Censored noted, “none of the articles featured in the corporate press covered dark money supporting Trump’s Big Lie, the impact such funding had on promoting and reinforcing anti-democratic ideology, or the ramifications of how such dark money spending erodes public trust in government and the election process.” "

These Christian nationalists are obviously nuts but also, clearly not interested in democracy and totally in bed with the GOP! So many of them were willing to do whatever they could to steal the election and keep Trump in power. These are the people the wealthy and corporations choose to help them control the government!

New Ginni Thomas Texts To Mark Meadows Are Even Crazier | Crooks and Liars https://crooksandliars.com/2023/01/new-ginni-thomas-texts-mark-meadows-get

#GQP
#GOPTreason
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPLovesPower
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

"The Morning Joe crew ripped into the right wing's crazy Qanon aunt, Ginni Thomas, this morning.

"More newly released transcripts reveal Ginni Thomas expressed regret for her texts fanning conspiracies for the 2020 presidential election," Mika Brezinski said.

"The committee obtained 29 texts between Thomas, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, which were first reported by the Washington Post and CBS News. In the messages, Thomas urged Meadows to do what he could to keep former president Donald Trump in power despite President Biden's win.

"In one of her messages to Meadows, Thomas wrote, quote, 'Help this great president stand firm, Mark. You are the leader with him who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and left is attempting the greatest heist of our history.' This is the wife of the Supreme Court justice."

"She has also been in Washington long enough to know better," Joe Scarborough interjected.

"In another, she wrote, quote, 'Biden crime family and ballot family co-conspirators, censorship mongerers are being arrested and detained for ballot fraud right now, and over coming days, and will be living in barges off Gitmo to face military tribunals for sedition."

As Scarborough points out, that's another Qanon conspiracy theory.

"When interviewed about the communications, Thomas told the committee, quote, 'I regret all of these texts. It was an emotional time. I was probably just emoting as I clearly was with Mark Meadows somewhat.' Thomas also told the committee she was hopeful that state legislators could identify fraud in the 2020 election, thereby allowing the election to be overturned in favor of Trump."

She also told the panel her actions regarding the 2020 election were 'minimal and mainstream,' and that she was 'involved in things that were trying to get to the truth.'

"She says her views are mainstream, and she's talking about putting the Biden crime family, as she said it. she believes her radical views were mainstream, texted the chief of staff saying the president and his family should be shipped to barges after Gitmo to face military tribunals for sedition.

"No, she wasn't," Scarborough said.

"She believes her radical, freakish views are mainstream?"

"You know, there's this victimhood," he continued.

"You look at her statements and her lawyer's statement. She doesn't really regret that she sent these texts. If you read the transcript, she regrets that they were printed. That's all she regrets. And this victimhood, again, I think it fits perfectly into the twisted logic of Trumpism, that the most powerful people in America, the richest billionaires in America, the people that have run America for 400 years, they're the ones who are victimized, the rich are victimized, asked to pay average rates.

"The powerful are victimized by woke college professors and in her case, the powerful are victimized when they were asked to respond to texts that show that she is trying to overthrow Madisonian democracy and the white majority that has run the United States for 400 years is victimized, well, by everyone, especially when they don't win every election.""

Yet another example of the corrupt and compromised nature of the current, highly partisan, right-wing stacked court. Just as the GOP is the willing servant of corporations and the wealthy, it is becoming increasingly clear that the GOP-stacked supreme court is equally willing to bend over backward to serve the interests of the wealthy and large corporations. The need for reform grows ever more urgent!!

"Why are these conflicts allowed?" Corporate giving to SCOTUS-linked group sparks blowback | Salon.com https://www.salon.com/2023/01/01/why-are-these-conflicts-allowed-corporate-giving-to-scotus-linked-group-sparks-blowback_partner/

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#Pay2Play
#CorruptSupremeCourt
#ReformSupremeCourt

"Alarm and concern were expressed Saturday in response to new reporting about a charitable group with close ties to the U.S. Supreme Court that has been soliciting and accepting donations from corporate interests and far-right activists with cases before the court.

