Why can we say such a thing? Start with an average 53 American children being shot EVERY day. What “civilized” nation allows that??? Poverty, hunger, homelessness – of children. What “advanced” nation allows this??? A children’s mental health crisis. What “rich” nation allows this??? Tobacco being deliberately marketed to young people. What “caring” nation allows corporations to market death to its children??? Children being deliberately addicted to social media, for hours a day. What “moral” nation allows this addiction to continue – when it KNOWS this is occurring??? Government spending on older adults plus other budget items FAR exceeds that spent on its future – its children. What “rational” nation allows its own future to be short changed??? Occupations that primarily care for and educate children have long been under paid. What message does a society send when those who care for and educate its future adults are under paid???

*** “Don’t tell me what your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.” [James W. Frick]

1]. Gun Violence – and Individual and Community Trauma
– “A Generation Torn by Trauma..School shooting survivors can’t escape echoes of the gunfire” [John Woodrow Cox; Wash. Post; 5/29/22]: “..hundreds of thousands of children’s lives have been profoundly changed by school shootings..children who suffer no physical wounds at all, but are still haunted for years..The nightmares..”
– “After witnessing a parent’s death, a life of trauma” [John W. Cox; Wash. Post Weekly; 8/28/22]: “..thinks about the man she watched shoot her father..feared for years that he would find her family again..made her so paranoid..”

*** “So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no true love in the world.” [Isadora Duncan]

2] “Why does America hate its children?” [Paul Krugman; New York Times; 1/20/20]: “..the grim exceptionalism of America’s child-oriented policies, which are Dickensian compared with those of every other advanced country..every advanced country mandates some form of paid leave for new mothers..except the United States..”

*** “A youth is to be regarded with respect.” [Confucius].

3] Addicting Children to Social Media – and Depression, Hospitalization, Suicide
– “Curb kid’s tech addiction, investors tell Apple” [Assoc.Press; 1/9/17]: “Two major Apple investors have urged the iPhone maker to help curb smartphone addiction among children..letter cited various studies on negative effects of smartphones and social media on children’s mental and physical health..”
– “Suicide spike in girls raises concerns over social media” {Cynthia Koons; Bloomberg News; 5/18/19]: “The fact..social media has become the primary forum for interpersonal engagement in adolescence.. Increasing rates of suicide may be the ‘canary in the coal mine’..”
– “Seattle schools sue social media” [Gene Johnson; Assoc Press; 1/9/23]: “..complaint says the social media companies have created a public nuisance by targeting their products to children..Internal studies revealed..in 2021 showed the company knew that Instagram negatively affected teenagers..”

*** “No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child.” [Maria Montessori]

4] DELIBERATELY Under Funding Education – Damage Done To Children, America
– “The uneducated American” [Paul Krugman; New York Times; 10/12/09]: “America, which used to take the lead in educating its young, had been gradually falling behind other advanced countries..education is on the chopping block..laid-off teachers are only part of the story. Even more important is the way that we’re shutting off opportunities.”
– “The Cost Of Education Funding Cuts”. [NEA Today; 2018]: “..mice in their classrooms, they have to buy their own glue traps..antiquated plumbing that regularly floods a..hallway…some schools restrict..use of air conditioners…a teacher who sells his blood..teachers who work into the night as Uber drivers..[17 states divert $1 billion to private schools]

*** “The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation; therefore, the state or the nation, or both combined, should support the free institutions of a good common school education.”
1888 Republican Party national platform plank]

5]. Respecting Children By Telling Them The TRUTH
– There are political campaigns built around “protecting” children from “divisive” topics: the Holocaust; slavery, Civil War causes, segregation, racism; American Indians; women; Asian-Americans. Some states passing laws making it illegal to go “too far” on other things – like anything to do with [SEX!!!] and sexuality, most especially gays and trans youth.
The central lessons of WW II: the Holocaust, dangers of fascism [now occurring in the U.S.A.], dangers of “America First” isolationism [now occurring in the U.S.A.]. From 1619 forward, the South defended racial slavery and segregation. It’s DOCUMENTED southern states refused to join a “United States” unless slavery was protected – several Constitutional provisions haunt us to this day. From 1492 forward, GENOCIDE against “Indians” was conducted in North and South America. Asian-Americans were imported as labor to build railroads – then laws restricted their immigration. Women were second class citizens without political power, 1789-1920; subject to discrimination, quotas in schools, the “glass ceiling,” 1920 – .

*** “History is the torch that is meant to illustrate the past, to guard against the repetition of our mistakes of other days. We cannot join in rewriting of history to make it conform to our comfort and convenience.” [Claude Bowers]

“School Shouldn’t Be A Battlefield” [George Packer; The Atlantic; April, 2022]: “Public education is meant not to mirror the unexamined values of a particular family or community, but to expose children to ways that other people, some of them long daed, think..A functioning democracy needs citizens who know how to make decisions together.”

*** “It’s not so much what folks don’t know that causes problems, it’s what they do know that ain’t so.” [Artemus Ward]

“In Schools, Talk about Racism Can Reduce Bias” [Camilla M. Griffiths & Nicky Sullivan; Scientific American; Nov.,2022]:”In Iowa..a law prohibits any teaching that suggests the U.S. is “fundamentally or systematically racist or sexist”..also specifies that teachers must ensure that no student feels “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.”..[this seems to be] protective of children. But the effect is quite the opposite.”

*** “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth, not going all the way, and not starting.” [Buddha]

Perhaps with refusing to allow our children to hear and discuss truth – it isn’t so much hating children, in this case, but – that America FEARS. it’s own children. the fear if they hear the truth, adults will lose control over them; the fear children knowing truth will disown parents; the fear knowing truth children will [GASP] want to change America to reflect truth [how absolutely UNPATRIOTIC of them!!!]

*** “The true test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops – no, but the kind of man the country turns out.” [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

6] Homeless and Hungry in America. – Children
– “New report says U.S. child homelessness at all-time high” [David Crary & Lisa Leff; Assoc.Press; 11/17/14]: “..the report issued Monday by the National Center on Family Homelessness calculates that nearly 2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013..”
– “A quarter of children being raised by grandparents face hunger” [Michelle Singletary; Wash. Post; 11/21/22]: “In 2021, about 34 million people lived in food-insecure households..”
– “It’s the law: Free school meals for all” [Eder Campuzano; Star Tribune; 3/18/23]: “Minnesota becomes the third state to require no-cost breakfast and lunch for all students..”
– “Lost In Ohio” [Samantha Shapiro; New York times Magazine; 10/2/22]: “Fo homeless kids in rural America, staying in school can seem next to impossible – but often it’s their only source of help…failing to graduate from high school is the single greatest risk factor for future homelessness.”

*** “The children who go to bed hungry in a Harlem slum or a West Virginia mining town are not being deprived because no food can be found ..; they are going to bed hungry because ..we have not yet found a way to make the necessities of life available to all of our citizens – including those whose failure is ..only an unwise choice of parents.” [ senator J. William Fulbright]

7] Book Burnings – And – Beyond
-“Why book bans and voter suppression go hand in hand” [Kimberle W. Crenshaw; L.A. Times; 11/13/22]: “..between July, 2021 and June, 2022, nearly 1,700 book titles have been banned..The magnitude of this assault on our children’s right to learn cannot be overstated..When honest discussions and examination of racism are made unspeakable, then a truly inclusive democracy in unattainable.”
– “Bible Among Books Withheld From Schools” [Amanda Holpuch; New York Times; 8/19/22]: “..It is virtually impossible to run a school or a library that purges books in response to any complaint from any corner ..”
– “The old censorship argument has a new goal” [David Levithan; Wash. Post Weekly; 10/2/22]: “..the attacks are less about the books. We’re targets in a much larger proxy war with the goal of eviscerating the country’s public education system.”
– GOP pushes curriculum transparency across U.S.” [Julie C. Smith & Casey Smith; Assoc. Press; 2/13/22]: “Tissot [Cincy Mom] also supports policing teachers’ behavior more closely, including requiring them to wear body cameras..the legislation gives local parent committees with no expertise power over which curriculum teachers use, and parents could file complaints and lawsuits if they believe teachers have violated a ban on certain “divisive concepts.”

*** “Don’t join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.” [President Dwight D. Eisenhower]

8] Erasing Sub Humans
– “Trans People Testifying To Legislatures Facer Disrespect’ [Andrew Demillo; Assoc Press; 2/28/23]: “The idea of protecting children by withholding medical care is undermined by health experts, who have said minors with gender dysphoria who do not receive appropriate care face dramatically increased risk of suicide and serious depression.”
– “No Dignity In this Kind OfAmerica” [Jamelle Bouie; New York Times]: “To deny equal respect and dignity to any part of the citizenry is to place the entire country on the road to tiered citizenship and limited rights, to liberty for some and hierarchy for the rest..There is no world in which their freedom is suppressed and yours is sustained.”
– “GOP pushing anti-LGBTQ bills at record pace” [Kelsey Butler; Bloomberg News; 4/10/22]: “It”s not just about health care. It’s not just about bathrooms or curriculum or any of the other areas where these transgender youth are being targeted. It is about a well-coordinated national political campaign to write them out of existence.”

*** “It is easy to substitute our will for that of the child by means of suggestion or coercion; but when w have done this we have robbed him of his greatest right, the right to construct his own personality.” [Maria Montessori]

9] So – DOES America Hate Children?
– What are the basic needs of ANY human being, birth to death? Health care, food, housing, clothing, education. safety and protection, treated with respect and dignity at a MINIMUM. Has America provided all of this, in required quantities for its children? NO. Have other similar nations provided for these needs? YES. America’s DOCUMENTED failure to nurture its own children, as others do is THE reason we can say: “America Hates Children”

*** “Society is indeed a contract…It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such partnership cannot be obtained except in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” [Edmund Burke]

The failure to nurture its own children means America has broken Burke’s sacred contract. America has broken the partnership with generations 175-2023. America has broken the partnership with generations 2023 forward.
If one sees Americans as part of a society, part of a large family, then the American family has failed in its most basic duty: to nurture and protect its children. this is a betrayal of cosmic proportions. By rights, America should be taken to court, and prosecuted for child neglect.

*** “The security and elevation of the family and of family life are the prime objects of civilization, and the ultimate ends of all industry.” [Charles W. Eliot]

It gets worse. Not only neglect – but actual hostility, cruelty, and persecution. – of CHILDREN. Biological science says 3 to 10% of humans are “gay.” They have no choice. They are born this way. Some are tall, some shirt. Some have blue eyes, some brown. Some have tried to resist [even getting married to opposite sex]. Some committed suicide.
CHILDREN – coming to “adults” for help – denied, and worse.

