*** “You can easily judge the character of others by how thy treat those who can do nothing for them or to them.”
[Malcolm Forbes]
I. The Powell Memorandum. – 1971
1] Michael Graetz & Linda Greenhouse: “The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right””. Powell’s memorandum said Ralph Nader and others were seeking the destruction of the “American economic system…The most disquieting voices..come from perfectly respectable elements of society:..college campuses..pulpit..media..intellectual and literary journals..arts and sciences..politicians.” He criticized media for referring to business tax incentives “as tax breaks,” “loopholes,” or “Tax benefits.”..He called for a massive business response to these attacks.
“He outlined a multi-faceted proposal for a response by the Chamber, including such actions..as recruiting a “staff of highly qualified scholars who believed in the system” to “evaluate social science textbooks..”..advocated aggressive business actions in secondary education, television and other media, legislatures, and the courts.”
“The judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic, and political change.” The left are extremely active in the judicial area. Their success, often at businesses’ expense, has not been inconsequential.” Participation in litigation was “a vast opportunity for the Chamber, if it is willing to undertake the role of spokesman for American business and…if business is willing to provide the funds.”
“..the importance of Powell’s memorandum is unmistakable. Within six years, the Chamber established a litigation arm..the Chamber now routinely files friend-of-the-court briefs..and it enjoys great influence over which cases the Court decides to hear and how the cases the Court takes should be decided. Bloomberg News says..the Chamber now “may be second only to the Solicitor General’s office in its influence at the Supreme Court.”
*** “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy, that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” [ John Kenneth Galbraith ]
2] Kurt Andersen: “Evil Geniuses”: “..Evil Geniuses chronicles the quite deliberate reengineering of our economy and society since the 1960s by a highly rational confederacy of the rich, the right, and big business…The specific policy changes in the 1980s were profound in the aggregate..most ..were complicated and esoteric and seemed small, so they had a stealth quality. It didn’t feel like a paradigm shift because it was mainly carried out by means of a thousand wonky adjustments to government rules and laws, and obscure financial inventions, and big corporations one by one changing how they operated and getting away with it – all of it with impacts that emerged gradually, over decades..the 1980s were the 1930s but in reverse: instead of a fast-acting New Deal, a time-release Raw Deal.” [THE RAW DEAL]
3] Research Andersen”s “The Decade When Everything Changed and Our Present Was Created: 57 Data Points – the changes that were “good” for Big Business & the Financial Industry; and – the 28 changes that were BAD for people like YOU.
***”The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask as justice.” [ Justice Robert Jackson ]
4] “Thrown Out of Court” [Lina Khan; Wash. Monthly; June-July-August, 2014]: “Two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings- AT&T-Concepcion and American Express-Italian Colors – have deeply undercut..centuries-old public rights, by empowering businesses to avoid any threat of private lawsuits or class actions. These decisions culminate a thirty-year trend..
“..many sound antitrust cases are no longer heard, by a judge or arbitrator..”It takes away citizen’s rights.”…The greatest damage..isn’t to us as individuals. “Mandatory arbitration is a basic threat to our democracy, says Deepak Gupta..”It’s about laws..Congress passes being unenforceable. The Supreme Court is allowing corporations to overturn laws made by people we elect.” [A BASIC THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY]
*** “corruption is like a ball of snow, once set rolling it must increase.” [ C.C. Colton ]
II. CRUELTY. One of the HALLMARKS of recent Republican dominated courts is CRUELTY:
A. “Deshaney”[1989] – the father caused severe brain damage by beating Joshua, who’ll spend his life confined to an institution. Father convicted of child abuse. Mom sued Department of Social Services for doing nothing about two years of complaints. Rehnquist rules against Mom and Joshua: government has “no duty” to protect Joshua: nothing in “Due Process” requires the State to protect life, liberty, and property of citizens against private actors.
