My Neurologist Confirms What I'd Suspected

I have long endured severe neuralgia in my face,  though they can't come to a firm diagnosis that it's the dreaded trigeminal neuralgia, it hurts plenty enough for me.

The confirmation was that my age related receding gums has exacerbated the occurrences of it and its intensity.  Just one more of those reminders that this earth is not our home and that no matter what I want, my body's getting ready to die.   As it is, I am too Catholic to do it but I can understand why suicide is one of the more serious side-effects of intense neuralgia.  

I've known for decades that the change of seasons is another thing that makes attacks more frequent and intense. 

I do find that juniper berries help sometimes, a bit, especially if I don't chew them up but swallow them whole - the intense pain of seeds between the teeth is making me give up eating fresh tomatoes, blueberries, ground cherries, etc.  Things that make life worth living.   I'm tempted to buy a bottle of gin - how I accidentally found out about juniper suppressing inflammatory episodes.   But so far I haven't gone back on my resolution on that count.  I've seen too much alcoholism and what it does to go back to that. 

In case you wonder why my posting of substantial pieces has been slowing lately.  I'm still planning on going on with the anti-Marbury series,  especially as I become ever more convinced at the major role the Supreme Court has played in endangering equality, democracy and our very lives.   We are living in historically corrupt times largely because of them. 

The Supreme Court Has Lied A Lot In Its Majority Decisions And It Still Does With Life And Death Consequences

THOUGH I THINK that the majority decision in Trump v USA gives it a run for the title of worst Supreme Court decision, and don't forget, there can be multiple ties for that title,  I will start with the one which is generally given that distinction, the measure of bad Supreme Court decisions, Dred Scott. 

"justice" Taney in issuing his monumental, first significant use of the Marbury power lied and knowingly lied when he declared that Black People had never been included in the citizenship of the United States and were not citizens of the United States with rights that any white man had an obligation to respect.  We know he knew that because the dissent of "justice" Benjamin Curtis obliterated the lie that Black People weren't recognized as citizens at that time because the proposal that they be excluded from citizenship at the time the Articles of Confederation were soundly rejected by those who adopted that first government and so Black People were citizens of the United States BEFORE THERE WAS A CONSTITUTION and the Constitution, itself, says that those who were citizens at that time, either under confederation or in the states were citizens under the then new Constitution.  Curtis proved that decisively, which was known to Taney when his decision was issued - he had delayed the issuance of the ruling for a period during which some scholars believe he was trying to find a way round Curtis's solid proof that he was lying and he was unable to do it.  Here's a sample

Citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution can have been no other than citizens of the United States under the Confederation. By the Articles of Confederation, a Government was organized, the style whereof was "The United States of America." This Government was in existence when the Constitution was framed and proposed for adoption, and was to be superseded by the new Government of the United States of America, organized under the Constitution. When, therefore, the Constitution speaks of citizenship of the United States existing at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, it must necessarily refer to citizenship under the Government which existed prior to and at the time of such adoption.

Without going into any question concerning the powers of the Confederation to govern the territory of the United States out of the limits of the States, and consequently to sustain the relation of Government and citizen in respect to the inhabitants of such territory, it may safely be said that the citizens of the several States were citizens of the United States under the Confederation.

To determine whether any free persons, descended from Africans held in slavery, were citizens of the United States under the Confederation, and consequently at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, it is only necessary to know whether any such persons were citizens of either of the States under the Confederation at the time of the adoption of the Constitution.

Of this there can be no doubt. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, all free native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other necessary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors, on equal terms with other citizens.

and this:

On the 25th of June, 1778, the Articles of Confederation being under consideration by the Congress, the delegates from South Carolina moved to amend this fourth article by inserting after the word "free," and before the word "inhabitants," the word "white," so that the privileges and immunities of general citizenship would be secured only to white persons. Two States voted for the amendment, eight States against it, and the vote of one State was divided. The language of the article stood unchanged, and both by its terms of inclusion, "free inhabitants," and the strong implication from its terms of exclusion, "paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice," who alone were excepted, it is clear that under the Confederation, and at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, free colored persons of African descent might be, and, by reason of their citizenship in certain States, were, entitled to the privileges and immunities of general citizenship of the United States.

Did the Constitution of the United States deprive them or their descendants of citizenship?

That Constitution was ordained and established by the people of the United States, through the action, in each State, or those persons who were qualified by its laws to act thereon in behalf of themselves and all other citizens of that State. In some of the States, as we have seen, colored persons were among those qualified by law to act on this subject. These colored persons were not only included in the body of "the people of the United States" by whom the Constitution was ordained and established, but, in at least five of the States, they had the power to act, and doubtless did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption. It would be strange if we were to find in that instrument anything which deprived of their citizenship any part of the people of the United States who were among those by whom it was established.

I can find nothing in the Constitution which, proprio vigore, deprives of their citizenship any class of persons who were citizens of the United States at the time of its adoption, or who should be native-born citizens of any State after its adoption, nor any power enabling Congress to disfranchise persons born on the soil of any State, and entitled to citizenship of such State by its Constitution and laws. And my opinion is that, under the Constitution of the United States, every free person born on the soil of a State, who is a citizen of that State by force of its Constitution or laws, is also a citizen of the United States.