The New York Times exposé focused on the activities and fundraising of the Supreme Court Historical Society, a nonprofit that claims its mission is "dedicated to the collection and preservation" of the court's history.

While the group refused to disclose its donors to the Times, reporters from the newspaper determined that much of the funding came from powerful companies like Chevron, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner and Facebook as well as anti-abortion activists like the Rev. Rob Schenck.

According to the newspaper:

The society has raised more than $23 million over the last two decades. Because of its nonprofit status, it does not have to publicly disclose its donors — and declined when asked to do so. But The New York Times was able to identify the sources behind more than $10.7 million raised since 2003, the first year for which relevant records were available.

At least $6.4 million — or 60 percent — came from corporations, special interest groups, or lawyers and firms that argued cases before the court, according to an analysis of archived historical society newsletters and publicly available records that detail grants given to the society by foundations. Of that, at least $4.7 million came from individuals or entities in years when they had a pending interest in a federal court case on appeal or at the high court, records show.

In the case of Chevron, the oil giant actively gave to the society even as it had a pending climate litigation working its way through the court.

In response to the new revelations, public interest attorney Steven Donzinger, who was himself targeted by Chevron for his work aimed at holding the company to account for its polluting activities in Ecuador, said the implications were "horrifying."

"Why are these conflicts allowed?" asked Donzinger.

Others quoted by the Times said the effort by people like Schenck, who admits to using the charitable group as a way to get other anti-abortion activists closer to the justices, creates a clear conflict of interest.

Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor who once served as solicitor general in the Reagan administration and counts himself a donor to the Historical Society, told the newspaper he was so "horrified" by Schenck's behavior that he may no longer give.

"It's disgusting," Fried said. "Many of the people who contribute have the same reasons I do. You go to a cocktail party and support a good cause. But it turns out that for some people it's not that innocent."

While the Times notes that the Historical Society is "ostensibly independent of the judicial branch of government," the reality is that "the two are inextricably intertwined," with court justices serving as chair of the board and hosting gala events where exclusive access is reportedly part of the allure.

The left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said the reporting raises "significant questions" about the group which has "raked in millions — a significant chunk of it from groups with cases before the Court" over the last two decades.

Fix the Court, which acts as a watchdog organization for the Supreme Court, said the justification for the Historical Society's existence just doesn't hold water.

Gabe Roth, the group's executive director, told the Times that if money was an issue for funding such a project it would be the best solution — one free of ethical concerns — for Congress to simply appropriate the money needed to maintain the history of the Supreme Court."

Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society is like Lewis Powell, helping destroy democracy and the middle class all to benefit the wealthy, religious fundamentalists, the right-wing and the fascists.

Groups Associated With Anti-Abortion Judicial Activist Leonard Leo Have Spent $31M on State Court Packing - Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/groups-connected-with-leonard-leo-have-funneled-31-million-to-state-court-races/

#GOPFascism
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPThreat2Democracy

"A new investigation finds that groups associated with prominent anti-abortion judicial activist Leonard Leo — who has had a hand in the nomination of every sitting conservative Supreme Court justice — have poured tens of millions into significant state court races over the past two decades, demonstrating the depth of Leo’s campaign to pack U.S. courts with far right judges.

Grid News has found that Leo’s network of dark money and political groups, through cash influxes from sources like the Koch family, has injected at least $31 million into at least 42 races in 15 states since 2010, seeking to influence races for state Supreme Courts and other high-level state judgeships.

State judges at these levels often make crucial decisions on policies like abortion bans and voting rights. In recent years especially, far right politicians have increasingly seen state courts as roadblocks to implementing the extremist anti-democratic laws that they have passed through conservative-dominated state legislatures.

Campaign contributions for state court races are particularly effective, as judicial candidates typically spend much less to get elected than in other similarly high-profile races.

“The return on investment is really good for state Supreme Court election,” Michael Kang, Northwestern University law professor, told Grid News. “And there’s less money still spent on judicial races than legislative or executive contests. So they’re cheaper, and the money has a big impact, because there’s not that many seats at stake.”

