TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) appears now to be a pandemic. But calm down, progressives; it's only six more years.
1
The Ed Board identifies "lawmakers, regulators and the public" as 3 groups who the Roberts Court blocks from stopping the "widening chasm in power and wealth" in America.
While I am in sympathy with the Board's opinion, the shocking fact is that none of the above 3 groups has demonstrated the will to stop the Trumping up of America, now in its 4th decade. They have enabled it.
The drum beat "Make America Great Again" is simply code for repealing the hard fought victories in civil rights, wages, health and education for women and minority citizens and reverting to a majority white Christian theocracy, even though the great unwashed low information voter suffers a net economic loss.
Apparently, those Republican voters and congressmen gain the desired pyrrhic victory in crushing those who they have determined to be the enemy, never mind that they go down with them in the long run.
I wish the Board et al could convince the masses that the short term gratification in stripping minority groups of the American Dream will without a doubt create a monster which eventually will end their dreams as well.
3
When the farmer sells a side of goat at the farmers market, does he go back to the homestead and pay the rest of the goats the money, or keep it for himself? The money flows to the capital interest of the farm and the farmer, not to the workers who produce the meat.
My goats wouldn't know what to do with dollar bills, perhaps they'd try to eat them, and that is exactly what the wealthy owners of the corporations and their siblings in government think of us too: we don't know what to do with money, heck, we'll just waste it spending it on ourselves no better than if we were buying bread for the pigeons resulting only in fat birds (Mary Poppins).
Those in power hire us to work for them and then sell us what we need to live at the end of the day after having spent 8 hours building all those things. They think it is ridiculous to flow any more capital towards us than is necessary for us to buy those things to live another day so we can make it back to work. They want the excess capital.
Likewise, I only take the least amount of money from selling the side of goat at the farmers market to buy hay for the goats to eat, and I keep the rest of the capital for myself. Why would I buy the goats a flat screen T.V.?
11
The most obvious reason to refuse to confirm Kavanaugh is that the proportion of his judicial decisions which are flawed and overturned exceeds a reasonable threshold.
In the Age of Trump, time to do two things:
1. Impeach Alito and Roberts for lying to Congress during their confirmation hearings about their respect for the principle of “stare decisis”. They obviously don’t have any.
2. Pass a constitutional amendment limiting the tenure of Supremes to a single 18-year term. This may not be a bad idea for the Appellate Circuit, either. The recent deaths of Rehnquist and Scalia demonstrate that the same logic which created the 22nd Amendment should apply to the other branches. (Congressional term limits, anyone?)
1
Viewing the Supreme Court as pro-corporate misses the point. Contrary to the Editorial Board's assertion, the Burger Court was quite liberal as was the preceding Warren Court. The unifying theme in Brown v Board (minorities), Abood (unions), Baake (affirmative action) and others was to promote the idea of government placing its thumb on the scale in favor of the "oppressed" as compensation for an unjust system. The removal of such preference should not be seen as favoring corporate interests but rather a return to the Lockean structure of the Constitution which was accepted for most of this country's history.
Consider Abood as an example where unions were given payoffs in the form of coerced payments from those who did not want to be part of the union in the name of "labor peace". In the Board's view, however, giving workers a choice is somehow pro-corporate ?!
This will hopefully not be the last ruling from the Warren and Burger Courts to be overturned. For too long, conservative justices were so fearful of being "legislators in robes" that failed in their duty to uphold the Constitution. Or in the words of Barry Goldwater, "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue ! "
1
The Roberts Court, with a fully reliable, utterly partisan and rabidly ideological 5-man majority, will be the most reactionary, radical, judicially activist and intellectually dishonest Supreme Court in living memory, if not ever.
The five justices (including one absolutely illegitimate usurper and Kavanaugh or some other Federalist-approved "jurist" if Kavanaugh fails to win confirmation) will unleash a relentless, ruthless assault upon at least a century's worth of precedents and progress. These five men will hold the "rights" of corporations (a legal fiction, one should remember) and Christians above all others without any regard to whether these "rights" are real, imagined or invented by the Court out of whole cloth, out of thin air (see Alito's masterwork of legal fabulism masquerading as a legal opinion, Hobby Lobby).
