This siye has already posted MULTIPLE postings on the FAILINGS [well documented] of the Roberts “supreme court.” See: “The Far Right Threat to Democracy, VII – Corruption of Law and Supreme Court” – May, 2023.
How can we say “the failings of the Roberts “court.”? And. WHY. do we put Roberts “supreme court” in lower case letters? Because: the 1789-1999 progression of American history, American constitutional law, American democracy. Because: The Roberts “court’s” own TRACK RECORD reveals preferred “winners and losers” of their “jurisprudence.” Because: the Roberts “court” has failed to achieve the goals of the Founders – Constitution’s Preamble: “We, the People” ordained the U.S. Constitution to achieve: “a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility..promote the general Welfare..”
Examine the “big” and “small” decisions, 2005-2024. The Roberts “court” rulings have often led to chaos, cruelty, corruption. The Roberts “court” opinions written by “the Roberts Five” [“The Scheme”] reveal a shocking PATTERN of achieving ideological goals of the Far Right, by a stunning. 73-0 scorecard.
Begin with this: from 1789-1999, the virtually unanimous opinion of THE worst Supreme Court decisions EVER were: Dred Scott, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu – all racial, all later corrected. 2000 gave us the infamous “Bush-Gore” decision which should NEVER been undertaken.
Then, some of the Roberts “court” TRACK RECORD: Heller, Citizens United, Shelby County, McDonnell, Dobbs. Plus: denial of court access, forced arbitration, refusal to rule on gerrymandering, union busting, “Shadow Docket” abuse, bogus “religious rights.”
Awaiting America in June, 2024: a decision on whether ANY American president has ANY kind of legal “immunity” – even for criminal acts [something MULTIPLE Founders are recorded as opposing]. If a certain ex-president gets ANY “immunity”. – then, friends, as loyal and patriotic American citizens – YOU. must face this question: Is American democracy over??? Yes, OVER. Kings and dictators have immunity – until 2024, no American president did.
Then this: intellectual corruption. FIRST: the preposterous “theory” used by “conservatives” to “justify” crazy, often anti-American, anti-Constitutional rulings: “originalism”/”textualism”/”original intent”, etc. Supposedly, post-1980 Far Right Supreme Court “justices” can read 1789-91 tea leaves and find “original intent – that NOBODY else, 1787-1980 discovered. By parsing and torturing, and using 3rd-4th-5th-6th-7th-10th-100th “meanings” of cherry-picked words and phrases – the post-1980 “conservative” “justices” discover – in THEIR minds [or in the feverish workings of R-W “think tanks] – what our Founders “really meant”. [“alternative facts” in action!!!] !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Originalism” has been previously [see John Marshall & other Founders], and currently [ Erwin Chemerinsky’s “Worse Than Nothing The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism”]. – absolutely, and totally DESTROYED. as ANY kind of serious constitutional thought
SECOND: some incredible and stupid “reasoning” supporting Roberts “court” opinions. Heller supposedly finds what five [5!!!] previous Supreme Court rulings ‘missed.” Various “religious rights’ rulings are un-American, against what the Founders repeatedly said & ENACTED, ahistorical. Shelby County claimed “the South has changed.” Texas proved the stupidity of that in less than 24 hours, followed by other states!!!!!! Dobbs is one big historical LIE from beginning to end. No serious American historian could have said these things. All this just a BEGINNING of often mind-bending legal and historical IGNORANCE – which would be comical if those rulings didn’t produce chaos, cruelty, corruption.
THIRD: the role of Roberts “court” opinions in the. THEFT of 1945-1980 American democracy and prosperity. An annonced goal of Roberts “court” supporters, benefactors, defenders, rationalizers is a return to either circa 1950 Virginia, or the 1865-1900 “Gilded Age” [notorious for corruption and egregious income inequality] – depending upon whom is talking. BOTTOM LINE: the Far Right, and their tool – the Roberts “court” – intend to REWRITE. THE. BASIC. RULES. OF AMERICA. – to eliminate post-1900 “progressivism” in ALL forms
Want proof? “originalism” takes YOU back to 1789-1800. To a society where 50% of Americans couldn’t vote and were supposed to be “pregnant, barefoot, & in the kitchen” – most important: silent; to a society where others indentured servants, non-property owners, minorities, had reduced/no rights and largely couldn’t vote; to a society without Social Security & Medicare, or a social safety net; to a society without progressive income and estate taxes [ THE only fair and democratic taxes]; to a society without broad-based public education [the Far Right wants to END public education] – in short: a plutocratic theocracy. Want proof??? – check the Roberts “court” top two major winners!!!!!