*** “The most effective way to silence our guilty conscience is convince ourselves and others that those we have sinned against are indeed depraved creatures, deserving every punishment, even extermination. We cannot pity those we have wronged, nor can we be indifferent toward them. We must hate and persecute them or else leave the door open to self-contempt.” [Eric Hoffer]

A country that loves its own children does NOT make life more difficult for them. It does NOT allow children to become victims of addictions. It does NOT allow them to be exploited. It does NOT allow thousands to be hungry and homeless.
BUT. – a country that DOES. hate its children just might see thousands of them now being treated and hospitalized for mental health crises.

*** “I’m not sure how many “sins” I would recognize in the world..But I can imagine none that is more irredeemably sinful than the betrayal, the exploitation, of the young by those who should care for them.” [Elizabeth Janeway}o

We are almost all gone now. By our 50th grad reunion, nearly 25% were gone. We were born between the late 1930s and the late 1940s. Our parents, their friends, our neighbors, our teachers, our bosses – were almost all “Greatest Generation” members. THAT was our first stroke of luck. The second was growing up during the 1947-1973 great middle class prosperity era. We graduated high school in the 1950s-1960s – were often married, buying homes, having children before the “Age of Innocence” ended – our third stroke of luck.

Early TV “performers” were often former radio people – which meant they looked like normal people. Ed Murrow switched from London bombings to interview shows. Walter Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley told us the news. Cronkite’s eyes watered on air on 11/22/63.
Featured kid’s shows were “Crusader Rabbit” and “Howdy Doody>”. “Father Knows Best,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” and “Leave It To Beaver” joined “Westerns.” Early “Rock ‘n Roll” had Elvis and Chuck Berry – it was mostly about innocent things like teen love and happiness. Minnie Pearl was on air. Movies featured people like Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. Westerns had big John Wayne. Drive-In movies were a big staple – rumor had it a few kids were conceived in their parking lots.

Baseball was far and away THE #1 team sport. Cobb and Wagner replaced by Ruth and Gehrig, replaced by Greenberg, Feller, DiMaggio and Williams, later Musial, Spahn, Robinson, Berra, Campy, Mantle, Mays, and Aaron. Unlike future pros. Feller and Spahn in WW II, and Williams in Korea – were actually in combat. Hearing of Pearl Harbor, Greenberg re-enlisted.
1920s era sports stadiums predominated, especially for college football. Many were called “Memorial” in honor of WW I soldiers. NFL games were played in baseball stadiums. There were “box seats” but no “private boxes.” The famous 1957 NFL championship game was played in Yankee Stadium, often called the game that “made” the NFL.

Pro hockey was played in 6 Canadian and northern American cities. The NBA was largely a minor sport, some teams having multiple “home” arenas. Pro basketball at one time had the NBL, the ABL, and the BAA. Home games were played in Sheboygan, Oshkosh, Fort Wayne, Providence, Anderson, and Syracuse. At one time, Chicago had two pro teams: Stags and Gears.


All this was before high school and college sports were professionalized. Alumni ego and money [naturally – what else in America???] did that. At one time, the “Big Ten” actually had 10 teams, all in the upper Midwest; the SEC was only in the old South; the Pac 8 was only on the Pacific coast. Before pro sports expanded, local high school and college players were the heroes young kids aspired to be – part of the “Age of Innocence”. – which we, in our innocence, thought was “normal,” not the fleeting thing it turned out to be>

Then. – things began to change.

The “Age of Innocence” ended during the “Decade of Shocks” [Shachtman]. Assassinations: Medgar Evers, JFK, Malcolm X, Martin, Bobby. Then Vietnam [based much on the “Domino Theory” and ignorance of Vietnam]. Then – 1965-66-67-68. Then, in May, 1970 – Kent State and Jacksonville State. Then Watergate.
There were brief bursts of innocence: “the summer of love;” Woodstock [“An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music”], a concert for 400,000 held on an upstate New York dairy farm; hippies; communes. Eventually the Beatles broke up.

But – this “Age of Innocence” was flawed. Not all people were treated equally – especially African-Americans, who had to fight to access rights guaranteed by the l3th-14th-15th Amendments. Women were second class citizens. Feminism considered by some a “deep illness,’ electric shock for neurotic behavior and seeking abortions {Coontz}, the sexual double standard and glass ceilings. Poverty rates increased. Conservative religious values imposed. Indians were shuttled off to “reservations” [never mind broken treaties]. Mexicans were supposed to be happy picking our fruits and vegetables.

Then – the empire struck back.

First attacks on labor: hostility to unions and moving jobs south to non-union states, then anywhere, including democracy’s #1 enemy, China. Corporate “lobbying” [legal machinations] escalated, its goals: reduced taxes [achieved], eliminate regulations [much achieved], eliminate living wage jobs [largely achieved]. The top 1% and corporations now have THE. #1. “business-friendly” Supreme “court” handing them major victories [“Citizens United,” “Janus,” “EPA-W.VA,” mandatory arbitration, etc.}

For perspective and reference: “The Betrayal of the American Dream” [Barlett & Steele] and “Who Stole the American Dream?” [Hedrick Smith] – from a Bloomberg book review: “..all the ways the rich have been sticking it to the middle class since the late 1970s read like a Times investigative report from hell.”
David Cay Johnston’s “Perfectly Legal..The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – And Cheat Everybody Else” and. “Free Lunch..How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense [ And Stick You With The Bill]” Mother Jones, May-June, 2022: “Looted.. How Private Equity is stripping America for parts”. is the tip of the iceberg on how various legal pirate firms are looting America, piece by piece, affecting YOUR food, YOUR housing, YOUR medical care.

Then – the. “culture war.”

The top 1% and corporations couldn’t get what they wanted without people voting for the “right” politicians. The “religious right” declared war on America in the middle 1970s. Read Chris Hedges”. “American Fascists..the Christian Right And The War on America” or Katherine Stewart’s. “The Power Worshippers..Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalists.” Each side – the rich and the “religious” – get what they want: a plutocratic theocracy.

Don’t just believe this! Do your own [serious] research! Start with pre & post-1980 income tables and tax tables – UNPUN!!!!! – from the IRS official figures. Mother Jones, March-April, 2011, has an interesting story on this, including a table on “How much income have you given up for the top 1 percent?” Be sure to read “Plutonomics” on same page!!!

Those of us in the “Luckiest Generation” have not escaped this deliberate, planned. CORRUPTION, we just had that head start, so we were economically more secure when all the post-1980 damage began to occur.
Think of this as an indicator of how much things have changed: many in our generation paid for 4-year college educations by working at a grocery store, weekends and summer.
Some/many of us had retired when the Wall street-inspired 2008 crash occurred, so we escaped much of that corruption [but not the increased taxes for the crook’s bailouts.
And – when COVID hit, most of us did not have to go to work.

***** All this is NOT said in somer form of bragging. The motive”. for YOU. to place what has happened in the last 40 years in perspective. For YOU. to realize that once – 1947-1973 – America achieved, for the great bulk of the middle class – the real “American Dream.”
For YOU to understand that – all we enjoyed. – HAS. BEEN STOLEN. from subsequent generations. STOLEN. by people who are in most cases, already. OBSCENELY. RICH, but are so GREEDY. they want it all. As that 2011 Mother Jones article shows YOU – some were making, on average $27,342,212 EVERY YEAR. In 2023, they’ll be making even more.

*****”The society that loses its grip on the past is in danger, for it produces men who know nothing but the present, and who are not aware that life had been, and could be, different from what it is.” [Aristotle]

Things will NOT get better unless YOU do something!!! YOU and everybody YOU know need to tell politicians who refuse to vote higher taxes on millionaires/billionaires that YOU will not vote for them until they do; to tell them that the Social Security and Medicare “crises” can be solved by one simple thing: remove the stupid, ARTIFICIAL cap on income taxed for Social Security and Medicare. – so 100% of it is taxed [not just the first $160,000 that YOU pay]. – and YOU won’t vote for them until they do.

The 1947-1973 golden middle class age was NOT given to them. It was the result of people DEMANDING it, and only voting for politicians who promised to do it. YOU will have to do the same thing – and. NOT. get sidelined by other issues, most especially the “culture war” issues – because that allows the politicians working for the top 1% to escape. YOUR living standard has gone done because Americans fell into that trap. THE #1. factor behind the destruction of the 1947-73 golden age was: voters got stuck in voting on issues other than economics issues.
Go back to those pre and post-1980 income and tax tables: THAT is where the truth lies. It happened because rich and powerful people WANTED it to happen – and greased the skids with “campaign contributions” [legally laundered money].

*** “We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentration in the hands of a few. But we can’t have both.” [Justice Brandeis]

This post is an outline of the threat. The broad topic: the DOCUMENTED threat to American democracy and society by elements of the Far Right. What happened, is happening, wasn’t “natural.” It was, is ORCHESTRATED by the combined money and resources of Far Right groups.

Some will automatically dismiss this as “liberal propaganda.” WRONG!!! This series will explore DOCUMENTED events and rhetoric by elements of the Far Right. In future posts, these Far Right people will often be identified by “R W s.”

A major part of the r W campaign has been to instill FEAR – through conspiracy theories, blatant FALSEHOODS, insisting 2plus 2 equals 5, twisting real facts.
Sadly, it is elements of the Far Right that have produced the suffering by the lower 90% that other Far Right elements use to “prove” their LIES. The first, greatest, LIE is that they’re “conservatives.” In reality, they’re reactionaries and authoritarians, some are fascists.

Topics pursued:
1] The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and Congress was NOT THE FIRST SUCH PLOT. The first was the July-November, 1933 R W plot. Details revealed in McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings begun in November, 1934; final report February 15, 1935. The hero was retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler.

2] America truly became a “democracy” post 1901. The “Progressive Era,” itself a popular revolt against the 1865-1900 corruption by R W elements, began reforms. The reforms of 1933-1965 completed much of that first effort. Many of those reforms have been attacked by R W elements ever since.

3]. AIDING THE NAZIS. “American” businesses aided the Nazis from their beginnings, during, and past /world War II. DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE. Domestic groups opposed “getting involved” against fascist aggressions of the 1930s-1940s right up to Noon, Sunday, December 7, 1941.

4] Far Right elements used U.S. government power to investigate, persecute, prosecute INNOCENT American citizens “suspected” of being “communists” and “communist dupes” in the 1940s and 1950s. Lives and careers were ruined for political gain.