2
When Judge Kavanaugh sells a side of goat at the farmers market, does he go back to the homestead and pay the rest of the goats the money? No, he keeps it for himself. The money flows to the capital interest of the farm and the farmer, not to the workers who produce the meat.
His goats wouldn't know what to do with accumulated dollar bills, they'd try to eat them like shoe leather, and that is exactly what he thinks of us too: we don't know what to do with money, heck, we'll just waste it spending it on ourselves no better than if we were buying bread for the pigeons resulting only in fat birds like the scene from Mary Poppins.
The judge's peeps hire us to work for them and then sell us back what we need to live at the end of the day after having spent eight hours building all those things. They think it is wasteful to flow any more capital towards us than is absolutely necessary to live another day to make it back to work. They want the excess capital for themselves, every penny of it.
Judge Kavanaugh will only take the least amount of money from selling the side of goat at the farmers market to buy hay for the goats to eat, and will keep the rest of the capital for myself. Why would he buy the goats a flat screen T.V.?
1
Flake, McCain, Corker, Please show Americans and the world that there still leaders in our great country who have a moral compass and care about their legacy beyond tomorrow/the next tweetstorm. Make Thomas Jefferson proud.
1
Lest we forget this quote:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini
4
While I agree with the main sentiments of this editorial, it is very hard to sit still when presented with "analyses" based on statistical counts that blur over qualitative details.
When we are given content-impovershed stats such as that "between 2005 and 2015, when businesses were either plaintiffs or respondents but not both, businesses prevailed 61 percent of the time" we are given percentages without any context other than that they are "pro" or "anti" business.
Suppose that during that time, most of the cases concerned attempts by litigious money-grabbing consumers eager to extract payment for perceived, but not real damages, and the courts ruled in favor of the non-guilty businesses.
Or suppose that 80 percent of the rulings were based on the judicial philosophy that plaintiffs have to prove extant harm beyond reasonable doubt, which ends up favoring businesses in most of those cases, but unsavory individuals in a significant portion of the rest.
In the first case, the cited stat would overestimate the damage. In the second case, it would underestimate it.
In short, crude measures such as these have no place in sound critical inquiry. If the editors had cited stats for particular judicial philosophies, such as Kavanaugh's views regarding employee's political rights to representation in workplace disputes, the stats might have been useful. But stats that are as crude as these surely are not.
1
Do whatever it takes to block them all. No more judges whatsoever! Jail them all. Stolen election. Stolen seats. Rebrand the religious as terrorists no different from ISIS and the Taliban. As a matter of fact, the religious must go join ISIS and the Taliban as they would be right at home.
2
"The business of America is business." - Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan's idol
The Reagan Restoration is in full swing. The American Experiment is near-terminal.
1
Citizens United has been the ruling that has destroyed the US and democracy more than any ruling in the American history, thanks to Judge
Kennedy. Oligarchs can buy the politicians and judges that they want to serve them. Foreign governments can
buy candidates through US corporations.
6
Who will own, shape the Country: the people or the corporation?
Clearly the corporation is winning and is going to get a great boost in their efforts if/when Kavanaugh joins the Bench. Glorious days ahead: everybody "working for man" (probably Jeff Bezos).
And, with Kavanaugh, the Federalist theory of "unitary executive" will dominate the Court resulting in rulings that will elevate the office of the presidency to that of an absolute ruler, who should/must exercise his power without interference by Congress or the Court. This "theory" goes so far as to say that if SCOTUS rules legislation to be unconstitutional, the president has the power, the authority to disregard such ruling and legally declare the legislation is constitutional. The president is/must be, not only above the law but, apparently, the law itself. Kavanaugh has said so.
Oh, the irony. Back in the day, when Hamilton was trying to create the national institutions which would create a Country, Republicans accused him, and viciously so, of trying to turn the presidency into a Kingship.