Most of the MOUNTAIN of evidence against the Roberts “court” is in plain sight: their infamous rulings. But – significant pieces are not. YOUR research assignments: WHY do the Far Right and Republicans have this mantra on ANY Supreme Court future nominee: “no more O’Connors,” “no more Souters”??????? THIS, ALONE, tells YOU much of what YOU need to understand. Investigate the role of Right Wing law firms. Investigate who Leonard Leo is, and what he has done to the American legal system [also investigate WHO his funders are!!!!!!]. Investigate what the Federalist Society is, WHY they exist, what they do [do, NOT what they say they do!!!], how they claim to be a “check” on the Supreme Court. Investigate the role of Far right “networks” [Chayes & others]. Investigate the funding of all this by R-W billionaires [ WHY they are INVESTING in the changing of American law]]. Investigate WHY former Republican appointed Justice John Stevens famously said he entered the Supreme Court as a conservative, left the Court as a liberal, but – never changed. What is Stevens telling you???????
Find the real answers to these questions – YOU will have many of THE answers WHY. the Roberts “court” is “heading in the wrong direction” – and, is a threat to what American democracy was 1789-1980.
Following is a VERY small part of the MOUNTAIN of EVIDENCE that some are now courageously are now calling “corrupt’ or “intellectually corrupt” “Roberts “court” actions.
1] Every American should read “Appendix A” of Senator Whitehouse”s “The Scheme.” – “The 80”: Decisions by the Roberts Five, 2005-2019. Originally presented in an April, 2019 article for the American Constitution Society, “A Right-Wing rout: What the ‘Roberts Five’ Decisions Tell Us About the Integrity of Today’s Supreme Court.”
The analysis of 80 cases decided by 5-4 pinions of the Roberts Five: Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Thomas, and either Scalia or Gorsuch – “..each of which served one of the following conservative interests” :
1] controlling the political process to benefit conservative candidates and policies
2] protecting corporations from liability and letting polluters pollute
3] restricting civil rights and condoning discrimination
4]. advancing a right-right social agenda
**** “The final five cases are decisions by the Roberts Five in which no clear donor interests are presently
identified.”
“Where appropriate, the appendix also identifies the judicial principles these conservative justices generally espouse, but which they arguably disregarded in these cases to achieve a desired outcome, including: [1]. stare decisis ; [2]2. judicial restraint; [3] originalism ; [4]. textualism ; and [5] aversion to fact finding.”
*****!!!!!*****!!!!! – NOW. – reread the above quoters from Senator Whitehouse”s “The Scheme.” YOU tell us – what does this sound like to YOU????? The Constitution’s Article III: “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour..” YOU tell us: is it possible, in a “democratic” state’s “Supreme Court” to have a 73-0 record on almost ANY kind of cases, most especially when the cases were selected, then ruled on, to achieve “a desired outcome” which benefitted people and groups in one political/economic sphere??????
Leaving aside numerous other ethical issues and question, THIS: is ANY American court supposed to have “a desired outcome”???? Isn’t THE purpose of American courts to weigh ALL the evidence – AND THEN – reach a decision???? Isn’t reaching “a desired outcome” what the courts of Nazi Germany, Putin’s Russia, and current leadership of Communist China. [see Hong Kong} did and do????????
Understand also this: the charges against the Roberts ‘court” are printed and circulated, hence fall under liability law for false statements. To date, no legal proceedings have been begun against Whitehouse.
2] Isaiah 10:1: “Woe unto them that make unjust laws.”
3]. On page 3 of “On Corruption in America,” Sarah Chayes begins discussing “McDonnell v. United States,” under this heading “Dismissing Corruption June 27, 2016”. in which the Roberts “court” unanimously [!!!!!] redefined bribery – more narrowly. this led to cases being dropped, fewer bribery cases being filed. “In the United States, serious and damaging public corruption is not getting punished. That means, by default, that we deem it to be just fine.”