5] WEAPONIZING RELIGION. From the 1930s through 2023, R W elements have WEAPONIZED RELIGION. R W elements confessed they see, ARE conducting a “religious war” against the rest of America. One political party has largely been taken over by R W zealots, insisting THEIR religious dogma be made law, an absolute and total VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT.

6]. CORRUPTION OF THE SUREME COURT AND THE LAW. Since 1969, the Republican Party has made a DOCUMENTED goal of weaponizing the Supreme court to undo ALL post-1901 reforms they don’t like. The “court,’ especially post-2005, issued numerous decisions VIOLATING basic American principles and Constitution – virtually all servicing various R W constituencies of the Republican Party.

7]. Corporate “America” has revolted against the 1947-1973 middle class STATISTICAL golden age. Sharing America’s wealth with the lower 90% “too good a deal” for “undeserving” ordinary Americans. Ceos and other corporate/financial “geniuses” believed they “earned their wealth all by themselves,” owed nothing to America. They declared war on labor and consumers. They outsourced jobs and knowledge anywhere to avoid wages, taxes, regulations, even to a dictatorship that is America’s and the world’s #1 threat: China.

8] CRIMINAL PRESIDENCIES. Nixon, Reagan, Bush II, Trump presidencies are among THE MOST CRIMINAL in American history. DOCUMENTED by criminal indictments, guilty verdicts, prison sentences. DOCUMENTED by damage inflicted on American people, society, economy, government, law. Do the research!!!

9]. DISINFORMATION. The latest “Fox News” scandal is just one more, should convince reasonable Americans what studies have shown for 20 years: “Fox News” is a propaganda operation. Big heroes on the Far Right DOCUMENTED having told major lies – “throwing red meat” to willing listeners – and making $5-l0-30 million annually. America is “divided” because R W forces want that, make money on that, achieve goals on that. R Ws NEED “enemies.”

10]. ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE. R-Ws have built an alternative universe of their own schools and colleges, media, industry, law, churches, even communities. Convinced they are being unjustly “persecuted” for their faith and beliefs, they have walled themselves off psychologically and physically.

11]. CORRUPTION OF THE TAX CODE. R-W elements have succeeded corrupting American taxes at both state and federal levels. The “business” community writes, finances, owns tax codes. It’s a MAJOR factor in post-1973 impoverishment of the lower 90%. Taxes on millionaires and corporations radically cut. DOCUMENTED evidence in pre-1979 and post-1979 tax codes, tax burdens, tax avoidance.

12]. FALSE HISTORY. R-W elements are rewriting American history so it “proves” what they want YOU to think and believe; so YOU’LL support their perverted version of 1600-2023 events. Some specialize in writing bogus “history” books. Others make careers lying about what Founding Generations thought, said, wrote, put into state and federal constitutions. They want to control the past so they can control YOUR future.

13] SABOTAGING CONGRESS AND GOVERNMENT. Congress once worked on a bipartisan basis. From 1994 election forward, beginning with the “Gingrich Revolution,” R-W elements steadily sabotaged Congress so it can’t work. Congressional budgets and staff slashed – making Congress dependent on outside sources. Observe yourself Republican comic book characters in the last 30 years!!!

14]. NATIONAL DEBT. When Reagan took office in 1981, the U.S. national debt for 1789-1980 was LESS THAN $1 TRILLION. He tripled i; Bush II added several trillions; Trump’s 2017 tax cut was passed KNOWING IT WOULD ADD TO DEBT. Democrats added debt – cleaning up inherited Republican messes. CBO projections: 2023 debt interest – $640 billion; 2023-2033 debt interest about $10.5 trillion – money wasted, YOUR taxes increased.

15]. SOCIAL SECURITY and MEDICARE. Nothing better illustrates CRUELTY and CORRUPTION of the Far Right than their attacks on, demonization of, attempts to “privatize” Social Security and Medicare, efforts to switch the narrative from TRUE cause and solution: refusal of rich to share wealth with “undeserving” lower 90% – to a manufactured “crisis”; insisting that ONLY cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits are required. Known for 40 years: the obvious and simple solution: remove the “cap” on earnings taxed for Social Security and Medicare.

In doing YOUR own research, you’ll soon discover R-W patterns” cruelty, corruption, arrogance, condescension, even hatred – for those not like them. The rich insisting they earned wealth “all by themselves,” owe nothing to YOU. Corporations insist on “market based solutions,” demanding government “get out of the way” – no matter the cost. “Religious Right” zealots insist THEY ALONE know “truth;” insist they be allowed special privileged status because of their faith. R-W legal activists insist America return to 1789 for ALL understandings of the Constitution, as if nothing happened since 1789; THEY ALONE “know” the Founders’ “original intent”!!! R-W “echo chamber” of “news” and “information” insists THEY ALONE tell Americans what is and has happened. They’ve produced a BIG LIE machine the Nazis would envy, supplying the LIES dividing America.

All of this, and much, much, more – why the Far Right is a THREAT TO AMERICA in every conceivable way. The saddest part: they’ve convinced so many good Americans their massive LIES and sabotage of government are correct.

As always – do YOUR own research [OK to begin on the I-net; use documents not doctored]. Realize that people, especially Founders said different things at different times – CONTEXT matters. What is the overall PATTERN ? How are basic American principles from the Declaration and Constitution, Amendments discussed?

then you’ll get to where I am. I didn’t grow up “hating” the Far Right. I learned about what they’d, we’re doing – how it compared to American principles, words of Lincoln and Dr. King, what life was like in 1947-73, how it compared to common decency and caring for others. THE DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE – in so many ways: the Far Right is. THE group that “hates” America. The Far Right wants to build its own version of “America” – one the American public votes against, says in poll after poll it doesn’t want.

The Far Right doesn’t care about YOU. They’re on a “sacred mission” to “correct our sins and save America>”. If they can’t “reason” [lie] with you – then force will be necessary. Some of that force illustrated by Roberts “court” decisions; some by corporations” treatment of workers, taxpayers, customers; by armed men marching to intimidate opponents; by murders and blowing up buildings; by January 6, 2021.
For people on a ‘sacred mission” – the End justifies ANY means.

I entered her presence when we both worked at a grocery store. She was tall for a girl, model’s face and figure; with a delightful manner and voice. She was a beautiful person inside and out. She always seemed to “be up.” I never saw her angry, even when a certain aggressive stock boy had her pinned against the wall in the back of the store – she laughed at him. She went to a private girl’s school. One of her friends from that school worked with her at the store.

It was in the middle of the great middle class prosperity of 1947-1973. It was also in the last days of American innocence. Before JFK was shot. Before Vietnam. Before street riots. Before Watergate.
The fabled 1950s-1960s teen culture was in full force. Rock-n-roll was the music. The King and Chuck Berry were alive and singing. Some of us were active participants; others were witnesses. “West Side Story” could be seen. James Bond would soon be launched.

Our grocery store was full of characters. One manager smoked truly AWFUL cigars. You could always tell he’d been there by the floating foul cloud of smoke. Another manager was more excitable, especially when customers accumulated in lines at registers. It sometimes seemed he had a heart attack once a month – out a few days, then back again.

Most of the adults worked around the fringes – in the meat department and produce. the meat men were “not feeling any pain!!!’ We definitely had characters among the flying knives of the produce department. One was the store’s union steward. If you were stocking a shelf, he had a habit of coming up behind you and “checking your oil.” But you couldn’t get mad at him, because he was this maybe 5 foot tall Jewish Leprechaun, with a big grin on his face.

Even though it was a serious, low-profit margin business, we had a general sense of good humor. Part of it had to be the owner. He was a “rich” man, but lived in the community like a normal person. You were teated with respect until you proved you didn’t deserve it. Which probably explains why when he died, it seemed like half the community turned out for his memorial. You stood in the longest, slowest moving line I was ever in for a few words with his widow and kids, two of whom had worked at the store.

Above all this, SHE floated along. Always friendly with a smile. Beautiful without really trying all that hard to be so, efficiently doing her cashier’s job. Reportedly, her boyfriend also worked at the store for a while. One day, I accused them of ‘holding hands’ in a meat bag. She laughed that off too.

One day, a few of us made a pilgrimage to her house. the bolder guy in the group took a peak at a hanging bathing suit near her closet. He eagerly informed us it was a size “X.”

Then one day – She was gone. I was told her lifetime ambition was to be a nun. Some 30 years later I was informed by a person who knew her that she still was a nun. One of my regrets is that I did not pursue finding out more about her.

I”m sure most of us with more earthly thinking thought the same thing: what a waste. How cruel that a woman of this beauty, grace, and maturity was to be cloistered off. It didn’t seem to be “fair.” Why would the community be denied being able to interact with her more?

So, she became a reverse “Maria,” of whom the convent’s nuns worried “How do you solve a problem like Maria?, and “How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” Our nun certainly wasn’t a “problem<“. but she was a “moonbeam.”

One, if fortunate, will meet memorable people. SHE was one of those, even though only in limited circumstances at a grocery store. Character gets demonstrated in many ways. SHE was one person with a sacred dream who actually followed through on it – committing herself to a life of service to others.

A THREAT. TO. DEMOCRACY., perhaps THE THREAT. Why can MANY observers say that? Consider the following tests. Has the Roberts “court” honored “all Men are created equal” and “unalienable Rights [of[ Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”? Has it honored the Constitution’s REQUIREMENTS to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility..promote the general Welfare”? Has it honored the REQUIREMENTS of the Amendments, most especially “The Bill of Rights”? Has the Roberts “court” done anything to remedy the Founders’ 4 major fears: corruption, slavery, religion, mobs – or – has it made the problems WORSE? Has the Roberts “court” in any way helped quality of life? Responses to these questions answer is the Roberts “court” a THREAT to American democracy?

*** A 1997 book, “A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law,” argued that judicial power is dangerous to our democracy if left unchecked. The author: Antonin Scalia.

