“Before they were approved..Reagan judges were “shook down and wrung out like crowbaits..required to answer a ten-page questionnaire..a day-long personal interview. A special administration committee made further inquiries into the candidate’s attitude toward abortion, school prayer, criminal procedure, and affirmative action; then..the prospective judge had to pass muster with the attorney general..With few exceptions, those who received the administration’s nod were not especially renowned for their fondness of the people or the people’s rights.
“Archibald Cox..the special Watergate prosecutor..fears that this kind of politicalization will endanger the fundamental purpose of the court..”The idea of judicial independence may be at risk.”
“Alan Dershowitz..”[A] president who seeks to change the jurisprudence by appointing judges committed to carrying out his political agenda endangers our delicate system of checks and balances. Judges are supposed to serve as a counterweight to political excess, not as the president’s yes-men.” [Jerry Spence: “With Justice For None”]
*** “Corruption comes by degrees.” [Juvenal}
I. Conservative Counter-Revolution Against the Twentieth Century”
a. “The Battle to End Roe Has Changed Democracy” [Mary Ziegler; New York Times; 6/25/22]: “After Casey, some anti-abortion groups expanded their focus: To gain even more control over Supreme Court nominations, they sought to overhaul the Republican Party and the rules of campaign spending. Anti-abortion lawyers waged war on campaign finance limits..joined other groups working to unleash a torrent of spending from nonparty outside groups, fought for donor anonymity and played an instrumental role in the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.”
B. “We changed the country [The untold story of how a powerful corporate law firm moved American government and courts to the right]” [David Enrich; New York Times Magazine; 8/28/22]: ‘..on behalf of a major coal company, Jones Day would help persuade the Supreme Court to invalidate the E.P.A.’s efforts to rein in carbon emissions – a landmark victory that Jones Day noted triumphantly, would most likely open the door to new “legal challenges to other exercises of executive agency power.”
C. “Corporate-Friendly Courts Were the Real Plan” [Sohrab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, Chad Pecknold; New York Times; 6/19/22]: ‘The Federalist Society was one of many institutions nurtured by the right wing of the donor class to roll back the legal and material achievements of U.S. workers..and to elevate economic deregulation to high moral and constitutional principle..But a growing number of dissidents within conservatism view these legacy institutions – the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, National Review Institute and others – as ultimately hostile to core commitments that ought to inform the right.”
D. “Christian Nationalists Are Excited About What’s Next” [Katherine Stewart; New York Times; 7/7/22]: “Breaking democracy..is the point of the project..The end of abortion rights is the beginning of a new and much more personal attack on individual rights..Christian nationalism’s..purpose is to hollow out democracy until nothing is left but a thin cover for rule by a supposedly right-thinking elite, bubble-wrapped in sanctimony and insulated from any real democratic check on its power.”
E. “The Fight To Reduce Emissions Got Harder” [Manuela Andreoni: New York Times; 7/1/22]: “The ruling, in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, not only limits the authority of the E.P.A., but potentially that of other agencies to enact a broad array of regulations to protect the environment and public health. It was the product of a coordinated, multi-year strategy by Republican attorneys general and others to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental law. The E.P.A. case was unusual because it focused on a program that wasn’t even in force..”
F. “The Court’s Third Great Crisis” [Garrett Epps; Washington Monthly; Nov./Dec., 2022]: “The change in the Court is the result of a sustained, highly organized, entirely conscious campaign to annex the federal judiciary to the political party system..initiated, organized, conducted by the GOP, the conservative legal movement and its billionaire backers, and the political wing of white evangelical Protestantism.”
G.”..the Federalist Society network was most influential in cases where the Supreme Court took a big step away from their established constitutional framework..where the doctrinal distance was greatest;..members of the Federalist Society functioned as active conduits for idea transmission. The intellectual capital they supplied..helped the Supreme Court majority justify these revolutionary constitutional decisions..the Federalist Society network helped foster and facilitate climate conducive to constitutional change..
“..the Federalist Society’s role as a powerful and vocal :judicial audience”..a role that has been important in keeping judges and justices aligned with the network’s views and shared beliefs once on the bench..members..engage in this..feedback loop with the Justices frequently..Federalist Society cofounder Steven Calabresi said..the growth of a conservative and libertarian counter-elite through the Federalist Society has “absolutely helped keep Justices such as Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito in check..” [!!!!!not straying fromWHY they were appointed!!!!!]
Pay attention to case diagrams showing Federalist Society influence: page 45: “Heller”: Amici curiae briefs [21], litigator [1[, lower courts [1], Supreme Court clerks [4], Justices [4]; “Citizens United” [page 84]; NFIB et all v. Sebelius [136].