1
The court doesn't seem to me to moving in a pro- corporate direction so much as it is toward a more libertarian direction. Libertarians: you are on your own, no institutional protection. You don't want to pay Union dues you don't get protections. You want to do foolish things like getting into a pool with an Orca, well you're just taking your chances. You don't like the corporation you work for, find another job. You don't want to live down wind of pollution, move.
Anyone who is anti-corporate is a socialist.
@Patrick McCord
Pure jabberwocky...
6
WE ARE IN A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS.
The Koch brothers and their democracy-government-destroying cabal have finally succeeded, after 40+ years of a financial hostile takeover, of getting control of OUR U.S. government at all levels.
WE THE PEOPLE cannot tuck our tails between our legs and run. WE must fight like hell to save/preserve/restore true democracy in OUR America.
The media, legal community and "experts" don't seem to know the answer because it is unprecedented in OUR America.
Yes, it IS unprecedented. For that reason WE must take unprecedented action to stop them.
We have FIVE PAST PRESIDENTS who, for the most part, were honestly elected by WE THE PEOPLE and are now private citizens. They must step up - together - put The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren under Citizens' Arrest and manage OUR government until WE elect true representatives this November in and in 2020.
Working together they can place democracy-loving people in cabinet posts and other critical government positions.
NOW is the time. Now may be the only time for centuries.
Please, Good Gentlemen, step up and help us save OUR United States of America.
2
If ever there were a time to get the Equal Rights Amendment passes, it is Now (actually, yesterday)!
So-called Originalists Textists (yes, meant that) believe that other equal protection-oriented parts of the US Constitution do not apply to female human beings because, they say, male politicians meant the rules to apply only to (white) male human beings, and probably only those who own land.
Though Judge Kavanaugh may be better than alternatives Trump will nominate, his wife, mother, and any aunts, sisters, and daughters he has should be very wary, lest there is no ERA and their liberties be denied by judges with his philosophy.
2
Having a 5-4 Court with Kennedy often the swing vote is what the Country needs most. A virtually consistent 5-4 on either side of the aisle for a decade or longer is creating bad law.
If Ginsberg retires while Trump is still in office and he appoints a 3rd Justice, a 6-3 (R) Court would be just as dangerous as a 6-3 (D) Court. There ALWAYS needs to be open discussion of ideas and debate; in these politically explosive times as a country we've lost sight of that.
Yes, but the risk is that having a singular swing vote gives that one judge inordinate power. So much better to nominate and confirm mostly moderates, whatever their other stripes.
1
@ROI - In this day and age of polarization nominating moderates to the Court is a woebegone fantasy as neither side would support it.
There was an understanding, at least on a national level, when LBJ declared the "War on Poverty" since deep poverty and inequality had to be addressed. The integration of neighborhood schools proposed and implemented was a panacea not the right prescription. Poverty remains prevalent with many children on free or subsidized meals, high percentages of students performing below grade level No parent in their right mind would choose to send their children to these schools. There has been a breakdown of discipline, 50% Medicaid childbirths, irresponsible parents/families if one can call them that has led to the right wing backlash that has brought us to this point. The ills are broad, societal and how our society is governed and operates needs a clear, deep look in the mirror. I don't think the prescriptions are conservative reaction yet the mindless Democrats will not win elections proposing more lax immigration control. Family choice of schools may be the temporary solution but when vast citizens cannot earn a living wage, society is not sustainable. Like most, I fear for our future.
1
Justice Powell once wrote as an attorney that it was necessary to get pro-business justices on the court and he became one of those appointed. Bush 43 and his monied backers loaded the Texas Supreme Court with pro-business judges, Alberto Gonzalez among them, and decisions went 75-25 in favor of consumers and workers to 25-75. The same is happening with SCOTUS--the rights of individuals as consumers or workers are being stripped away. But what will happen when the individual finds that there is no legal remedy to right a wrong by a corporation? Pitchforks and torches anyone?
3
I agree with nearly every statement in this editorial.
The editorial is also - inadvertently - a resounding endorsement for Kavanaugh's elevation to the Supreme Court.