Conservatives are trying to make it so that their abortion bans, among other things, aren’t subject to court rulings.
By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUTDecember 14, 2022
At the same time, public disclosure requirements for campaign contributions are relatively lax, and voters may not be able to see who gave to a campaign until after judges are sworn in. And, even when such donations are disclosed, corporations and other deep-pocketed donors can hide their names behind groups like those in Leo’s extensive dark money network, meaning that their true identities could be hidden forever.

Grid News found that much of Leo’s influence in this sphere comes from the Judicial Fairness Initiative (JFI), a dark money group largely funded by the Republican Party’s state campaign arm, the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). In recent years, the RSLC’s top funder was a group led by Leo, the Judicial Crisis Network.

The stated purpose of the JFI is “halting [the] transformation” of the legal system to “an advocate for the liberal political agenda” — though, ironically, it appears to be operating with the interest of turning courts into far right support systems.

In just four years, between 2014 and 2018, the JFI spent over $10 million in state judicial elections, and is currently operating with the goal of injecting more funds into judicial elections than ever. In a statement earlier this year, the JFI said it was “committed to spending more resources on state Supreme Court races in 2022 than in any year in the committee’s history.”

The investigation lends further evidence to the fact that today’s extremist Supreme Court and growing fascist political environment didn’t come out of nowhere; conservative activists have spent decades on their efforts to pack courts at both the federal and state levels, with Leo at the forefront of many of these campaigns.

While Leonard Leo may not be a household name, the 57-year-old anti-abortion activist is one of the most influential people in modern politics. Through his extensive dark money network and high-level political connections, Leo has had a major hand in the nomination of every sitting right-wing Supreme Court justice, who ruled this summer to overturn Roe v. Wade and erode other crucial rights.

For instance, all three of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominations came from Leo’s handpicked list of potential Supreme Court candidates, after Leo formed a close relationship with top Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway."

Part 6
Besides lame culture war issues that really don't matter, the GOP has nothing to offer Americans economically except tax breaks for the wealthy.

"Ambitious policy solutions can break through partisan paralysis and change America. It's time to go big"

How to end gridlock and ensure Democratic power — with a bold progressive agenda https://www.salon.com/2022/12/26/how-to-end-political-gridlock-and-ensure-democratic-power-pursue-a-bold-progressive-agenda/

#GOPInBedWithRich
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GOPIsTheRichsBitch

"The public health framework
Seeing crime through that kind of public health lens fits with a broader argument I made last year and can apply to liberal or progressive policies more broadly: "[E]nvironmental health, racism, gun violence, injury and violence prevention, healthy housing, and reproductive and sexual health" are all recognized by the American Public Health Association as major areas of concern, and their list "also intersects with human rights in the field of global health, and deals with issues of income inequality, education, housing, incarceration, nutritional equity, literacy, health care coverage and access."

The public health framework can also provide a coherent overarching narrative:

The challenge for Democrats and progressives is to do what Republicans and conservatives have been doing for decades: Craft a coherent ideological narrative that makes sense of what people already feel. But for Democrats, it's not just about vague free-market fantasies, or romantic longings for a past that never was. It's about concrete things people can do to empower themselves through government action, creating a future with more possibilities for all.

In the conclusion to Cantril and Free's "The Political Beliefs of Americans," the authors called for "a restatement of American ideology to bring it in line with what the great majority of people want and approve" which "would focus people's wants, hopes, and beliefs, and provide a guide and platform to enable the American people to implement their political desires in a more intelligent, direct, and consistent manner."

A public health narrative can make sense of the "operational liberalism" identified in that book and can address diverse social movements that energize Democratic base, as well as the multi-pronged project of court reform. It also speaks to the failures that led to such extreme economic inequality in America, as well as the disastrous failures of neoliberal policy that both enabled and sought to justify it. Adopting a public health framework to make sense of our politics and bring us together to solve our most difficult problems might well help Democrats win elections, but that's not the point. Far more important, it could restore a common framework for overcoming the partisan polarization and political gridlock that seems inescapable today, but doesn't have to be."