[ E. Chemerinsky: “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution’ ]
B. “A wrongfully convicted man must die..to preserve procedure?” {Bryan Clarke; Idaho Statesman; 6/12/22]: “..another opinion, both cruel and absurd, issued by the Republican Supermajority deserves attention..a decision released last month, Shinn v. Martinez Ramierez..likely to result in the execution of an innocent man..not because the court..weighed the evidence..The court is pushing to execute him because it says the evidence showing he is innocent should not be considered at all..the evidence against Jones is so poor..a federal judge found no judge or jury would likely convict him of any crime..a more sane U.S. Supreme Court found..Arizona’s appeal had a gaping procedural deficiency..But the court decided to exercise its discretion to set that procedural hurdle aside..The necessary boxes have been checked, and so it’s time to kill a man. It is as inhumane as it sounds.” [re-read this slowly, think about the CRUELTY]
C. “When Miscarriages Collide With Abortion Laws” [Pam Belluck; New York Times; 7/18/22]: “In this post-Roe world, women with miscarriages may die..” A Texas hospital sent a woman doubled over in pain and screaming as she passed a large blood clot” home; she and her husband sat in a bathtub red with blood “for 48 hours..” A Wisconsin woman “showed up bleeding at a hospital, which determined she had miscarried” , but they couldn’t help her “because of the laws.” [see 5/3/23 “HHS: Abortion denials broke law”; Amanda Seitz; Assoc. Press – more stories]
D. “Ledbetter”[2007]: Workers bringing Title Vii pay discrimination claims must file a complaint within 180 days..even if THEY WERE UNAWARE [!!!!!!!] of the discrimination at that time or the effects continued to the present. Anger over this egregious injustice led to a 2009 law overriding the “court.” [M. Coyle: “The Roberts Court”]
E.”When Your Rapist Demands Custody” [Michaela Maas; Mother Jones; Sept/Oct., 2019]: Tiffany was raped at age 12; her rapist got a less than a year sentence; she dropped out of school and did odd jobs. When she applied for state assistance – the male judge granted her rapist joint custody and ordered her to live within 100 miles of him, ordered her rapist’s name be added to her son’s birth certificate, disclosed her address to her rapist.
F. “Bowles v. Russell[2007]: A judge’s error on the time for filing an appeal by a criminal defendant does NOT [!!!!!!!!!!] excuse the late filing of the appeal.!!!!!!!!! [Coyle]
G. “Abortion laws spark profound changes in other care” [Lindsey Tanner; Assoc. Press; 7/17/22]: “With the fall of Roe..”The art of medicine is lost and actually has been replaced by fear, [Dr. Jessain] Munoz said…”We physically watched her get sicker and sicker..” A Virginia woman can’t take her medicine for lupus because it could be used “theoretically” to induce abortion.
H.Wal-Mart v. Dukes”[2011]: A nationwide group of 1.5 million female employees suing WalMart for discrimination in pay and promotions failed to have common questions of law or fact in order to qualify as a class action under federal rules. [Coyle]. REAL meaning: the women were to stupid. Court also said they didn’t have enough “in common”; the “court” ignored expert testimony on company policy itself as a factorI.
I. “I’m Terrified for My Patients” [Dr. David Hackney; New York Times; 7/10/22]: “Ohio’s new law is unimaginably cruel.” He knows he will meet a woman with a child who will die after delivery; with no ability to leave Ohio; and “she is going to have to carry a pregnancy TO TERM AGAINST HER WILL.. The risks of term delivery are far greater than the risk of abortion.”
J. “Glucksberg”[1997]: The right to privacy doesn’t include the right of terminally ill patients to assisted death. Rehnquist “court” would protect rights not in the Constitution only if were “objectively, ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.'” There was no tradition protecting assisted death – therefore no constitutional right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[Chemerinsky: Assault on the Constitution”]
K. “Data on rape cases is elusive” [Adrianna Rodriguez; USA Today; 7/17/22]: “Until the Roe ruling, I had never had a colleague tell me about a pregnancy..being forced to continue because of rape. In the last three weeks, I’ve heard of three.” Dr. Erika Werner, Tufts Medical Center obstetrics and gynecology chair.
L. “Garrett”[2001]: A nurse lost her job at a state hospital when she took time off for BREAST CANCER TREATMENT was not allowed to sue under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [Chemerinsky: “Assault on Constitution”]
M. Iqbal [2009]: the “court” ruled the complaint should be denied because he failed to allege sufficient facts for a court to conclude it was “plausible” he might win, “no longer did courts have to accept the allegations of the complaint as true, conclusory allegations of fact should be ignored by federal courts, a “radical decision, every example of complaint in Federal Rules of Civili Procedure would have to be dismissed!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Chemerinsky: Consrv. Assault on Const.]