I maintain that there is something deeply significant in the fact that the first consequential use of the extra-constitutional Marbury power in the Dred Scott ruling was based on such a monumental and obvious lie.   I think dishonesty has been the primary characteristic of that usurped power's use throughout its history AND I THINK THE ARROGANCE AND ARROGANT USE OF THE USURPED POWER UNDER THAT RULING HAS DISTORTED MUCH OF THE CHARACTER OF THAT COURT'S DECISIONS EVER SINCE.    The often disdained and very late (and often questioned by Catholic scholars) doctrine of "papal infallibility" has, by comparison, been wielded with extreme caution and hesitancy, even by some of the most arrogant of popes with the biggest egos (JPII, Piux XI, Pius X).  The less than a handful of such "infallible" declarations have been modest  in ways that the Supreme Court of the supposedly secular United States has given no sign of,  despite their typical lawyerly-liarly anodyne gobblety-gook masking their arrogant dishonesty. 

They have certainly not been any more careful to not lie in their written decisions, sometimes knowingly and they don't feel any inclinations to correct lies contained in rulings even when those lies can have very consequential consequences FOR OTHER PEOPLE THAN THE "justices" THEMSELVES. 

-----------------

There are certainly still numerous Supreme Court rulings containing untrue "facts" or statements, some of great consequence, some which resulted in serious violations of everything from personal liberties to bodily integrity (Buck v Bell is an example) to those that end up to costing someone their life.   And the members of that court know very well they often have lied, perhaps originally through error or misunderstanding or . . . perhaps by watching those forensic fairy-tales so popular on American TV in the past half-century (see Kagan's mistake below). 

Though Taney's lie was certainly a matter of common knowledge among Supreme Court "justices" in the entire period after it was issued,  they haven't shown any tendency to be more careful to not lie in their rulings. 

Here's bit from a 2017 Mother Jones article dealing with a ProPublica study of just some of the recent years of the Roberts Court.  

In all, ProPublica found seven errors in a modest sampling of Supreme Court opinions written from 2011 through 2015. In some cases, the errors were introduced by individual justices apparently doing their own research. In others, the errors resulted from false or deeply flawed submissions made to the court by people or organizations seeking to persuade the justices to rule one way or the other.

The review found an error in a landmark ruling, Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. Chief Justice John Roberts used erroneous data to make claims about comparable rates of voter registration among blacks and whites in six southern states. 

In another case, Justice Anthony Kennedy falsely claimed that DNA analysis can be used to identify individual suspects in criminal cases with perfect accuracy.

Some of the mistakes were technical or arguably minor, and it is difficult to determine with certainty if they played a vital part in the court’s reasoning and final judgments.

But the NASA case was not the only one where a mistake involved a core aspect of the court’s ruling on an issue with widespread ramifications.

In 2013, the court issued a unanimous ruling in a case involving Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches by the police. In the case, the court determined that when a drug-sniffing dog signals it smells an illegal drug from outside of a car, police have probable cause to search the entire car without a warrant. Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the opinion, took on one of the central fears of those worried about innocent people being caught up in such police searches.

Kagan argued that the risk of “false positives”—instances in which a dog might mistakenly identify the presence of drugs—should be based on whether the dogs had been formally certified by police groups as reliable in their performance. She cited material from the Scientific Working Group on Dog and Orthogonal Detector Guidelines to support the court’s position.

However, none of the largest certification groups actually test for the risk of false positives. ProPublica reviewed standards and testing records and interviewed several experts on drug-sniffing dogs, including the head of the working group Kagan cited. He said her confidence in the certification process was misplaced.

“It’s important that it’s not just taken at face value to say just because the dog’s certified with a national organization that means they’re reliable,” said Kenneth Furton, the chairman of the working group, who now is provost at Florida International University.

It would seem that Harvard Law School lawyers (Kennedy and Kagan), professors, deans of that law school (Kagan) and then "justices" are as naive about the status of such "science" as your typical consumer of TV police procedural melodramas - which is reported to be a serious problem  when real jurors make the same mistake about TV and movies being real in real trials. 

"justice" Kagan, though, is hardly the worst or even part of the Republican-fascist majority who routinely lie in their written decisions and concur with such lying.   And once found out, the Roberts majority is happy to let the lie stand even though that lie could cost someone their life.  

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided not to correct a factual error it made in a previous opinion, making it much more likely that two death row prisoners who have made credible arguments that the lower courts got their case wrong will be executed.

The court declined a motion to modify its ruling,  last month against Barry Jones and David Ramirez. Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion in favor of Arizona included a line saying Jones and Ramirez had conceded that they would lose their appeals unless they were able to introduce newly discovered evidence. But the statement wasn’t true.

Both men were sentenced to death for murder. But Jones’ conviction has been overturned by lower courts in light of new evidence, and Ramirez’s claim of ineffective legal counsel has been backed by his own trial lawyer.

The court's decision not to modify the line means that a lower court could actually abide by that language. That would almost certainly reinstate the men's death sentences because virtually all the exculpatory evidence in their cases was discovered only after their state-level trials (and before the ongoing federal-level appeals).

The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc ruled against Jones and Ramirez in May, holding that people can appeal to federal courts if their state-court attorney was incompetent but can’t actually introduce new evidence to support those claims. There is no need to allow new evidence, Thomas wrote, because that undermines states’ sovereign power to “enforce societal norms through criminal law.”

The ruling is in keeping with court's stance since 2020, an approach that has seen the court repeatedly clear the way for executions after a 17-year hiatus, often in ideologically split decisions, and notwithstanding plausible innocence claims, or disagreement from lower courts, prominent conservative lawyers and even the (virtually apolitical) American Bar Association.