1] “Supreme Inequality,” Adam Cohen
– “The past fifty years of conservative rulings from the Supreme Court have coincided almost exactly with a period in which economic inequality in the United States has soared to near-historic levels..made extreme educational inequality inevitable…The Court’s campaign finance decisions..are a major reason tax policy is so slanted in favor of the rich…weakening labor unions, it has driven down worker’s wages…making it harder to sue corporations…also contributed to dismantling of the social safety net…life expectancy in the United States declined…tens of millions of Americans are still barely managing to survive…these trends hurt all Americans – because they threaten America itself. Extreme inequality puts democracy at risk.” [Supreme Court rulings ‘THREATEN. AMERICA. ITSELF’]
[perspective: Barlett & Steele’s “The Betrayal of the American Dream”; Hedrick Smith’s “Who Stole the American Dream?”; Wilkinson & Pickett’s “The Spirit Level”: Stiglitz’ “The Price of Inequality”]

*** “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
[Warren Buffett, billionaire investor]

2] a] “Let’s Admit It: The Supreme Court is Corrupt and Clueless”, Jim Hightower, Progressive Populist, 2/l5/23
“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 bias to be the law of the land.”
b]. “The Court’s Third Great Crisis'< Garrett Epps, Washington Monthly, November/December, 2022
“The shadow docket has become a kind of appellate star chamber, resolutely closed to the public or the parties, and aggressively wielded in aid of the Court’s reactionary project..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..Our Supreme Court is now something akin to the Guardian Council that ensures religious conformity within the “democratic” government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
c] “A Court of First Resort?”, Jamelle Bouie, New York Times, 12/11/22
“According to Mark A. Lemley, a law professor at Stanford, the Roberts court..is an “imperial” Supreme Court, undermining the power and authority of other branches of government, as well as weakening the power of lower courts..It gets its way, he continues, “..by undercutting the ability of an entity to do something the justices don’t like.”

*** “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
James Madison, Federalist #47]

3]a] “High court grants blanket immunity to feds”; Anya Bidwell, Patrick Jaicomo; USA Today; 6/13/22
“The Supreme court just dealt a huge blow to federal police accountability…It held..a Border Patrol agent is entitled to blanket immunity from lawsuit simply because he happens to work for the federal government..Egbert v. Boule means that nearly all [if not all] federal officials are effectively above the law. If they violate your constitutional rights – even intentionally – there is absolutely nothing you can do about it..”
b] “Police Officers Can’t Be Litigated for Miranda Violations, Justices Rule”, Adam Liptak, New York Times, 6/24/22
“Justice Alito acknowledged that Miranda rights had constitutional roots. but he wrote that “a violation of Miranda does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Constitution…”Allowing the victim of a Miranda violation to sue a police officer for damages..would have little additional deterrent value, and permitting such claims would cause many problems.” [when things rooted in the Constitution really aren’t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
c]. “The conservative Assault on the Constitution”, Erwin Chemerinsky
“For the first time in history, the Court concluded that the exclusionary rule does not apply if the Fourth Amendment is violated in good faith or even negligent police actions..is..a very significant undermining of this protection…Our privacy..is protected by the Fourth Amendment..Without [it], there is nothing to keep the police from stopping and searching any person, or searching anyone’s home, any time they want.” [how far from the Gestapo, NKVD, Stasi. Kempei, “morality police”. – is this???

*** “The makers of our Constitution..conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone – the most
comprehensive of rights, and the most valued by civilized men.” [Justice Brandeis]

4] GUN. TERRORISM
a] “Americans are 25 times more likely to be killed by a gun than people in other nations.” {Gifford PAC] A child is shot in America every minute of every day. “States with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest.’ [Mother Jones]
b] “Newtown still tries to cope 2 years later”. [Pat Eaton-Robb, Assoc Press, 8/11/19]: Anxiety, depression, guilt, sleeplessness, marital strife, drug and alcohol abuse..the scope of the psychological damage to children, parents and others is becoming clear..agencies have been working to set up a support system for the next 12 to 15 years..”
c] “Rise of bullet-resistant backpacks” [Anne D”Iocenzio, Assoc. Press, 8/11/19}
d]. “Victims face another burden: cost of care”. [Abby Goodnough, New York Times, 4/23/13]; “medical costs for shooting victims average about $50,000..” [an average person’s yearly income]
e] “Not Just A Drill” [Erika Christakis, The Atlantic, March, 2009]; “There’s scant evidence that exercises to prepare students for shootings are effective. They can, however, be psychologically damaging – and they reveal a deeply misguided view of childhood.”
f]. “What’s the Limit on How Much We Can Cry?” {Elizabeth Dias, New York Times, 5/31/22]: “How much value do we place on a single human life?…Violence is an almost normal part of life in the United States..”

*** Roberts “court” responses to all this misery, fear, terror, nightmares, blood, death??? – expanded “gun rights’ – because – “the Second Amendment is in danger of second class status”. – so our[???] “supreme court” twists out of shape, for the first time in 218 years, what the Founders wrote, said, intended [“a well-regulated militia”] into “individual rights” to carry military style weapons anywhere – thus enabling violation of “insure domestic Tranquility”

5]. SEPARATION OF. CHURCH. AND STATE
a]. “If the state controls reproduction”, Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, 5/11/1989
“As Harvard Law School’s Larry Tribe says, there’s no principled way to say that the government can use women’s bodies against their will to nurture the unborn without accepting the other serious and totalitarian implications about privacy.”..it is worth remembering that if you take away the right of individuals to make decisions about their lives, you cede it to the state.”
b] “When faith trumps politics, danger to the nation emerges”, Lawrence Brown, Cape Cod Times, 7/3/22
“Here’s my problem. Neither the idea of soul – not certainly of ensoulment – can be provided as evidence for our secular law. Citizens can reject..Others can accept..This is precisely what our freedom of religion protects..also what [Dobbs] endangers. [Dobbs] enshrines a faith principle [ensoulment] as a foundation for America’s secular law..It’s also an approach guaranteed to tear our country apart…the fear that in its moment of triumph, a religious minority has seized control of the law. This is where, Jefferson warned us long ago, our troubles begin.”
c]. “The Battle to End Roe Has Changed Democracy”, Mary Ziegler, New York Times, 6/25/22
“The decades-long fight to reverse Roe was..an attempt to change the way American democracy works…in 1992..with six justices nominated by Republicans, the court declined to reverse Roe, explaining that doing so would irrevocably damage its legitimacy. So anti-abortion groups set about to ensure that different kinds of justices would sit on the court…After Casey, some anti-abortion groups expanded their focus: To gin even more control over the Supreme Court nominations, they sought to overhaul the Republican Party and the rules of campaign spending…it’s hard to see the court’s aggressive move t remake constitutional law as anything but antidemocratic.” [perspective: Charles Kimball’s “When Religion Becomes Evil”. – the 5 indications}

*** “If and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] Party, and they’re sure trying to to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me..believe they’re acting in the name of God..” [Barry Goldwater, 1994]
*** “Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty..are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time..don’t want pluralism.” [Randall Terry]

6]. VOTING
a] “A North Carolina case imperils the U.S. electoral process”, Chicago Tribune, 2/5/23
“…”independent state legislature theory”..has never been sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Now..the court’s conservative justices could make this theory the new standard for American elections. That would prove disastrous for American democracy..would allow state legislatures to thumb their noses at state constitutions..would effectively create a license to gerrymander..it effectively negates the whole concept of checks and balances.”
b] “Courts have their role to play”, New York Daily News, 9/28/22
“If the conservative supermajority embraces the radical “independent state legislature” theory, it will deal a body blow to the integrity of American elections..Our democratic republic already has a hard time taking partisan thumbs off our electoral scales. Remove the courts from the equation, and it would be game over.”
c]”Future of democracy is at stake in N.C. voting case”, Michael Wines, New York Times, 12/7/22
“It is a case “with profound consequences for American democracy,” said J.Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge long time hero to conservatives..what had been a fringe theory known as the independent state legislature doctrine..many in the legal and political establishments see a dangerous subversion of democratic values. Luttig said that, absent changes in federal law governing the counting of electoral votes, an unconstrained legislature might be able to substitute its own slate of presidential electors for the ones the voters had chosen..That would upset centuries of legal tradition.”

*** “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” [Stalin]
*** “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a
scoundrel.” [Lenin]
*** “It is not the truth that matters, but victory.” [Hitler]
*** “I am the law.” [Frank Hague, mayor of Jersey City, 11/11/1937]
*** “As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?” [“Boss Tweed; November, 1871]

7]. PERSPECTIVE
Before 2000, the consensus “worst” Supreme Court decisions were “Dred Scott,” “Plessy,” and “Korematsu.” these were joined by “Bush v. Gore” of 2000 infamy. The Roberts “court” has the “honor” of producing a steady steam of cases to be added to the above: “Heller,” “Citizens United,” “Shelby County,” “Espinoza,” “Dobbs.” The “independent state legislature” decisions awaits.

8] Return to basic American principles listed. The evidence, a SMALL fraction of the case that the Roberts “court’ is a THREAT TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, says they have failed to honor these 1789- values. Opinion you say??? No – the evidence is THEIR OWN WORDS AND DECISIONS. In case after case, the Roberts “court” has FAILED to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, promote the general Welfare.”
As Adam Cohen, in “Supreme Inequality,’ stated: the Roberts “court” has FACTUALLY. made life worse for for the average lower 90% person.
This “court’s” TRACK RECORD: big business wins 75% of cases; “conservative’ fundamentalist religions win 90% of their cases. The Roberts “court” is. THE. most “business-friendly’ court since at least 1945. The Roberts “court” giving certain religions all they ask is UNPRECEDENTED. In the process they have created a class of “super citizens” [a category the 1879 Supreme Court refused to allow], who by claiming “sincerely held” beliefs are now A LAW UNTO THEMSELVES” – and. THEY get to define the terms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A very dangerous and subversive thing in a country supposedly a “democracy” which treats ALL. citizens the same.
And – a country that grants “super citizen” status to SOME PRIVILEGED PEOPLE. – can also declare others [like non-Aryans]. as being sub humans. – but certain religious groups ALREADY. want to do that.

9]. The announced goal of the power behind this “court” and other “conservative’ groups is to create a THEOCRATIC PLUTOCRACY. With Roberts “court’ decisions, those wealthy donors [of “Dark Money”] and religious zealots are moving closer to their goal with every case the universe of “conservative” legal groups can create.

10]. All of this, AND. MCH, MUCH. MORE, is why a variety of legal and constitutional historians and observers have been critical of the Roberts “court.” That criticism is based on one thing: THE RHETORIC AND. TRACK. RECORD. OF THE ROBERTS. ‘court.”
The ice may now have been broken on the restraint critics have shown. One commentator has now crossed the red line: saying the Roberts “court” was “Corrupt And Clueless.”
Other Supreme Courts have been criticized. None before this has been labeled CORRUPT. Which is why, increasingly, the Roberts “court” is seen as “a bunch of political hacks.” Which is why, by both historical and constitutional standards, the Roberts “court” is now rated a THREAT TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. o

CRUELTY. The HERETIC Roberts “court” has, by its action, inactions, rhetoric, allowed and encouraged cruelty to afflict Americans. Decisions and non-decisions range from”small” to major. Once again, this “court” failed the American people in that it has NOT “insure[d] domestic Tranquility nor promote[d] the general Welfare. Innocent people have been wronged. Americans live in fear. Corruption ravages democracy and the American Dream>

*** “If the misery of others leaves you indifferent and with no feeling of sorrow, then you cannot be called a human being.” [Jimmy Carter]

1] Dictionary definitions of CRUEL: willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others. Synonyms: merciless, pitiless, ruthless; cruel implies willingness to cause pain and indifference to suffering; ruthless implies cruelty and unscrupulous, letting nothing stand in one’s way, and using any methods necessary.