[Amanda Hollis-Brusky: “Ideas With Consequences The Federalist Society And The Conservative Counterrevolution”]
H. “Right Minds The Claremont Institute Helped Shape A Trumpian Vision for American Conservatism. The Revolution It Started Is Far From Finished” [ Elisabeth Zerofsky; New York Times Magazine; 8/7/22}: ‘..Claremont’s reach is extensive..collaborated with Ron DeSantis..helped shape the views of Clarence Thomas, Tom Cotton, and..Christopher Ruffo..Members of Claremont wish to see the right take control of all three branches of government for a generation, dissolve certain federal agencies [CIA, Dept of Ed, EEOC] – and also stop..the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners..states need to start defending higher education..”defeat multiculturalism” and “woke communism”…Claremont’s ideal future: the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
***”[To fanatics] all thought is divinely classified into two kinds -that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.” [ Justice Robert Jackson ]
II. NUMBERS
A. “Citizen United benefits GOP” [Reid Wilson; Washington Post; 8/29/14]: “..in six of the most affected states..the probability that a Republican would be elected to a state legislative seat increased by 10 percentage points or more..In five other states..Republican candidates were 7 percentage points more likely to win.”
B. “Abortion Pill OK’d In Over 90 Nations” [Miriam Berger; Wash. Post; 4/23/23]: The subject of a Texas judge’s ruling – mifepristone – is approved in “at least 94 countries.” The World Health Organization recommends it and lists it as an “essential drug.” “Hundreds” of American scientific studies and “codified perspectives in the global health community” approve.
C. Chamber of Commerce [2015!] Supreme Court “Win” rate: Burger Court; 43%; Rehnquist Court: 56%; Roberts Court: 70%. [Ian Millhiser: “Injustices’}
d. “..to say..a person always begins at conception is patently false..up to 5% of human conceptions fail to survive..a huge mistake..to legislate a starting point for human life..inconsistent with biology..” [ “When does human life begin?”; Arthur Caplan; Free Inquiry; Aug/Sept, 2014}
E. “States with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest..” “Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to make obscene gestures at other motorists, 77% more likely to follow them aggressively.” [Mother Jones; March/April, 2013]
*** “Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.”
[ Mohandas Gandhi]
III> PATTERNS
A. “..something often overlooked about constitutional law under the conservative Burger, Rehnquist..and Roberts courts: since “Roe”..the Supreme Court has rarely recognized new constitutional rights or extended existing rights..often has significantly cut back on important civil liberties..the major areas where the Court has recognize[d] new rights..are those that advance conservative ideology.” [Erwin Chemerinsky: “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution.”]
B. “Increasingly, federal judges nominated by Republican presidents have undermined the court’s modern role as defenders of individual rights. the Supreme Court, tilting toward institutional rights, is eroding some of the protective case law of the twentieth century.” { David Shipley: “Rights At Risk” ]
C. “Judicial Activism In Our Times. Top Nine Judicial Activist Decisions By The Rehnquist Court In The Last Ten Years”
-Gratz v. Bollinger; State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Campbell; Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett; Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents; United States v. Morrison; Printz v. United States; City of Boerne v. Flores; Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida; Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena [Catherine Crier: “Contempt”]
D. “The Roberts court, more than any other court in history, uses its docket-setting discretion to select cases that allow it to revisit and overrule precedent..” [Adam Liptak; “Amassing of Power”By Supreme Court Alarms Scholars”; New York Times; 12/20/22)
E. “..the Roberts Court has issued a string of decisions that make it much harder to hold government accountable in court when it violates the Constitution…One of the Court’s subtlest tools is the removal of remedies for violations of civil rights.” [ Lawrence Tribe and Joshua Matz: “Uncertain Justice” ]
*** “when people lose respect for one bad law, it is but a short step before they include the good laws with the bad and re shortly in rebellion against all law.” [ Oscar Underwood }
BONUS!!!!! – You can’t make this stuff up!!! And – it keeps turning up!!! [by certain people]: “Ginni Thomas was paid thousands under the table by conservatives” [Emma Brown, Shawn Boburg, Jonathan O’Connell; Wash. Post; 5/5/23]: “Conservative activist Leonard Leo arranged for [Ginni Thomas] to be paid tens of thousands..specifying her name be left off billing paperwork..”give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K”..money to be drawn from a nonprofit that soon would have an interest before the court..Thomas” votes were aligned with the Judicial Education Project in six of the cases.”
!!!!!!!!!!! “Never in the field of American law was so much injury and misery inflicted on the many [330 million] by so few [6] masquerading as “justices.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!0
With Justice For All 