That anemic analysis in Thomas' May opinion - a policy determination that it’s societally preferable to strictly limit post-conviction appeals, regardless of the weight of newly discovered evidence - underscored the conservatives’ indifference to the wrongful convictions epidemic,  (to say nothing of the judicial integrity concerns raised by that holding).

The inaction on Monday puts a fine point on it.

The justices declined to correct a single line in a previous ruling, even though the court frequently modifies its opinions, from small spelling errors to substantive statements of law, sometimes publicly and sometimes surreptitiously.

It did so even though Arizona, which refurbished, its gas chamber last year and carried out its first execution in eight years in May, agreed with opposing counsel that the court should make the modification.

Moreover, the decision effectively punishes death-sentenced petitioners for the justices’ own mistake - even though the court forgave the same kind of misstep when the state seeking the death penalty was actually at fault. (More on that below.)

As a practical matter, the court’s inaction doesn’t condemn the men to death just yet. Their attorneys can rely on a few last-ditch arguments when the case goes back to lower courts – like judicial estoppel, which precludes litigants from taking positions that contradict their arguments in previous proceedings (here, the state’s agreement to the modification request indicates that it can’t also argue that Jones and Ramirez had in fact conceded that they can’t win without new evidence).

Arizona solicitor general Brunn Roysden III didn’t respond to a request for comment. Robert Loeb, an attorney at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who represents Jones and Ramirez, declined a request to comment, noting the sensitive nature of the litigation.

On its face, Thomas' sentence essentially blocked Jones' and Ramirez’ last remaining path to a successful appeal. It's premised on a “use it or lose it” principle – a legal doctrine that says certain defenses are automatically forfeited if not raised by a certain point.

Jones and Ramirez “do not dispute, and therefore concede, that their habeas petitions fail on the state-court record alone,” Thomas wrote.

In reality, none of the parties or the state court actually argued or considered whether the appeals could be decided based solely on the state-court record, Loeb said in the June 3 motion,  for modification. In other words, it simply hadn’t been an issue, so there couldn’t have been a forfeiture.

Nor was the question presented to the Supreme Court for an answer.

"To say nothing of the judicial integrity concerns raised by that holding,"  Judicial integrity.  Are we really making believe such a thing exists among the Supreme Court's majority in 2026?  After Trump v USA?  After Snyder v. United States in which exactly the kind of post-delivery quid pro quo payments of which a number of the members of the Roberts Court majority regularly take were declared legal?   

They LIE, they socialize with parties with business before their court, they take cases brought by corporate lawyers in grotesque preference to those of public interest lawyers, THEY TAKE GRATUITIES FROM THOSE WITH BUSINESS BEFORE THE COURT, and they're not atypical of members of that court in history who have been issuing rulings to their own financial benefit from at least the time of John Marshall.  

The U.S. Supreme Court has got to be cut down to the size of the Courts in every modern democracy, none of which has the power that the Court gave itself in 1803, a power which some of the most eminent statesmen of our history,  Jefferson, Lincoln,  etc. predicted would corrupt the country, which has corrupted our country into the worst period of it since legal slavery.    Without that, we're just fooling ourselves if we think they won't mow down the next period of struggle resulting in the same kinds of laws that the Waite and Fuller Courts mowed down after the Civil War and the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts did after the decades long struggle to overturn the work of the Waite and Fuller Courts.   The Court is the problem,  far. far more of one than the Congress has been.   It has been the work of reforming Congresses and presidents that the Court has routinely nullified in the tradition of Roger Taney and his corrupt majority in 1857.   The Roberts Court, the New Taney Court, the Ku Klux Kourt is just the latest in that long line of such Courts staffed by such "justices."  

Here's My Answer - Zohran Mamdani CLEANS UP New York And MAGA Can't Stand It!

 

No. I Don't Think The Ku Klux Kourt Has Seen The Error Of Its Ways

THE PITIFUL LITTLE GESTURES made in a few recent rulings and rejections to hear cases doesn't even much register on their full attack on Voters of Color, those in groups who tend to favor Democrats and their other measures to ensure Republican-fascist rule and their imperial presidency. 

What I think all those tiny little gestures mean is that they hear the so far muted demands for Court reform and they're hedging their bets in case that blue tsunami happens.   

Nothing short of ending the Marbury usurpation by which the Court has been favoring political corruption for the last half century since they issued the Buckley v Valeo ruling that started the flood of dirty money and millionaire and billionaire domination of our politics and every other measure the Court has taken TO PREVENT THE CONGRESS AND SOME PRESIDENTS TO CLEAN UP OUR POLITICS,  nothing short of abolishing Court mandated political corruption will be enough.  What Nixon did before then was a trickle of dirty water by comparison. 

From Buckley v Valeo onward,  the Supreme Court has done with their rulings what Bull Connor did to those who demanded equality and the right to vote with attack dogs and fire hoses.  

If some of those early "justices" in 1976 did so out of their political naivety doesn't change the fact of what they did.   The corruption that plagues the United States now is a consequence of their mowing down the clean elections laws to get money out of our politics using "free speech" as their excuse.   The tell in that is how "freedom of speech" is now the slogan of the billionaires, millionaires, white supremacists and fascists.   They wouldn't care about it if it had not become their major tool in destroying equality and democracy.   