*** “Whoever has shown no mercy shall have judgment without mercy.” [James 2: 12-13]

2]. “Ledbetter”. To BEGIN understanding the Roberts “court” indifference to suffering, start with “Ledbetter” [2007]. This case perfectly illustrated the PATTERN of “winners” and “losers.” Research the case, the decision, the outrage in America from that decision, and the Congressional reaction and remedy.

*** “Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.” [Tennessee Williams]

3]. “Walmart v. Dukes” [2011]. Begin with Erwin Chemerinsky’s “The Case Against the Supreme Court”: “The Court came to this conclusion despite the fact..the plaintiffs presented a great deal of evidence to show..Walmart had company-wide practices and policies that caused sex discrimination..statistical studies..expert witnesses..large number of affidavits..it is striking..the Supreme Court consistently ignores this legislative objective and repeatedly construes the statutes to favor business.” [Preamble: U.S. gov’t created to “promote the general Welfare,” NOT corporations]

*** “Evil begins when you treat people as things.” [Terry Pratchatt]

4]. Garrett Epps, “The Court’s Third Great Crisis”, Washington Monthly, Nov-Dec, 2022
– “Well before Dobbs was even argued, it was clear that gutting abortion rights would cause chaos and suffering..it was clear, neither government officials, medical professionals, nor pregnant woman themselves were prepared for the changes a wholesale rejection of Roe would make in obstetric care, maternal health, and..maternal survival.”
[dictionary definition of cruelty: willfully or knowingly causing pain and distress in others]

*** “Some cruel people..seem not to feel anything..A lack of what is judged appropriate feeling..for the plight of the individual whose suffering they cause.” [Tom Regan]

5] “A Wrongfully convicted man must die..to preserve procedure?”, Bryan Clark, Idaho Statesman, 6/12/22
– “..another opinion, both cruel and absurd, issued by the Republican supermajority deserves attention..This is the decision released last month, “Shinn v. Martinez Ramierez,” which is likely to result in the execution of an innocent man…And not because the court has weighed the evidence for and against guilt.. The court is pushing to execute him because it says the evidence showing he is innocent should not be considered at all..The current state of the evidence against Jones is so poor that a federal judge found no judge or jury would likely convict him of any crime..in a prior ruling, a more sane U.S. Supreme Court found..Arizona’s appeal had gaping procedural deficiency of its own.. But this court decided to exercise its discretion to set the procedural hurdle aside..The necessary boxes have been checked, and so it’s time to kill a man. It is as inhuman as it sounds.”
[now – REREAD this. Which is the ‘poster boy’ for Roberts “court” cruelty: this case, Ledbetter, Walmart-Dukes ???]

***”Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on earth.” [Roberto Clemente – who died in a plane crash carrying help to disaster survivors]

6] “Despite dangerous complications, pregnant women denied abortions”, Laura Ungar, Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press, 12/4/22
– “A growing number of physicians and families tell similar stories..Pregnant women with dangerous medical conditions are showing up at hospitals and doctor’s offices only to be denied the abortions that could help treat them..” “How close to death must a patient be?” ..Despite the risks of infection and blood loss, she couldn’t get an abortion..She drove 4 1/2 hours from home – while in labor – and had the procedure…She got her tubes tied.”
[“willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others”]

*** “Cruelty, is perhaps, the worst kind of sin, intellectual cruelty is certainly the worst kind of cruelty.” [Colbert K. Chesterton]

7]. CHARACTER
a] “Leave My Disability Out Of Your Propaganda”, Kendall Ciesemier, New York Times, 8/2/22
– “Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a 2007 opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit, affirmed the government interest in forcing two disabled people to have abortions, saying that “accepting the wishes of the patients who lack [and always have lacked] the mental capacity to make medical decisions does not make legal sense and would cause erroneous medical decisions.”
b] “Justice” Gorsuch. Research Gorsuch’s pre-Court career; specifically the “Frozen Trucker” verdict, which he lost. Read what Gorsuch said, especially “it wasn’t my job.” Then return to definitions of “cruel.”
c] “Justice” Alito. Research his government career. In his confirmation hearing he said he “had no agenda.” How many people believe that now? The New York times reported Alito promised Senator Kennedy “Roe” was firm and he wouldn’t attack it.
d] “Justice” Scalia. He was an arrogant man. In his mind, on anything, he was “right” and YOU were wrong by definition. He alienated 3 Supreme Court justices so much they often worked against him – to America’s benefit. His insistence on his interpretation of the Constitution – “originalism” – which the Founders themselves rejected.
e] “Justice” Thomas. is an angry and bitter man; has invented a number of bogus theories and interpretations of the Constitution – in the name of “originalism.” “..Thomas ..vowed on the day of his confirmation, at age forty-three, that he intended to spend the next forty-three years..as a Supreme Court justice. It would take that long, he told friends, to get even.” [“Strange Justice”, Jane Mayer & Jill Abramson. page 360]

***”All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.” [Tennessee Williams]

8]. “Risks to Patients as Doctors Deal With Abortion Exceptions”, David Goodman & Azeen Ghorayshi, New York Times, 7/21/22
– “All of us know some of them will die,” Dr. Alireza A. Shamshirsaz, an obstetrician, about delayed treatment and the danger to patients…The fetus would not be viable outside the womb..The hospital sent her home to wait for signs of infection or labor…The option to terminate the pregnancy has long part of the standard care…suffered because they were not allowed to end their pregnancies…One woman required a hysterectomy..all but one of the pregnancies ended with the death of the fetus. “So why did they put them through that?”…”We sent the patient home against her will.”
[“ALL OF US KNOW SOME OF THEM WILL DIE…SO WHY DID WE PUT THEM THROUGH THAT?”]

*** “It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty.” [Ilka Chase}. *****Note” for more perspective, read Charles Kimball’s “When Religion Becomes Evil” – and “The Five Warning Signs Of Corruption In Religion” – and go back to the definitions of cruelty abov]

9] Erwin Chemerinsky: “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution”
– “Iqball” [2009]. the “court” ruled, 5-4, the complaint should be dismissed 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 sample complaint in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure would have to be dismissed.” [throw out the rules!!!! the Roberts “court” knows better]

*** “Great is the mischief of a legal crime.” [R.W. Emerson – on the Fugitive Slave law]

10] United States v. Higgs, Sotomayor dissent..”Her project was to make as precise a record as possible of the court’s behavior..[executions of last 6 months vs last 6 decades]. “The Court has even intervened to lift stays of execution that lower courts put in place, ensuring those prisoner”s challenges would never receive a meaningful hearing. The Court made these weighty decisions in response to emergency applications, with little opportunity for proper briefing and consideration, often in just a few short days or even hours. Very few of these decisions offered any public explanation for their rationale. This is not justice.” [return to item #5 above – executing an innocent man]

*** “The best index to a person’s character is [a] how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and [b] how he treats people who can’t fight back.” [Abagail Van Buren}

11] Then please reconsider”
a]. the cruelty of “Citizens United” – which by all factual accounts has led to at least the doubling of corporate “campaign donations,” and who knows how much “Dark Money” [Jane Mayer]. This cruelty is the acceptance and “normalization” of allowing the most rich and powerful to disproportionately set the rules for “democratic” discussion and governance.
b] the cruelty of “Heller” and subsequent lies about what the Second Amendment really says – by the rules of English grammar, by the written intent of the founders, by 5 previous Supreme Court rulings. AMERICANS NOW LIVE IN FEAR. NOWHERE in America is safe. K-college kids are afraid to go to school. Tens of thousands are traumatized EVERY year. Armed men show up at public meetings. No other “civilized” nation endures such domestic terror.
c] the cruelty of “Shelby County” in denying American citizens an equal right to vote. The opinion announcing this infamous decision was a LIE. Within 24 hours, previously unconstitutional practices began. Compounded by this “court’s’ refusal to outlaw gerrymandering – known for 200 years to be a corrupt practice.
d]. the cruelty of being denied access to court to pursue suits against the most powerful business organizations. The right to use courts in the Bill of Rights vetoed by a Roberts “court” winner – big business.
e] the cruelty of attacks on government’s ability to function, and to solve pressing public interest problems. “Little” people, the kind who can’t afford multi-million dollar “campaign contributions” need government to protect them from big business – so, they are programmed to lose by Roberts “court” hidden rules.

*** “The trouble with {Adolf} Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted or sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal..” [Hannah Arendt}

CORRUPTION. The #1 fear of the Founders. The destructive decisions of the HERETIC Roberts “court” have made corruption more likely. The infamous “Citizens United”, “Shelby County”, and the refusal to declare gerrymandering a corrupt practice [something which has been KNOWN for over 200 years] are but the tip of a huge, ticking time bomb waiting to explode and destroy American democracy.

1] Google: corruption is “dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those n power.” #2: “The process by which something, typically a word or expression, is changed from its original use or meaning to one that is regarded as erroneous or debased.” #3 What is the exact meaning of corruption? “Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis.”

2] dictionary/thesaurus definitions, corrupt: debased in character, tainted, made inferior by errors or alterations, as a text; to alter [a language, text, etc] for worse. Corrupt: dishonest, fraudulent unethical, fallacious, , misleading; unreliable: wrong. [to debase] degrade, adulterate, depreciate, taint, ruin, undermine, subvert, impair, deform, misuse, lower, weaken. [o render inaccurate] falsify, misrepresent, misstate, alter, gloss over, fabricate, invent, twist, warp. Corruption: corrupt or dishonest proceedings; debasement or alteration, as of language or text. fraud, misrepresentation, breech of trust.
*** Now – think of the 2005-2023 activities and rhetoric of the Heretic Roberts “court. “Breech of trust; “to alter [language, text, etc.] for worse,” “something..a word or expression, is changed from its original use or meaning..”, “weakens democracy,” further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social division and the environmental crisis; “unethical,” “fabricate,” “wrong,” “undermine,” “subvert,” “invent,” “twist,” “warp,” “misrepresent.” Legal scholars, Supreme Court Justices have accused the Heretic Roberts “court” of doing ALL this – with SPECIFIC reference to SPECIFIC decisions

*** “Corruption comes by degrees.” [Juvenal]

3] “Corporate-Friendly Courts Were the Real Plan”, Sorab Ahmari, Patrick Deneen, Chad Pecknold, New York Times, 6/19/22
– “..the Federalist Society appears poised for a triumph..an economic revolution..on behalf of corporations and other powerful market actors..The 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 law and clear congressional intent to expand the use of commercial arbitration. to employment and consumer contexts..despite the manifest imbalance of power.”