Part 5
Besides lame culture war issues that really don't matter, the GOP has nothing to offer Americans economically except tax breaks for the wealthy.

"Ambitious policy solutions can break through partisan paralysis and change America. It's time to go big"

How to end gridlock and ensure Democratic power — with a bold progressive agenda https://www.salon.com/2022/12/26/how-to-end-political-gridlock-and-ensure-democratic-power-pursue-a-bold-progressive-agenda/

#GOPInBedWithRich
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GOPIsTheRichsBitch

"Criminal justice reform
...As I wrote earlier this month, crime and inflation were "two Dems-in-charge/situation-out-of-control narratives ... custom crafted in the Fox News ecosystem" which the New York Times took a lead role in spreading farther across the political spectrum during the recent midterm campaign, "crowding out other contrasting narratives in the process."

New York was clearly the epicenter of this issue, and bail reform was a key focus. Early in December, civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, who heads Zealous, a criminal justice reform initiative, co-authored a commentary on the bail reform question, specifically calling out Democrats who blamed it for midterm losses. "Research has established no connection between bail reform and any increase in crime," he wrote, and "New York City has remained secure even though headlines could make one think otherwise." Three of New York's five boroughs "are among the safest 15 counties in the U.S." he noted, while Nassau County, just east of the city on Long Island — where 64 mayors recently called for the repeal of bail reform — has twice since the law's implementation been ranked the safest place to live in the country.

In short, the panic over a supposed crime wave and bail reform in New York was pure political bullshit. "Democrats lost because they ran from the truth about bail reform," Hechinger writes, "amplifying lies instead of championing what should have been their policy win. In short, they made themselves indistinguishable from Republicans on this topic."

..."Other candidates who told the truth about bail reform's success and stood strong against fear-mongering won," Hechinger notes, and that shouldn't be surprising. As I noted above, the actual policy behind the notion of defunding police — meaning the reallocation of funding to social workers, mental health and other social services — is overwhelmingly popular.

The logic behind policies of mass incarceration is at least as bad or worse, as Hechinger noted in an email to Salon:

We invest more than any other society in the history of the world on policing, prosecutions and punishment. So if the current massive investments into these approaches actually worked, you'd expect we'd be the safest and healthiest society in the word. We're obviously far from it, by police and politicians' own admission. We need to follow facts and reasoned solutions, not fear: Why we need to abandon our current approaches that only further drive violence by creating environments of isolation, shame, economic deprivation, and violence — the very characteristics of overpolicing and prisons parallel the very drivers of violence itself.

The alternative already exists, he continued:

People don't have to "imagine" what non-carceral, non-punitive, non-police responses to public health and safety look like. The safest and healthiest communities are those with greater community investments, not more police. One need look no further than wealthy white suburbs to see how substance use, mental health issues, interpersonal violence and conflict between and among young people are dealt with largely without police.

...Perhaps most important is restorative justice, a concept described at length in Lois Forer's 1994 book "A Rage to Punish":

Restorative justice programs recognize that punishment and prison neither heals trauma nor holds actors accountable...In Brooklyn, when survivors of violence are informed that the restorative justice program Common Justice is an option, they choose it over the normal process over 90% of the time. And recidivism rates among those who complete the program are near zero.

The second approach is violence interruption:

The "Interrupters Model" pays and trains trusted insiders of a community to anticipate where violence will occur and intervene before it erupts, work in neighborhoods and hospitals, meet with survivors to help and prevent retaliation, and work with people at highest risk for causing harm...

...Hechinger concluded by saying we need to "understand things police enforce as 'crime' as public health issues — and that includes violence — that we, as a society, have failed to properly address, and can address."

Part 4
Besides lame culture war issues that really don't matter, the GOP has nothing to offer Americans economically except tax breaks for the wealthy.