They have used the Marbury power to mow down every single measure to make the United States a country of equal rights and voting rights and economic justice since the first significant use of it in the Dred Scott decision in which they abolished the long standing law that abolished slavery in SOME of the territories and SOME of the states.  I would argue the Court was about that well before then in such rulings as the Antelope case and the Prigg case, in which actions of the Congress and state governments restricted slavery and the abduction of free People in free states by those who would kidnap them into slavery were set aside or overturned.   The Supreme Court has been the primer locus of such corruption in the United States, far more typically corrupt than the Congress and even the presidency.  

We end that or we see any future progress against our indigenous and new forms of fascism mowed down by the Court in the future as the Roberts Court has done as Courts have done since the time of Marshall and Story.  

Bill Donohue

president for life of the Catholic League is a racist piece of shit.   I didn't realize I wished he'd long ago died and gone to hell until I heard him standing with a couple of racist hags from the NYC Council.  

In other news,  it's hilarious that, ONCE AGAIN DURING A REPUBLICAN-FASCIST EVENT GRINDR HAS CRASHED IN DALLAS.

Don't buy the line that Republican-fascists are damaged from living in the closet,  they're damaged by their epic greed, selfishness and bigotry and love of power. 

No, I Didn't See It

What's the matter?   Tom Cotton unavailable to write another editorial for the Great Gray Whore?  

Yeah,  I could tell how broken up Erika was as she grieved for her racist, misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, fascist hate monger husband.    The video that showed her putting fake tears in her eyes before she hit the runway was another clue.  

I'm sure like Liberace,  she was crying all the way to the bank. 

The Sulzbergers are no different from the Murdochs, Ellisons, Mercers, etc.   Only they pretend their rag is liberal because of the suckers they still get to buy it.    All they want is the money they get when the oligarch servicing party is in complete control,  the rest of it is bullshit. 

All the major venues of legacy media are in on it, with a very few minor exceptions who aren't that major.   The paper that got the "right to lie" for it is no exception to that. 

Craven Little MAGAt Token Tim Scott

is a non-binary gay man who, late in life, entered into a lavender marriage when his being so tellingly single started to look like it could be a political liability for him. 

He's also a fake Christian who worships Mammon and has since at least the day he had that famous sandwich with the Chick Fil-A franchisee.   And I'd really like to know a lot more about THAT relationship than we ever will. 

There.  Sue me.   

Hey, We Saw What They Think About Someone Else Building A Bridge To Them

when Trump blackmailed Canada when THEY built a bridge to the US.   

If those MAGAt white ranchers and farmers, small business owners,  wannabe white MAGAt Cubans and Venezuelans and other really stupid members of minorities who let their racism and sexism override the most basic level of common sense, and all the other MAGAts who fucked around and are finding out want a bridge to us, LET THEM BUILD ONE AND PROVE THAT IT'S SAFE FOR US TO TRUST BECAUSE I DON'T TRUST ANYONE WHO WOULD VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP IN 2024, 2020, OR 2016.  

THEY'RE THE ONES WHO HAVE TO PROVE THEY'VE REALLY LEARNED A LESSON TO US.  And that's going to take more than a couple of videos or days or weeks or years to prove it.   

As it is,  I suspect that as soon as they thought it was in their interest to shaft us and those they wanted to see hurt by Trump,  they'll turn on us like Michael Cohen did to those stupid enough to trust him. 

Liberals, lefties, even moderates get played through the dishonest exploitation of their good will over and over again.  I'm not going to be anyone's sucker ever again. 

This is a response. 

I Was Going To Joke

that the Trump "Convention" was so hard up for talent that they were going to have a Moms and Dads tribute band.  

But listening to this old chestnut,  I wouldn't dishonor their memory by making that joke. 

Yeah, let them do Kid Rock and Lee Greenwood.   Hell,  Greenwood is his own tribute act these days.   

Maybe they can get the four Mormon boys gang banging one piano like they got a decade back.   I'd imagine they can get a Toby Keith imitator to sing that pro-lynching song he sang back then.  I mean, there must be that kind of talent who'd be glad to have the gig. 

Update:  Liking to know things,  I looked.  Yeah, there are a number of Toby Keith "tribute" acts out there.   There's something kind of pathetic about "tribute" acts.  Especially those who imitate sub-A list "talent."  

For The Large Majority of White Farmers And Ranchers Who Voted For Trump, Yeah, I Agree With This Now

 

White farmers and ranchers are being given what the Department of Agriculture has been giving to Black Farmers for its entire existence.  Nothing.   What the white farmers got, the big ones, anyway was socialism. 

Don't worry,  Vance and the billionaires are ready to buy out your farms and ranches for pennies on the dollar.   It's part of their plan to own everything and turn us into serfs and slaves and vassals.   And it's what you voted for.

I come from farming People.  And I'm sick to death of the whining of the MAGAts who are losing their farms and whining that we're not crying for them.  They can have the years they voted for.  And I hope no one ever stops pointing that out to them.  

Trump Claims To Have Helped Clean Up After 9-11?

AT BEST WE MIGHT pretend that this is a golden opportunity to experience what we imagine it must have been like for those in Rome who experienced the madness of Caligula, or Nero, perhaps.

If you think me saying that is a huge stretch,  consider the third one generally put on the list of most insane Roman emperors, Commodus.   He liked to cos-play as the reincarnation of Hercules,  he would mount gladiator battles in which he would "battle" disabled opponents..  He had disabled Romans, especially those who had no feet or other amputations tied up in the arena then he,  dressed as Hercules, would club them to death in front of crowds.   Trump does stuff like that that by proxy and in AI images posted by the Second Prostitute.   And, like Trump,  Commodus liked to rename things, renaming Rome, itself as The Colony of Commodus,   Colonia Commodiana. 