3]b] Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, in “Closing the Court-House Door” has written an entire book on “How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable” because “The Court has restricted who has standing to sue, expanded immunity of governments and government workers, limited the kinds of cases the federal courts can hear, and restricted the right of habeas corpus.”

*** “Whenever there is power, greed, and money, there is corruption>”. [Ken Poirot]

4]. Chris Hedges: “American Fascists. The Christian Right And The War On America”
– “..nearly 25 years ago..Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us..when we were his age..we would all be fighting the “Christian Fascists.”…The warning came at a moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions..Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global Christian empire.
“He was in Germany in 1935 and 1936..He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party..Adams had seen how the mask of religion hides irreligion.
“The call to obliterate the public and private wall that keeps faith the prerogative of the individual means the obliteration of democracy. [***THE OBLITERATION OF DEMOCRACY] ..in the totalitarian world, there are those worth of love and those unworthy of it..the private sphere becomes the concern of the state. This final restriction of freedom to love..heralds the death of the open society..
“We must, Adams told us, watch closely what these new fascists accuse their opponents of planning. For radical movements expose their own intentions and goals by tarring their enemies with their own nefarious motives…Adams knew that resentments and bigotry lurk below the surface of all democratic societies and can be roused..to promote a creed that calls for the destruction of democracy.
“Adams told us to watch closely what the Christian Right did to homosexuals. The Nazis had used “values” to launch state repression of opponents. Hitler, days after he took power..imposed a ban on all homosexual and lesbian organizations..{and} was largely cheered by German churches. But this campaign legitimized tactics, outside the law, that would soon be employed against others.”
[** read this VERY carefully, Adams warning HAS occurred right in front of YOU, is happening RIGHT NOW***]

*** “As a nation, we began by declaring that all men are created equal. We now practically read it, all men are created equal except Negroes. When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, all men are created equal except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics. When it comes to this I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” [Abraham Lincoln, 8/24/55]

5] “Examining Justice Alito”, Jamelle Bouie, New York Times, 11/27/22
– “..the most striking detail is the extent to which a number of Republican justices, Alito included, appear to have been the targets of a sophisticated and well-funded influence operation design to notch as many legal and constitutional victories for moneyed and conservative interests as the justices are willing to give..Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker, describe a kind of revolving door, where wealthy donors to conservative causes invite the justices to meals, vacation homes and private clubs..contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society for the purpose of meeting with and influencing the justices..where the former head of one such operation, Faith and Action, went so far as to purchase a building across the street from the court so that he could cultivate the people who worked there.”

*** “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” [Lord Acton]

6]. “High court grants blanket immunity to feds”, Anya Bidwell, Patrick Jaicomo, USA Today, 6/13/22
– The Supreme Court just dealt a huge blow to federal police accountability..it held that a Border Patrol agent is entitled to blanket immunity from lawsuit simply because he happens to work for the federal government. The court’s ruling in Engbert v. Boyle means that nearly all [if not all] federal officials are effectively above the law. If they violate your constitutional rights – even intentionally – there is absolutely nothing you can do about it unless and until Congress gives you a permission slip to enforce the Constitution…the reason..in Justice Clarence Thomas” words, no court is ever “competent to authorize a damage action” against Border Patrol agents..This decision is just the most recent blow to federal accountability..2017 ruling in Ziglar v. Abbasi..its 2020 ruling in Hernandez vs. Mesa…Enbert v. Boule is the latest in the Court’s death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to federal accountability.”

*** “Corruption is like a ball of snow, once set rolling it must increase.” [C.C. Colton}

7] “Police Officers Can’t BE Litigated for Miranda Violations, Justices Rule.”, Adam Liptak, New York Times, 6/24/22
– “Justice Alito acknowledged that Miranda rights had constitutional roots. But he wrote that “a violation of Miranda does not necessarily constitute a violation of the Constitution..”Allowing the victims of a Miranda violation to sue a police officer for damages..would have little additional deterrent value, and permitting such claims would cause many problems.”.. In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote..”Today, the court strips individuals of the ability to seek a remedy for violations of the right recognized in Miranda.”

*** “Power does not corrupt men; fools however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.” [George Bernard Shaw]

8]. “Powers of EPA limited.”, Robert Barnes, Dino Grandoni, Washington Post Weekly, 7/3/22
– “Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible “solution to the crisis of the day,” Roberts wrote, referring to a court precedent. “But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.”…The case deeply divided the business community. Many companies and other firms in the coal sector urged the court to rein in EPA..major tech and retail firms investing in renewable energy..told the court that “stable, nationwide rules” are needed to avert climate disaster.”

*** “Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” [Alice in Wonderland]

9]. “The court’s Thomas family problem”, Jesse Wegman, New York Times, 3/29/22
– “And that’s precisely the problem: We shouldn’t have to wonder. The Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial body in the country, and yet, as Alex Hamlin reminded us, it has neither the sword nor the purse as a means to enforce its rulings. It depends instead on the American people’s acceptance of its legitimacy, which is why the justices must make every possible effort to appear fair, unbiased, and beyond reproach. The most obvious way for justices to demonstrate their independence in practice..is to recuse themselves from any case in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. It does not matter whether there is, in fact, a conflict of interest: the mere appearance of bias or conflict should be enough to compel..any member of the court to step aside. Thomas has paid lip service to this ideal..the brazenness with the Thomases have flouted the most reasonable expectations of judicial rectitude is without precedent..”

*** “A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.” [William Shenstone]

10] WARNING: YOU should NOT just examine the Heretic Roberts “court” alone. Context matters. YOU should be asking WHY are THESE 6 Republican activists on the Supreme Court??? There were millions spent to get them there – WHY??? AND – WHO spent that money??? Investigate the post-2005 Republican mantra for the Supreme Court: “No more O’Connors” and “No more Souters”. exactly WHAT is being said here??? WHY is it that Republicans don’t want any more justices like O’Connor and Souter – THEIR OWN nominees????? What did O’Connor and Souter do on the Supreme Court that was “wrong” in Republican eyes??? ***THIS. IS. A. BIG. QUESTION. – that unlocks much of what current right-wing “justice’ is all about.
Numerous legal scholars and Supreme Court justices have said: “people on a mission”. – what does THIS mean?????
Remember among “corruption” definitions were “breach of trust,” debasement or alteration, as of language or text; unethical, misleading, wrong, undermine, subvert, fabricate. Have YOU seen any examples of this???????????????
How do the rulings of this Heretic “court” honor or dishonor the Founding Generations KNOWN intents??? How do they or don’t they honor the 27 Amendments? Has this “court” formed a “more perfect Union, establish[ed] Justice, insure[d] domestic Tranquility, promote[d] the general Welfare?????????????????

Has this “court” sincerely practiced and illustrated “the better angels of our nature” ?

This HERETIC “court” has violated the confidence and trust of the American people. More and more, especially after July, 2022, Americans see the HERETIC Roberts “court” as a “kangaroo court. Their track record of using cases to accomplish ideological goals; the increasingly common comment of a “court” that is “on a mission”; the questions of “why are they accepting this case?”; brings this “court” more into disrepute; threatens the VERY IDEA of “justice”; builds questions of “is this really a “supreme court” from the shabby opinions issued – as in is THIS the best “legal reasoning” that America can produce???

1] Erwin Chemerinsky: “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution”
— “The assault on the constitution is the result of a concerted effort by conservatives to alter fundamental constitutional principles. The focus needs to be not just on the courts, but also on the policies developed during the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, and Bush..conservatives have sought to create unprecedented, unchecked executive power..to obliterate the long-standing wall separating church and state..to abolish any constitutional protection for privacy..sought to greatly reduce constitutional protections for criminal defendants..worked to eliminate all affirmative action and to institute a vision of the Constitution that will perpetuate deep racial inequalities..Most successfully, they have closed the courthouse doors…
“The conservative assault on the Constitution is driven not by methodology or interpretive philosophy but by ideology..Justice Scalia professes..he follows the original meaning of the Constitution, but his are the views of the 2008 Republican platform, not of the Constitution’s framers.”

***”Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of men who can fabricate it.” [Hannah Arendt]

2] “The Supreme Court Has A Crisis of Trust”, New York Times editorial, 10/2/22
– “The court’s rulings are now in line with the views of the average Republican voter. In the process, the court has unmoored itself from both the Constitution it is sworn to protect and the American people it is privileged to serve..The way the court went about eliminating the federal right to abortion is a prime example of..misuse of its power. First, the right-wing justices used the court’s “shadow docket,”.. to allow an obviously unconstitutional anti-abortion law in Texas to stand. They also agreed to hear a separate challenge out of Mississippi..that didn’t formally ask them to overturn Roe v. Wade..they chose to do so anyway..”

*** “The essential claim of the fundamentalist is that he knows the truth..It is an external truth, brought to him by a book, a sacred text, a mullah, a pope, a guru, a political visionary, or a religious community with an authoritative pastor.” [Andrew Sullivan: “The Conservative Soul”]

3]. “Compelled Contributions”, RobBoston, Church and State, October, 2021
– “The case, “Carson v. Malkin,” is sponsored by the “Institute for Justice,” a libertarian organization that has long sought to erode public education and other government provided services…The new legal tussle comes during a time when the Supreme Court has been redefining “religious freedom” in troubling ways [Zelman, Trinity, Espinoza]..The parents are essentially asserting that without taxpayer support, they can’t fully practice their faith. There was a time when such a stance would have been laughed out of the Supreme Court.”

***North Carolina Constitution, 1776, Articles XXXIV: “..there shall be no establishment of anyone religious church or denomination in this State..either shall any person, on any pretense whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith..nor be obliged to pay, for the purchase of any glebe, or the building of any house of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes right..”
not “ON ANY. PRETENSE. WHATSOEVER ” – forced to support another person’s religion, in any way. PERIOD.