*** “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” [Justice Louis Brandeis]
III. USING CASES. Recent Republican dominated “courts,” especially the Roberts “court” like to USE a cherry-picked case – NOT for justice, but to CHANGE the law – the way THEY WANT IT TO BE. Ideology and pure reactionary power over law and what American used to think of as “justice.”
A. “The city repealed the ordinance, rendering the case moot..but Justices Thomas..Alito..Gorsuch did not want to let the case go. It was simply too inviting a vehicle..”[Greenhouse; Justice on the Brink’]
B. “Constitutionally Out of Bounds” [Liz Hayes; Church & State; February, 2022]: “In 2019, the Supreme Court declined to hear Kennedy’s case. But Justice Samuel A. Alito, joined by three other conservative justices, wrote a statement laying the groundwork for the coach’s lawyers to get his case before the court. The lawyers followed Alito’s playbook, and on January 14, the court agreed to hear the case..” [collusion?]
C. “The Court’s Third Great Crisis” [Garrett Epps; Washington Monthly; November/December, 2022]: “The other major decisions..were written in terms so broad as to seem an open invitation for conservative advocacy groups seeking to roll back existing precedent in a wide variety of areas.” [collusion among FRIENDS???}
D. “Pliva-Mensing” [20110: Justice Sotomayor’s dissent: “[The Court] invent[ed] new principles of pre-emption out of thin air..” {Chemerinsky: “The Case Against the Supreme Court”]
E. “..on June 29, 2009, the Court on its own, asked for a new briefing..None of the parties to the case had asked the Court to consider this constitutional issue..” [Chemerinsky: “Case Against the Supreme Court’]
F. “There was no obvious reason for the grants of review..no clear conflict in the lower circuit courts..two appellate courts in the Seattle and Louisville litigation had approved the school plans..The school boards were acting voluntarily..with broad community support.” [Coyle: The Roberts Court. The Struggle for the Constitution”]
G. “..the justices rewrote the question they would decide {!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]..but there was no burning conflict among federal appellate courts..no burning controversy within the District..the appellate court had said the individual right like other rights, was not absolute. With a Supreme Court precedent..for nearly 70 years..settling the question in favor of a militia-collective rights interpretation..it was an aggressive conservative Court taking on. a long-sought objective on the conservative political agenda.” [Coyle: Roberts Court”] [A LONG-SOUGHT CONSERVATIVE OBJECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
H. “Iqbal changed the rule, and no party in the case had asked the Court to make that change.” [Coyle: Roberts Court”]
I. “Gross” [2009]: “..even though no party in the case had raised the issue or sought Thomas’ outcome, the majority aggressively moved to impose a higher burden of proof..” [Coyle: “The Roberts Court”]
J. Alito and Kavanaugh “seeking to use” Fulton” and get “Lukumi” to obliterate “Smith” – and MANUFACTURE “hostility”
[L. Greenhouse: “Justice On The Brink”]
K. “..Davis’s petition did not meet the criteria for Supreme Court review..her petition offered Thomas and Alito something they had spent five years waiting for..an “Obergefell” “victim”.. The Thomas-Alito statement was an invitation to anyone with a religious objection to same-sex marriage to bring the court a better case.”
[L. Greenhouse: “Justice On The Brink”
SO – go back over the above cases. Is this PATTERN what You expect for an American “court’????????? Sitting there like a nest of spiders waiting for the prey to come by. – or. – putting out the “sugar” to make sure you get the case “you have been waiting five years for”?????????? TELL us – why would a legitimate “court” be waiting five years for a particular case?????? Is not a REAL “court” dealing with cases as they come – rather than MANUFACTURING them – so it can check off another “conservative objective”???????? How is this “justice”? “Justice for the rich and poor alike”??????????? What country are we in?
*** “In a time of deceit, telling truth is a revolutionary act.” [George Orwell]
With Justice For All 