Only, it's an experience I would like for all of us to never have had to experience.   Our Senators and "justices" are as degenerate as the ones who didn't get rid of him then.   It took his mistress (he'd had his wife murdered) and to others finding out that he'd put them on a "to-kill" list for the next day to poison him and when he vomited up more of the poison than they thought was safe for them, they paid an athlete to strangle him.   

Only, considering those who have been killed by Trump and his goons like Hegseth and RFK jr.  I think Trump has to stand as more depraved and more of a symptom of terminal decadence than the Roman emperor.  

"disrespecting the Court" - Hate Mail

WELL,  IF YOU don't like what I've been calling the Roberts Republican-fascists, how about calling it the 

KU KLUX KOURT 

Easy Listening - A Holiday Post

THERE HAS BEEN some recent interest in the founder and framer James Wilson, one who played a role in creating the excuse used to insert the Marbury power into the real Court shaped instead of the written Constitution.   I will say up front that that excuse, lame as it was to start with, has like the Constitution it has constantly deformed and changed under the pretenses of things like "originalism" and "textualism"  isn't the same now as then.  Even if there was some plausible excuse for that in the beginning, that  has proved to be a lie under use. 

I stopped listening to Public Radio in the United States years ago and had always had a bit of an allergy to Fresh Air so I hadn't known  about this renewed interest in Wilson until I went looking for more information about him and came across this interesting but arguably overly positive presentation of him by his most recent biographer, Jesse Wegman.   It's one of the things I've come to get my guard up over,  biographers tend to present their subjects in overly favorable terms.   

I, of course, being a sworn and complete opponent of the Marbury power and the idea of judges and "justices" taking on a role superior to a popularly elected legislature for all of the reasons I've given here, am inclined to be far more skeptical of its proponents, especially those who have been or are elite lawyers.   I note that in the discussion in which Wilson's official opposition to slavery is mentioned there is no mention of the fact that he kept a man in slavery for a number of years, himself.   Whether or not he kept others in slavery,  I have yet to try to find out.   One is made suspicious by the monumental under-count by his biographers and admirers of those that John Marshall kept enslaved and the clear motive that the enormous wealth their violent enslavement gave to Marshall in his uniformly slavery favoring rulings on the Court.   That fact is something for which I am indebted to the current history of Paul Finkelman and his colleague who did what the previous hagiographers failed to do, look at his will and property records to find out the facts.   I regard Finkelman as one of our best current historians. 

To his eternal discredit,  Wilson authored the morally disgusting 3/5th provision and caved on many of the worst anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic aspects of the Constitution.   He also indulged in that other major moral abomination of the founders and framers,  western land speculation which inevitably involved the genocidal removal of People and the theft of their lands, in the end, it was what broke him and led to him, one of the most prominent lawyers in America, taking on the lam, running from his creditors and the law as he remained an associate justice of the U.S Supreme Court. 

I'm going to suggest listening to and reading the transcript of the Wegman interview because we share many of the same ideas about reforming the corrupt Supreme Court and because, skeptical as I am of biographers presentation of their subjects,  he gives a lot of introductory information about Wilson who will figure in some of my planned posts. 

'The Lost Founder' profiles a brilliant lawyer who helped craft the Constitution

I should finally ask, does anyone prefer to have these links open in a new window or is the way I've always done that OK?    I will change that if you want it otherwise. 

Footnote To The Post Below

IN HONOR OF IT BEING LABOR DAY WEEKEND, here is a link to a report dealing with just what I'm talking about. 

It's summary is given here. 

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 3, 2022 – Today Alliance for Justice announced the release of a new special report entitled Economic Justice, Judges, and the Law, a first-of-its-kind analysis detailing the severe under-representation of lawyers with backgrounds in labor and economic justice fields among active federal circuit court judges. The report finds that, among active circuit court judges, 68% are former corporate attorneys, and 28% are former prosecutors. The report also notes that judges with these legal backgrounds are far more likely to rule against workers and consumers than judges with other forms of legal expertise. By contrast, only 6% of active circuit court judges have experience in labor or economic justice fields including union-side labor law, employee-side wage and hour law, consumer protection, and civil legal aid. 

Update:   I just noticed that either I or auto-correct mistook the name of the Greek goddess of hunting for the snotty minor Platonist for whom the make-believe lawyer was named.   I don't know which is to blame.   If any of the three or so readers of the post at the time noticed, they were too polite to point that out to me.    Feel free to correct me,  I'd rather be embarrassed than to persist in error.  No idea how auto-correct feels about that. 

leaving the ultimate decision making in our law, in our government, the interpretation of the Constitution in the hands of those enculturated in the law and the lore, habits and dubious scruples and what is laughably called "ethics" of the legal profession is supremely dangerous

IT'S MY EXPERIENCE THAT LABOR DAY WEEKEND is second only to Thanksgiving Weekend in having things you post online not being read because who isn't doing something more important, like being with your family and friends? 

In an earlier attack I made on the Supreme Court I dealt with the excuses for the Supreme Court usurping the powers given to the Congress and president in several posts, two of which I am going to repost with some new commentary this week. 