4]. “R.I.P. the Establishment Clause,” Nicholas J. Little, Free Inquiry, October/November, 2020
– in Espinoza, the Montana Department of Revenue ruled the state’s no-aid program prohibited vouchers subsidizing education in religious schools. The Montana Supreme Court struck down the entire program. “No program..existed that discriminated against religion. No student or school was in a worse place because of their religious identification..Yet the Supreme Court not only took up the case, it ruled that the scholarship program must be reinstated and must permit religious schools to participate..at a stroke, ruled the no-aid provision of thirty-eight states unconstitutional..The decision took standing law – the baseline requirement..an individual must have an active dispute causing real harm to proceed in court – and threw it out..To reach the decision the Court wanted..it accepted a case with no active dispute..there were no victims.” [this is called USING CASES TO REACH DESIRED IDEOLOGICAL GOALS]

*** “When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself..it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” [Benjamin Franklin, 10/9/1780]

5]. “The Court’s Third Great Crisis”, Garrett Epps, Washington Monthly, November/December, 2022
– “..the Court granted review in a North Carolina case that would give the conservative majority a chance to begin to establish a principle Texas..tried to use to overturn the 2020 election..”independent state legislature”..can decide elections..A second granted case presents a chance to cut back drastically on the remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A third set of cases affords the Court the chance to achieve a long-held conservative aim of eliminating “affirmative action” programs in college admissions.
“..the partisan lineup..the aggressive tone of the majority’s opinions..the willingness of the conservative justices to lend themselves to seemingly partisan organizations, events, causes; the ostentatious disregard by Clarence Thomas of even the most basic norms of impartiality – all of these resemble nothing so much as the workings of a legislative branch of government..Our Supreme Court is now something akin to the Guardian Council that ensures religious conformity within the..Islamic Republic of Iran.”
[this is called USING CASES TO ACHIEVE DESIRED IDEOLOGICAL GOALS – like the Guardian Council of another
“republic” that claims to be “democratic”]

***”A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.” [R.B. Ginsburg, Senate confirmation hearing]

6]. Erwin Chemerinsky: “The Case Against The Supreme Court”
– “Citizens United”.. significantly changed the American political system..on June 29, 2009, the Court on its own, asked for a new briefing..None of the parties to the case has asked the Court to consider this constitutional issue..Justice Stevens wrote a lengthy dissent, vehemently disagreeing with every aspect of the majority decision…
“There is much that is deeply disturbing about this case..the premise that spending money is pure speech is dubious..spending money is conduct..the premise that corporations should have the same speech rights as individuals is just wrong..no evidence..the framers of the First Amendment meant to protect corporations or campaign spending..Citizens United was stunning for its judicial activism.”
[this is called. USING CASES TO ACHIEVE DESIRED IDEOLOGICAL GOALS]

*** “We can either have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few. But we cannot have both.” [Justice Brandeis]

7]a] “Limitations of Statute”, Marcia Brown, Washington Monthly, July-August, 2022
– “These attacks on “Chevron” represent the culmination of a decades-long effort by conservatives..to achieve..the “deconstruction of the administrative state”.. Conservatives have executed a strategy to delegitimize and derail the system by which federal agencies produce rules and regulations. They have built an archipelago of independent-funded think tanks and university-affiliated institutions to cast doubt on individual regulations and the rule-making apparatus in general. When, in power, they have slashed funding and staff to agencies and wielded cost-benefit analysis in ways that emphasize the supposed cost of regulations and minimize the possible benefits. And Republicans have, for decades, prioritized supplying a steady stream of anti-regulatory judges to the federal bench.”

7]b] “Race Has Role In Major Cases Before Justices”, Adam Liptak, New York Times, 10/3/22
– “The court has near-total power to decide which cases it will hear, and it often uses discretion to resolve disputes among lower courts. The court agreed to hear many of the major cases in the coming term despite lack of such conflicts, an indication that the new majority is pursuing an agenda and setting the pace of change.”

7]c] “The court, restraining bureaucrats, stages its own power grab”, Noah Feldman, Bloomberg Opinion, 7/5/22
– “The bad news is that, using the superseding doctrine of “major questions” as a workaround, courts unsympathetic to agency action now have a tool to overturn administrative regulations rather than deferring to the agencies. To make matters worse, “major question” doctrine could easily be understood as a further step toward eventual abolition of the “Chevron” doctrine.”

7]d] “Major Victory in Long Game to Dismantle Business Regulations”, Charlie Savage, New York Times, 7/1/22
– “The Supreme Court ruling in the Environmental Protection case..was a substantial victory for libertarian-minded conservatives who have worked for decades to curtail or dismantle modern-style government regulation of the economy..a decision whose implications go beyond hobbling the government’s ability to fight climate change. Many other types of regulations might now be harder to defend. The ruling widens an opening to attack a government structure that, in the 20th century, became the way American society imposed rules on businesses..For decades, wealthy conservatives have been funding a long-game effort to hobble the system.”

*** “Only governments and..courts remained as sources of authority, if enacted Charles’s “libertarian policies would eliminate these.”…”He was driven..to smash the one thing left in the world that could discipline him: government.” [Clayton Coppin]
“..our movement must destroy the prevalent statist paradigm” [Charles Koch, 1978 “Libertarian Review” article]

There is much in the above evidence [ a small fraction of the mountain of evidence] that should frighten YOU. The wealthy “conservatives” want to dismantle a government system of rules that exists, is meant, to protect YOU against the 1865-2023 corporate track record of doing ANYTHING, including murder, to maximize their profits. The Heretic Roberts “court” is a culmination of those efforts. The Roberts court is THE SINGLE MOST ‘BUSINESS-FRIENDLY ‘supreme court’ since 1945 – which is a major reason why they’re in power. No other modern “court” has attempted to RADICALLY change the course of 1901-2004 American history, society, government as this “court” has.

***July, 2022, Justice Sotomayor: “A restless and newly constituted court..continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.”
*** July, 2022, Justice Kagan: “The Court appoints itself – instead of Congress or the expert agency – the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”

This HERETIC “court” has violated basic principles of courts as neutral, fact and precedent respecting bodies. It is DOCUMENTED this “court” has ignored inconvenient facts. How many times have YOU seen this: ‘the expected ruling..” WHY is that phrasing used? Examine the “court” record of “winners” and “losers” for neutrality. Research the ideological, political, social, and economic power behind this “court.”

1] Jack Rakove: “Original Meanings”: Leonard Levy: the Supreme Court’s use of originalist evidence is best described as a mix of “law office history” and justificatory rhetoric which offers little reason to think this method..can provide faithful and accurate..original constitutional understandings. Rakove: originalism “..rests on the..legal fiction that most clauses of the Constitution possessed a clear meaning at their inception.”

*** “Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it.” [Adolf Hitler]

2] Leonard Levy” “Original Intent and the Framer’s Constitution”
– “The centuries of Court history should bring us to understand what really is a notorious fact: the Court has flunked history..Justices stand censored for abusing historical evidence in a way that reflects adversely on their intellectual record as well as on their historical competence..The Court artificially selects historical facts from one side only, ignoring contrary data, in order..to give the appearance of respectability..The text is what counts, but the notion that it must be construed according to original intent is itself a prejudice. It is a notion that lacks original intent..no evidence, not a shred, exists to show..the Framers meant, wanted, or expected future generations to construe the Constitution as they, the Framers, had.” [“prejudice”; “not a shred” of evidence exists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

*** “I don’t want to know what the law is. I want to know who the judge is.” [Roy Cohn] ***** REMEMBER this! MEMORIZE it. THIS is the post-1969 American Far-Right legal strategy: “knowing who the judge is”

3]. Amanda Hollis-Brusky: “Ideas With Consequences The Federalist Society and the Conservative Counterrevolution”
– “the Federalist Society network was most influential in cases where the Supreme Court took a big step away from their established constitutional framework..members of the Federalist Society functioned as active conduits for idea transmission. The intellectual capital they supplied through legal briefs and written scholarship helped the Supreme Court majority justify these revolutionary constitutional decisions..the Federalist Society network helped foster and facilitate a climate conducive to constitutional change..the Federalist Society’s role as a powerful and vocal ‘judicial audience’ [Baum 2006]..has been important in keeping judges and Justices aligned with the network’s views and shared beliefs once on the bench.”

*** “Truth is the most important thing. That is why we should ration it.” [Lenin]

4] a] note: The Federalist Society was primarily funded in early days by the Olin Foundation. John Olin was against “socialism,” government regulations, labor unions, and the New Deal. Olin wanted to root “liberalism” out of major law schools; was the “dominant decision-maker” in the “law and economics” field, which ran various institutes for federal judges. 40% of federal judges attended one of Henry Manne’s sessions.
4]b] Michael Avery, Danielle McLaughlin: “The Federalist Society”
– The “Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment” also runs “training programs” for judges, justices, professors, and others. “FREE’s reach into the judiciary is staggering.” Since 1992, a quarter of the chief judges in federal courts have attended one of their programs – which involve “free market solutions” and opposition to the “takings clause.” Questions are raised when various corporations bring cases into the courts of these same judges, who were “trained” at sessions they sponsored.
!!!!!!!!!!! Time Out! Why do judges “need” to attend “training sessions”. sponsored by private sector actors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*** “There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.” [Justice Black]

5] “justice” Alito in “Dobbs”: “The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions. On the contrary, an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.”
!!!!!!!! the historical IGNORANCE and FALSEHOOD of this is mind boggling – it is 100%. FALSE.
*** The truth: World Book Encyclopedia: “Before the 1800s, there were few religious or legal obstacles to abortion prior to quickening..In the United States, abortion before quickening was not an offense under common law before the mid-1800s..”
***The Truth, Wikipedia: “Abortion has existed in North America since the European colonization..was a fairly common practice, and was not always illegal or controversial..Connecticut was the first state to regulate abortion in 1821..in 1859, abortion was not a crime in 21 of 33 states…Roe returned abortion to its liberalized pre-1820 status.”

*** “every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.” [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

6] Andrew Seidel: “American Crusade”
– “unshackle your mind from..belief..the Supreme Court is an impartial arbiter of truth and justice. The Crusade depends upon people believing this myth. McConnell, Trump, and Leo cheated, and stole and packed the courts to put their collaborators in place not because they would administer justice evenhandedly, but because they wouldn’t…
“The idea..a single exemption to any law necessitates every religious exemption to that same law has been roundly rejected in the legal academy as: “unprincipled and bizarre,” “an untenable proposition” that would make every religious objector “a law unto himself,” “an almost insurmountable barrier to regulation,” and “intellectually incoherent”..
“If the facts don’t fit the Crusade, the Court will alter reality, like the Town of Greece, prayers, gay wedding cake, and Missouri ministry cases..These justices overriding principle won’t be reality or the law or the Constitution..but simply this: Christians win.” [“bizarre,’ “untenable,” “intellectually incoherent” – THIS on the “supreme court” ???????????]