"Ambitious policy solutions can break through partisan paralysis and change America. It's time to go big"

How to end gridlock and ensure Democratic power — with a bold progressive agenda https://www.salon.com/2022/12/26/how-to-end-political-gridlock-and-ensure-democratic-power-pursue-a-bold-progressive-agenda/

#GOPInBedWithRich
#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

"The end of Roe and court reform
But economics — although certainly crucial — is only part of the story. For decades Republicans have relied on culture-war issues, abortion foremost among them. More precisely, conservatives have devoted immense energy and resources to controlling the courts, thereby enforcing minority views they could never democratically enact into law. But having finally realized their goal of overturning Roe in 2022, everything has changed. These culture-war issues have always relied on some degree of subterfuge, and the Dobbs blew a hole in all that, exposing the messy reality obscured by facile "pro-life" rhetoric. Voters in Michigan, Vermont and California overwhelmingly approved initiatives enshrining abortion rights in their state constitutions, while voters in Kansas, Kentucky and Montana (three solidly Republican states) said no to bans or restrictions. But this is clearly just the beginning of years of further struggle that will be about much more than abortion rights.

The extremist, anti-democratic Supreme Court is a massive problem, but most discussions about how to solve it have been overly abstract and hobbled by a limited sense of history. One exception is a new paper by David Gans, director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program at the Constitutional Accountability Center, which proposes concrete potential remedies by drawing on the most compelling historical example we have. That was during Reconstruction, when Congress both expanded and contracted the size of the Supreme Court, limited its jurisdiction and expanded the power of federal courts to protect citizens' rights. The most lasting and consequential impacts came from the last option, which he believes could guide us this time around. "When six Justices insist on rolling back fundamental rights and putting accountability further out of reach," Gans writes, "Congress should do what it did during Reconstruction: employ its enforcement powers to pass landmark civil rights legislation that opens the courthouse doors and ensure the promise of justice for all Americans."

Gans told Salon that reforming the courts ws "about more than the composition of the Supreme Court." While it's unlikely that reform legislation can be enacted in the next two years, he said, "progressives in and out of Congress should use this time to develop a multi-pronged approach. The Constitution gives Congress powerful tools to reform our federal judicial system and to ensure that our federal courts — including the Supreme Court — uphold the rights and ideals that lie at the core of our Constitution, including liberty and equal justice under law.

"In this moment, progressives should think boldly about how to deploy these tools to fix a Supreme Court whose conservatives seem bent on decimating fundamental rights and equality. To build popular support, progressives should use every chance they get to make the case that the conservative super-majority of the Supreme Court is getting the Constitution dead wrong and that far-reaching changes are necessary to honor the whole Constitution's safeguards and promises." "

The right-wing partisans on the supreme court are attempting to steal the power to control the direction of the country. The least we can do is use the few actions at our disposal that could help illuminate the partisan corruption that underlies their actions!!

'Let’s do that!' Internet cheers Republican warning that Supreme Court Justices' tax returns could go public - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism https://www.rawstory.com/lets-do-that-internet-cheers-republican-warning-that-supreme-court-justices-tax-returns-could-go-public-2658992856/

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#PartisanSupremeCourt
#GOPLovesPower #GOPHatesDemocracy

"On social media, given the historic unpopularity of this Supreme Court, many applauded the idea of its justices having their tax returns made public – something that likely would never happen

“Yes!” declared Carnegie Mellon University professor Uju Anya. “Tell us who bought and paid for the Supreme Court Justices. Please and thank you.”

“Great!” exclaimed Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery. “Let’s do that!”

READ MORE: ‘It’s the Transgender, LGBTQ’: Secret Recording Reveals Superintendent Telling School Librarians ‘Pull Books Off Shelves’

Swedish economist and former Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Anders Åslund criticized Brady.

“Shameful! What the US lacks most of all is transparency. It should start with tax returns and be followed by campaign financing, now often dark money. Politicians who advocate financial secrecy effectively advocate corruption.”

Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz said, “Hadn’t even thought of this — that would be great!”

“Congress has had this authority for a long time,” noted retired journalist Dan Murphy. “If legitimate concerns arise that a member of the Supreme Court is abusing the office to enrich him or herself, as there are in the case of Trump, getting those returns would also be a good thing.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” mocked U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA).

“Don’t tempt me with a good time…” mocked journalist Walker Bragman, a theme repeated by dozens of other Twitter users"