I have been criticized for being hard on lawyers, judges and most of all "justices" in these posts but I'm not going to pretend for a second that they don't deserve it.  

The profession, itself, has one of its foundational practices in looking for opportunities for their clients and themselves to do things that are either objectionable to others or, more importantly, harm others, many of which lie in the impossibility of writing laws to cover every single nuance in which they can regulate in life.  

And that is what a law does.  The objections of conservatives, right wingers to the government "regulating" things is, itself, an objection to why governments exist and why laws have any legitimacy at all because they want to do things that hurt others.   That's the nature of conservatism as that word has developed in the modern period. 

I suspect that for most Americans, Brits, Canadians and others among the generally English speaking peoples, that last sentence will be read as me criticizing the legal racketeers for getting real criminals who seriously injure, rape, etc. others off in a dramatic fashion in a court trial.   For most of us our conception of the law and its personnel are formed by some of the worst of TV, movies, stage plays, pulp fiction and the blathering of those on TV, radio and, worse than those once were, online.   Which is entirely unrealistic.  And generally melodramatic and badly written. 

While sometimes, in the rarest of instances, that kind of crusading for something called "justice" actually happens, it is not the real character of the legal profession or the results of its activities.  It's not even typical of defense lawyers who, as they proudly announce, represent the guilty as easily as they do the innocent, especially those who can pay their fees.  It is undeniable that the business of lawyers is to twist evidence and lie and exploit prejudices* and emotions or even the uncertainty of jurors (reasonable or unreasonable, it doesn't seem to matter much which one)  to allow bad People to escape legal punishments for doing some really terrible things.   Generally that is done in line with two traits of criminals, belonging to a privileged class of People or, more destructive of justice, having great wealth.   

Lawyers are in the business of billing far, far, far, more than they are in the business of crusading for something called "justice."  

But the foremost and likely most destructive activity of lawyers and many judges and, I'd argue the majority of "justices" in the history of our Supreme Court is to allow those with wealth to do what they want to do unhampered by laws passed by legislatures and signed by presidents and governors.   I would say that the overwhelming presence of those in the legal profession in legislatures and among governors and presidents have, like those they appoint to judgeships and especially to supreme courts, is to extend the habits and practices of their profession into the actual, written laws so as to profit those who they have profited from or who they hope in the future to profit from.   I say without any fear that I'm being unjust to say that service to those with the most money is probably the most certain route to a judgeship or a seat on the Supreme Court. 

There is a reason why the only U.S. Supreme Court "justice" in history has worked as a low-paid Public Defender is the most recently confirmed of them,  Ketanji Brown Jackson.  The number who have worked as corporate lawyers is so numerous that almost all of the other members of just the present court have been corporate lawyers.  And that really makes A COMPLETE DIFFERENCE in the "justice" that the U.S. Supreme Court issues.   

Here, from a 2014 analysis:

A Reuters examination of nine years of cases shows that 66 of the 17,000 lawyers who petitioned the Supreme Court succeeded at getting their clients’ appeals heard at a remarkable rate. Their appeals were at least six times more likely to be accepted by the court than were all others filed by private lawyers during that period.

The lawyers are the most influential members of one of the most powerful specialties in America: the business of practicing before the Supreme Court. None of these lawyers is a household name. But many are familiar to the nine justices. That’s because about half worked for justices past or present, and some socialize with them.

They are the elite of the elite: Although they account for far less than 1 percent of lawyers who filed appeals to the Supreme Court, these attorneys were involved in 43 percent of the cases the high court chose to decide from 2004 through 2012.

Of the 66 lawyers mentioned above, 51 worked for law firms that primarily represent business interests. This means that over time corporate America cultivates a small pool of lawyers who are better able to get cases before the Supreme Court than any other attorneys in the country. And they acknowledge that they avoid taking cases from individuals seeking to challenge their high-paying corporate clients, whose activities and concerns are generally entangled and embedded throughout society.

Individuals seeking to challenge large businesses are left to choose from a smaller pool of less experienced and less successful lawyers.

Reuters continues:

An elite firm might refuse to represent an individual suing a corporation on a labor issue, for example, because it fears that winning the case could create a precedent that might hurt top clients in other industries. Large firms do take cases pro bono on behalf of the indigent. But those appeals are generally related to criminal law or social causes such as gay marriage – topics unlikely to affect U.S. business interests.

For many top firms, the conflicts mean declining to represent environmental organizations, labor unions, employees suing employers, or consumers filing class actions.

Joseph Sellers, a lawyer for the midsized firm Cohen Milstein who argued a Supreme Court case against Wal-Mart and for a class of more than 1.5 million female employees who alleged gender discrimination, said, “It’s not that there aren’t lawyers at these large firms who aren’t public-spirit minded and don’t want to do these cases. It’s that their business model won’t allow it.

. . . Michael Luttig, general counsel for aerospace giant Boeing Co., said of the new class of lawyers who are intimate with the Supreme Court, “It has become a guild, a narrow group of elite justices and elite counsel talking to each other.” The court and its elite bar have grown “detached and isolated from the real world, ultimately at the price of the healthy and proper development of the law.”