5] U.S. District Court judge Lynn Adelman “..warned that “the Court’s hard right majority is actively participating in undermining American Democracy. Indeed, the Roberts Court has contributed to ensuring that the political system in the United States pays little attention to ordinary Americans and responds only to the wishes of a relatively small number of powerful corporations and individuals.” [“The Scheme,” page 209]
6]. “But antitrust law was not rewritten in Congress: it was vitiated by the judiciary. Four pro-business conservatives joined the Supreme Court in Nixon’s first term. Including..Lewis Powell..the prominent corporate lawyer who wrote the alarmist 1971 [memo]..waring capitalism was under attack. In 1976…Powell persisted, seeing an opportunity to undermine antitrust law.” [“The Economist’s Hour,” Applebaum]
7] “A major goal of the ideologues who nurtured Roberts is cutting odd access to the courts…The ‘original intent’ theory, legal scholars have shown, relies at times on fanciful versions of history as well as third, fourth, and even fifth definitions of words to justify its decisions to deny relief or even access to the courts.” [“Free Lunch”]
8] “In its most extreme disregard for decency, the court held in a 2007 case, Justice Roberts in the majority, that an Ohio inmate must rot in jail until he dies without any review of his case..[even though] the judge made a mistake.”
[“Free Lunch”]
9] “Great is the mischief of a legal crime.” [R.W. Emerson, on the Fugitive Slave Law, 1851]
10] From “Casey” [1992], three Republican=appointed justices: “[O]nly the most convincing justification under accepted standards of precedent could suffice to demonstrate that a later decision overruling the first was anything but a surrender to political pressure, and an unjustified repudiation to principle on which the Court staked its authority in the first instance. So to overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the Court’s legitimacy beyond a serious question.” {“The Scheme” -***!!! NOTE: these three Republicans refused to overrule ‘Roe v. Wade.” Something the Roberts “court” didn’t. Any questions???]
11] George Washington: “I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man..being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
12] Barry Goldwater: “Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternative.”
13] 6/26/22 – New York Times editorial: “The Supreme Court on Tuesday embraced a vision of thr Second Amendment that is profoundly at odds with precedent and the dangers that American communities face today, upending longstanding practice of letting states decide for themselves how to regulate gun possession in public…It was only in 2008..that conservatives on the court divined an individual right to bare arms..” NOTE: which 5 previous Supreme Courts – somehow, in their “ignorance” couldn’t “divine”!!!!!!!!!!! – or make up ]
14]. “The Scheme,” “Appellate Fact-Finding,” pages 202 and following: “The willingness of today’s conservative justices to roam far beyond the judicial record and make up facts in order to reach their desired policy outcome as been eye-popping.” Several cases are presented to illustrate this Roberts “court” practice: MAKING UP. FACTS !!!!!! Would YOU like a judge in YOUR case to “make up facts”??????
15] “The Scheme,” page 24 – Whitehouse explains for YOU how the scheme to capture the Supreme Court unfolded – “..a work of decades, requiring an infrastructure to groom and deploy justices who would be loyal to the forces that secured their appointment…[require] government allies..[require] public relations campaigns…coordination..time..money. A lot of money…….Corporate power lurks behind the Scheme to capture the Court.”
16] “The Shadow Docket How The Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings To Amass Power and Undermine The Republic,” by Professor Stephen Vladek, describes the threat posed by the Roberts ‘court” misusing “the shadow docket. So does Senator Whitehouse, in his chapter 20. Just another device to undo the 20th century.
17] The letter from retired judge, James Dannenberg [3/13/20] should be read by EVERY patriotic American.. it’s on pages 210-211 in “The Scheme.: A short summary: “Dear Chief Justice Roberts: I hereby resign my membership in the Supreme Court bar…Your “conservative” majority has cynically undermined basic freedoms by hypocritically weaponizing others..There is nothing “conservative” about this trend…the Court majority, under your leadership, has become little more than a result-oriented extension of the right wing of the Republican Party…I no longer have respect for you or your majority…With deepest regret, James Dannenberg.”
There is. unfortunately, to the damage the Roberts “court” has done to American democracy – which is why this post is included in “The Far Right Threat, “heading in the wrong direction.”
18] !!!! And – the evidence on misbehavior by the Roberts “court” just keeps on coming!!!!!!!!! – today’s newspaper has the
“‘Stop the Steal’ flag flew in Alito’s yard”. story. Subtitled. “Symbol raises questions of ethics and impartiality of high court’s Jan 6 rulings.” America will find out if My judges” will grant “immunity” to the guy who pit them there – just like kings, dictators, and mob bosses – “loyalty” personified
For a “supreme court’ which has specialized in. CHANGING. THE RULES. – “immunity’ for a person tape recorded engaged in unethical and criminal behavior will be the ULTIMATE. RULES CHANGE!!!!!! In 1974, with a different breed of Republicans in office – a president resigned from office. He. DIDN’T. get immunity for Watergate crimes.
Rigging the courts is a MAJOR reason why America is “heading in the wrong direction.”0
With Justice For All 