*** “As a member of this Court, I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.” [Justice Frankfurter]

7] “Supreme Court upheaval is swift, sweeping”; Robert Barnes; Washington Post Weekly, 7/10/22
– Justice Kagan accused the majority of inventing standards to achieve its goals in the EPA case: “The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it..When that method would frustrate broader goals, special cannons like the “major questions” doctrine magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.”

***”Arbitrary power and the rule of the Constitution cannot both exist. They are antagonistic and incompatible forces; one or the other must of necessity perish whenever they are brought in conflict.” [Justice Sutherland]

8]. Erwin Chemerinsky: “The Case Against the Supreme Court”
– Scalia, “stressed the efficiency of benefits of arbitration over court litigation and said that it was important to protect defendants, such as corporations, from the “in terrorem” effects of class action, which pressure them into settlements. The Court’s desire to protect business and its hostility to class actions suits could not have been more clearly stated..The Court said..the Federal Arbitration Act requires..Nowhere does the Federal Arbitration Act say or imply this [!!!!!! Scalia is defending something that DOES NOT EXIST – and – making it into new law!!!!!!!!].. nothing in the text or history of the Federal Arbitration Act implies..this..in a subsequent case, in 2013, the Court said..an arbitration clause is to be enforced even when the effect surely will immunize a defendant’s wrongful conduct from any remedy.”
– “Al-Kidd should have been a simple case.. Never before had the Supreme Court said..the test is whether “every reasonable official” would have known..Never before had the Supreme Court said..a plaintiff could recover for a constitutional violation only if existing law placed the question “beyond debate”.”
– “Each time [the Voting Rights Act of 1965] was set to expire, Congress extended it. Congress documented continued discrimination [650 attempts between 1982 and 2006]..The Senate voted 98-0 to extend the law for another 25 years..only 3 “no” votes in the House..President George W. Bush signed the extension into law. In Shelby County..the Court..held Section 4[b].. was unconstitutional..for the first time since the nineteenth century..the Court declared unconstitutional a federal civil rights statute..[using] “equal sovereignty”.. Nowhere does the Constitution say this.”
***re-read the examples – the HERETIC Roberts “court” is MAKING. STUFF. UP!!!! and, making it law

*** “Anybody who doesn’t take the truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large one either.” [Albert Einstein}

9]. Linda Greenhouse: “Justice on the Brink”
– “The phrase “ministerial exception” appears nowhere in federal law. It was an invention of lower court judges..In 2012, the Supreme Court endorsed this reasoning.”
– In “Hosanna-Tabor”, Justice Sotomayor dissent: “The court had traded legal analysis for a rubber stamp,” in allowing religious schools “to discriminate widely and with impunity for reasons wholly divorced from religious beliefs.” [100,00 secular teachers were stripped of statutory protection]
– “..to name religion would have required Roberts to acknowledge that the profound doctrinal shift the court was making, from equal treatment to special treatment..In dissent..Kagan..Breyer and Sotomayor had no trouble naming what had just occurred: “The Court orders California to weaken its restrictions on public gatherings by making a special exception for worship services. The majority does so even though the State’s policies treat worship just as favorably as secular activities [including political assemblies] that, according to medical evidence, pose the same risk of COVID transmission..That mandate defies our case law, exceeds our judicial role, and risks worsening the pandemic.”
[more MAKING. STUFF. UP ]

*** “No man is above the law and no man is below it..” [Theodore Roosevelt]

The above is a very. SMALL. sample of how the HERETIC Roberts “court” has been. MAKING. STUFF UP in order to carry out the Crusade. ALL this before the “winning” record of big business of about 75%; and the even more impressive “winning” record of right-wing religion of about 90% – both. TOTALLY. OUT. OF. PROPORTION of ALL other post-1945 Supreme Courts.
Would YOU, as a “reasonable person,” say the Roberts “court” is a neutral body, has no agenda, respects known facts and long-standing precedents, and treats all who come before it evenhandedly???????????

VIII – this heretic “court” has repeatedly violated basic American principles.

*** James Madison, Federalist #71: “..it is the just observation that the people commonly intend the public good.”
Madison, Federalist #45: “..the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to
be pursued; that no form of government whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment
of this object.”

1]. James M. Burns and Stewart Burns: “A People’s Charter”: “The story of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 is not about liberty. It is about unity, stability, security – about order..delegates were resolved to build a stouter, more durable union.” “The consensus that has developed among Americans with regard to the fundamental rights that ought to be protected by any Bill of Rights worthy of the name…The roots of that consensus lay in the English heritage..Magna Carta.. doctrines of natural rights..”

*** “That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected.”
[John Marshall, “Marbury”]

2] Leonard Levy: “Origins of the Bill of Rights” [83]. “No one in the United States during the generation of the Framers advocated a federal power to promote, assist, or support religion.” [91} “..the First Amendment meant, indisputably, that Congress could make no law concerning the sort of establishment that characterized Lutheran Sweden, Anglican England, Roman Catholic Spain, or Presbyterian Scotland.” [139] “Every American colony enacted laws that necessitated both military service and guard duty by all able-bodied men.” [141] “The Articles of Confederation..provided that every colony shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia but said nothing about the individual’s right to be armed for his own purposes.” [151]. “What mattered was not what the Magna Carta actually said but what the people thought it said..what it had come to mean. What also mattered was the inspiring imagery..” [252]. 18th century: property “did not mean merely the ownership of material things..Locke used the word to mean all that belongs to a person..” Madison, 1792: the “larger and juster meaning” of the term property: “every thing to which a man may attach value and have a right..”.. he “may be equally said to have a property in his rights.” [255]. “Nothing in the thought of the Framers foreclosed the possibility that new rights might claim the loyalties of succeeding generations.” Virginia Chief Justice: “May we not in the progress of things, discover some great and important [right], which we don’t now think of.”

*** “When we [Americans] talk about the rule of law, we assume we’re talking about a law that promotes freedom, that promotes justice, that promotes equality.” [Justice A. M. Kennedy]

3]. Jack Rakove: “Original Meanings”: “On the principles of government, a broad consensus reigned. Government existed for the good of the many, and to protect liberty, property, and equal rights of the citizens. the idea that representation would help the government determine the common good was commonplace, and so was the belief that separation of powers was essential to the protection of rights…”Life, liberty, and property comprised the fundamental trinity of inalienable rights..Americans were also inclined to add a fourth ‘natural and inalienable’ right: ‘To worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings..”

*** “A constitution, from its nature, deals in generals, not in detail. Its framers cannot perceive minute distinctions which arise in the progress of the nation, and therefore confine it to the establishment of broad and general principles.”
[John Marshall, “Bank”]

4] The BEGINNING list of “basic American principles” is above. To this we may add the “Bill of Rights.” The public good, the general welfare, unity, stability, security, HAPPINESS, absolute separation of church and state, the common DUTY of able-bodied men to maintain a ‘well-regulated and disciplined militia”, the rule of law, separation of powers, ‘worship according to the dictates of one’s own conscience’……

5] Perspective: the framers top fears: corruption, slavery, religion, mobs. Madison’s incomplete notes for the roughly 100 day Philadelphia Convention contained the word “corruption” 54 times. 54 TIMES. They were obsessed with creating “a virtuous republic,’ of virtuous citizens, of virtuous leaders.
Slavery is America’s original sin and curse. Slave-holding states refused to join a “united states” unless slave “rights’ were maintained [which led to civil war, Jim Crow, and continued discrimination].
The Founders were very well aware of religious warfare in Europe. they were determined to remove this threat in their 1776-1800 state constitutions, Article VI, and Amendment One.
Fear of mob violence, some done in the 1780s, led to various Articles protecting property and for the calling up of the militia to suppress violence. Those fears were realized in January, 2021.

*** “Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.” [Henry Clay, 1829]

6]. The list of the heretic Roberts “court” violations of basic American principles is close to endless. they have lie3d and misruled big and “small.” Just a few samples:
A] CORRUPTION, the Founders’ #l concern. Begin with “Citizens United.” “Political spending by billionaires soared” [7/21/20]: “Billionaires gave 37 times as much in political contributions..as they did 10 years earlier.”
Double Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Thomas Ricks, “First Principles”: “..the founders would be appalled by how money has come to dominate American politics..They did not design the United States to be an oligarchy…the founders would have considered corporate campaign spending the essence of political corruption.”

*** “..there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with the ‘money touch,’ but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of some many glorified pawnbrokers..” [Theodore Roosevelt]

B] Racism, this heretic “court” has decided to overturn many bipartisan civil rights laws of long standing. Prominent is “Shelby County,” in which the “court” said the old Confederacy “had changed,’ therefore no need to restrict their attempts to rig voting. WITHIN 24 GHOURS !!!!!, Texas made them the fool, reinstating a previously held unconstitutional law; to be followed by other old Confederate states.

***”No man can put a chain around the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened around his own neck.” [Frederick Douglass}

C] RELIGION, this heretic “court,” in a long string of cases, has now created a class of SUPER CITIZENS. People, usually “conservative Christians,” now have the “right’ to ignore laws that other Americans must follow – simply by claiming their “religious rights were excessively burdened” [by having to do what other Americans are required to do !!!!!]. These SUPER CITIZENS now have the ‘right’ to have THEIR churches and schools financed by other American taxpayers; have a ‘right’ to discriminate. RELIGIOUS DOGMA has been made American law – a TOTAL VIOLATION of all 1636-2004 American laws, intent, beliefs.

***”Reynolds”, 1879: “..to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

D]. MOBS, mob violence is now considered a major domestic terrorism threat. “U.S.Military chiefs assert American values – and a warning” [Martin Schram, 9/11/22]: Eight former defense secretaries and five former chairman of thee Joint chiefs of Staff, in an open letter, warned of possible future coup attempts.
“Guns doing the talking at protests” [Mike McIntire, 11/27/22]: “In June, armed demonstrations around the United States amounted to nearly one a day…Armed protestors use open-carry laws to intimidate opponents.”
Beginning in 2008, with “Heller,’ the heretic Roberts “court” upended over 200 years of understood law about guns in America, including 5 Supreme Court decisions. NEVER before, in English and American law, dating back over 700 years, had a “court” declared ordinary people had “rights” to carry guns in public.

*** “The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the America people, just now, are in much want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while others with the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows each of these things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” {Abraham Lincoln]

7] The heretic Roberts “court” is illegitimate, ahistorical, unConstitutional, unAmerican, and VERY destructive. They have repeatedly violated, broken, destroyed. basic American principles, understood 1636-2004.
Can any “reasonable person” ignore their PATTERNS of “winners” and “losers,” the DAMAGE they have inflicted on America in the name of “law.” Should a “reasonable American” be entitled to ask what they have done is really “law”?

*** “Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.” [Justice Brandeis]