I think that all of this is one of the biggest reasons that leaving the ultimate decision making in our law, in our government, in the interpretation of the Constitution - WHICH IS FAR MORE THAN JUST A BUNCH OF LAWS - in the hands of those enculturated in the law and the lore, habits and dubious scruples and what is laughably called "ethics" of the legal profession is supremely dangerous.  Even many of the most moral of them,  and I hold they are not typical of those who are in that profession, no more than those in any other line of work,  are blind to some of the most outrageous practices of their fellow lawyers.    You hear it all the time from the likes of those who are regularly tapped for commentary by MS-Now or Meidas Touch on the outrageous decisions and actions of those on the Roberts Court.   As I've pointed out a number of times here,  it was hearing one such lawyer whose career and commentary I have enormous respect for declare that there is "a right to lie" that broke my conception of that profession, one built up in the regular way,  by imbibing the tripe from Atticus Finch and Horace Rumpole and following the heroic careers of real lawyers - often on the basis of my own prejudices and what I was persuaded to believe by advocacy journalism. 

Journalists, now there's another profession just about all of this applies to.  Even many of the real ones, reporters. 

I have been thinking more and more about Thomas Jefferson's statement in his 1819 letter rejecting the Marbury power in which he said his "construction" of the Constitution gave all three branches of the government the power that the Supreme Court declared it alone had, of defining the meaning of the Constitution.  Our history would have, certainly, been far different if that had been the case.  Just for a start, the 1870 Voting Rights Act and the 1875 Civil Right Act that went far in enforcing the equality of Black People and other People of Color would have stood for the rest of our history instead of being abolished, along with the even earlier anti-lynching law by the Supreme Court in 1883.  

Imagine if that had been the law of the land, including in the states of the Confederacy and all the others.   The Congress, which everyone slams all the time, came up with law after law to protect disfavored minorities, workers, etc.  State legislatures came up with such laws AS WELL AS LAWS DISCRIMINATING AGAINST BLACK PEOPLE, WORKERS, ETC.   Only it's generally been the laws that favored oppressed minorities, workers, etc.  that the lawyers on the Supreme Court have so consequentially found "unconstitutional."  The Warren Court was an outlier for a reason,  and even then a lot of their landmark "civil liberties" rulings proved to be foolish, giving the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts tools and words to twist to their worst ends.   

I don't trust the thinking of the lawyers among their fellow lawyers, not when they can make their ideas into law.  Not as compared to those who have to persuade non-lawyers in legislatures to get bills passed or those who, usually after having served long in the Congress,  in the presidency.   I'd rather put my future in the hands of the elected Congress than in the unelected, generally corporate lawyers of the Supreme Court. 

* There is little to keep a judge's prejudices out of it and absolutely nothing to keep a Supreme Court "justices'" prejudices out of the law. 

Lying Lawyers Get People Killed In Large Numbers

BY NOW YOU KNOW that I loathe Little Bobby Kennedy,  RFK jr. along with every single other person in the Trump II regime and, really, every single person who still belongs to the Republican Party.  It's got the same moral status as the American Nazi Party, the KKK, White Citizens Councils, the John Birch Society, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Hoover Institution, . . . sorry, been doing some research into the origins of the "unitary executive" form of fascism that the Court has replaced the written Constitution with,  the role of our original fascists under their various guises.  More about that in the future.  

I've suspected from the start of his latest racket, as Trump's Sec of "health and human services" was him gutting the science on things like vaccines so he and his law firm could cite the phony "science" when he goes back to being just a plain ambulance chasing anti-vaxx lawyer-liar so he can reap millions from here till his steroid use finally ends his disgusting life.   I was certain of it when he wouldn't promise that he wouldn't profit from it when Elizabeth Warren gave him the opportunity to do that during his confirmation hearings.  Like most liar-lawyers, if he's the one under oath as a witness, his facility for lying can be rather easily exposed,  though that almost never leads to a Republican being refused confirmation, as the membership of the current Court proves. 

And now he's been caught trying to cover up deaths from the measles epidemic that he and his fellow anti-vaxxers fomented with their lies and pseudo-science.  

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked his new CDC director to remove a reference to two Pennsylvania deaths from the agency’s online measles tally after he questioned whether the disease contributed to the ​fatalities, three sources familiar with the situation said.

Kennedy’s request came after CDC staffers had already accepted the state’s characterization of the deaths as linked to measles, a Pennsylvania official ‌said.

Despite that, Erica Schwartz, the recently appointed director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed with Kennedy’s directive and implemented it without objection, said the three sources familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The move followed a heated exchange on social media between Kennedy, a long-time anti-vaccine activist appointed by President Donald Trump, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat. The two officials accused each other of politicizing the outbreak in Pennsylvania, the latest state to grapple with a ​resurgence of measles since the Trump administration took office.

Data from the CDC and from individual states shows that vaccine rates have been declining, with many medical organizations citing rising vaccine hesitancy as a major ​cause. In Pennsylvania alone, the state health department has reported 540 measles cases this year.

Georges Benjamin, chief executive of the American Public Health Association and formerly ⁠Maryland's secretary of health, said it is "unheard of" for the CDC to publicly raise doubts about the conclusions of state and local health departments, even if the agency seeks more information.

"The secretary had no business ​interfering in the normal process," Benjamin said. "He has an anti-vaccine agenda and he's using this to play out his anti-vaccine agenda.”

I hope that Democrats get the chance to go after these criminals and hold them accountable but under our corrupt Constitution and government I'm not holding my breath.    I'm not very familiar with that Erica Schwartz skank but I'll bet there's something in it for her, too.  I mean other than getting another appointment from Trump, she had one in his first regime, too. 

I wish his cousin,  Caroline would come out with more of the family knowledge of him and his dark past.   He is a seriously dangerous psychopath and entirely amoral.  

I Hope Gloria Steinem Is Happily Being Reunited With Other Heroes Like Shirley Chisholm

Their like is missed though there are others who build on what they built.    What the Supreme Court didn't knock down, that is. 

Maybe I should Make Shirley Chisholm's memoir my next book to type out and study.  My copy has teeny-tiny print so I'll have to use a magnifier to do it. 

I Am Left Thinking In The Face Of This That Those Who Support The IHRA "Definition" of Antisemitism Are Guilty Of The Same Thing That David Irving Is

 

A sense of honesty doesn't come into it for a second - Cry The Benighted Country

THIS WEEK, IN MY COUNTRY,  the Republican-fascists in Congress, in the state houses,  the Roberts Court,  most of all in the media and among the billionaires, fawning over and humoring Trump remind me of this from Petronius's infamous novel.  Only we're a lot worse,  Eumolpus knew what he was doing was a con to rope in corrupt greedy people,  Trump has sold himself as what he pretends to be, most of all to himself.   It was the corporations going along with his renaming of Lake Ontario that tipped the scale.   And it's Trump making them eat shit while he's alive AND THEM DOING IT WITHOUT SHAME, SO MUCH STRONGER IS THEIR GREED THAN EVEN A SENSE OF DIGNITY.   A sense of honesty doesn't come into it for a second.   Such is the product of the legal standing of the Courts and the real Constitution they made up that lying is as valid as the truth.   Though Madison et al got that started with their stab at neo-classical brevity.  Lawyers are generally shitty poets and worse law writers. 

That this is happening now when it never happened before to this extent, not even in Trump I is a product of Trump v. USA, brought to you by the minds trained in the Ivy League law schools and the Federalist-fascist Society. 

(“I have thought up a scheme,” replied Eumolpus, “which will embarrass our fortune-hunting friends sorely,” and as he said this, he drew his tablets from his wallet and read his last wishes aloud, as follows:) 

“All who are down for legacies under my will, my freedmen only excepted, shall come into what I bequeath them subject to this condition, that they do cut my body into pieces and devour said pieces in sight of the crowd: {nor need they be inordinately shocked} for among some peoples, the law ordaining that the dead shall be devoured by their relatives is still in force; nay, even the sick are often abused because they render their own flesh worse! 

I admonish my friends, by these presents, lest they refuse what I command, that they devour my carcass with as great relish as they damned my soul!” (Eumolpus had just started reading the first clauses when several of his most intimate friends entered the room and catching sight of the tablets in his hand in which was contained his last will and testament, besought him earnestly to permit them to hear the contents. He consented immediately and read the entire instrument from first to last. 

But when they had heard that extraordinary stipulation by which they were under the necessity of devouring his carcass, they were greatly cast down, but) his reputation for enormous wealth dulled the eyes and brains of the wretches, (and they were such cringing sycophants that they dared not complain of the outrage in his hearing. 

One there was, nevertheless, named) Gorgias, who was willing to comply, (provided he did not have too long to wait! To this, Eumolpus made answer:) “I have no fear that your stomach will turn, it will obey orders; if, for one hour of nausea you promise it a plethora of good things: just shut your eyes and pretend that it’s not human guts you’ve bolted, but ten million sesterces! 

And beside, we will find some condiment which will disguise the taste! No flesh is palatable of itself, it must be seasoned by art and reconciled to the unwilling stomach. And, if you desire to fortify the plan by precedents, the Saguntines ate human flesh when besieged by Hannibal, and they had no legacy in prospect! 

In stress of famine, the inhabitants of Petelia did the same and gained nothing from the diet except that they were not hungry! When Numantia was taken by Scipio, mothers, with the half-eaten bodies of their babes in their bosoms, were found! (Therefore, since it is only the thought of eating human flesh that makes you squeamish, you must try to overcome your aversion, with all your heart, so that you may come into the immense legacies I have put you down for!” 

So carelessly did Eumolpus reel off these extravagances that the fortune-hunters began to lose faith in the validity of his promises and subjected our words and actions to a closer scrutiny immediately; their suspicions grew with their experience and they came to the conclusion that we were out and out grafters, and thereupon those who had been put to the greatest expense for our entertainment resolved to seize us and take it out in just revenge; but Chrysis, who was privy to all their scheming, informed me of the designs which the Crotonians had hatched; and when I heard this news, I was so terrified that I fled instantly, with Giton, and left Eumolpus to his fate. 

I learned, a few days later, that the Crotonians, furious because the old fox had lived so long and so sumptuously at the public expense, had put him to death in the Massilian manner. That you may comprehend what this means, know that) whenever the Massilians were ravaged by the plague, one of the poor would offer himself to be fed for a whole year upon choice food at public charge; after which, decked out with olive branches and sacred vestments, he was led out through the entire city, loaded with imprecations so that he might take to himself the evils from which the city suffered, and then thrown headlong (from the cliff.)

Our fortune hunters are still playing stupid and nothing will get them to admit it's gone too far.  The Roberts majority as much as anyone.  So much more corrupt is the decadence of America in 2026. 

Aaron Copland - Violin Sonata - 1st movement

 

Louis Kaufman - Violin

Aaron Copland - Piano

This is the third performance of this sonata I've heard in which Copland, himself, plays the piano part.  The subtle differences in them is fascinating.  

This piece makes me mourn the country that I used to think I would one day live in. 

Update: 2nd Movement

3rd Movement