2
This is one of the few promises Trump made that he is keeping. We knew what he was before he became president and a nation gets the government it deserves.
3 million more didn’t want that, remember?
Supreme Court is partisan, anti-democratic, corporate supremacist, and Trump will make it more so, possibly removing yet another institutional check, and putting himself above the law.
The Bush v Gore ruling resulted in forever wars that have so far cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
Established the secret FISA court.
Rolled back the Voting Rights Act which immediately resulted in Republican States suppressing minority vote.
Gave States the option not to participate in the expansion of Medicaid, denying millions healthcare resulting in thousands of preventable deaths.
Suppressed consumer rights and union rights effectively keeping people down.
Expanded gun rights making the U.S. a shooting gallery.
Ruled that money is speech.
Citizens United opened cash flow to bloated campaign finance and big media.
Made Corporations legal people, super-people in fact, who never die and enjoy rights that real people can only dream of. Their only legal obligation is to make a profit, which is why they are sociopaths.
Government controlled by corporations is , by definition, Fascist.
SCOTUS enabled U.S. Fascism and loss of high values advocated by FDR. We lost democracy, WWII, and our Republic.
Do we really need, or can we survive the Supreme Court ?
.
5
"The U.S. Constitution established the Supreme Court but left it to Congress to decide how many justices should make up the court. The Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number at six: a chief justice and five associate justices. In 1807, Congress increased the number of justices to seven; in 1837, the number was bumped up to nine; and in 1863, it rose to 10. In 1866, Congress passed the Judicial Circuits Act, which shrank the number of justices back down to seven and prevented President Andrew Johnson from appointing anyone new to the court. Three years later, in 1869, Congress raised the number of justices to nine, where it has stood ever since. In 1937, in an effort to create a court more friendly to his New Deal programs, President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to convince Congress to pass legislation that would allow a new justice to be added to the court—for a total of up to 15 members—for every justice over 70 who opted not to retire. Congress didn’t go for FDR’s plan".
If the Democrats can win a substantial majority in both houses and control the presidency, they can increase the justices to 11 and in effect, neuter the most egregious decisions already made and those that are pending in the pipeline.....all of which has rigged the system against one person, one vote democracy and has allowed corporate dominance over every aspect of society in the United States, including life itself.
It's time for the Dems to grow spines and dismantle the corporate state.
6
Or perhaps Trump and the Republicans should increase it to 11 now and appoint two more justices. The argument that you make is specious - you don't like to result so you try to change the rules and further undermine the Court. Nine is the number. Live with it. Or the next Republican will increase it to 13. And then the following Democrat 15. Talk about banana republic.
5
So it’s okay to stack the court for liberal purposes but not for conservative ones? Got it.
2
@DRS
What rule are you referring to? Nonsense. There is no rule. The constitution mandates a SCOTUS, but it left it up to Congress to decide how many. It's been done in the past and it must be done again. The minority that you represent (based upon all of your previous comments posted in NYT on any subject) has allowed corporate dominance to bankroll the destruction of all that once made this nation stand apart from many others.
1
As the power, rights and wealth of American citizens continue to diminish in relation to that of our corporate masters, it will begin to dawn on the good Republicans, what their Fox News gullibility, white supremacy, and gun obsession has cost them. That will be when we no longer see the adorable faces of our cute corporate mascots but only the hard and unyeilding demands of our unforgiving corporate rulers.
2
It is odd that people continue to talk of "corporate interests" when the interests of concern are those of the managerial oligarchy. Shareholders lose far more in personal rights than they gain through the manipulation of profits by managements--who regularly pay themselves bonuses based on unrealized losses.
2
Of all the perverse lies told by the Conservative Movement and/or those who push the conceit of Founder's Intent and/or Strict Constructionism are the repeated lies related to the function of a corporation within our society and how that charter was viewed by the Founders and early Americans.
Rather than going into detail about these lies and how Conservatives represent them, the following gives you a good idea of how a corporation was viewed by the Founders:
https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html
The most striking comment:
"When you read Madison in particular, you see that he wasn’t blindly hostile to banks during his fight with Alexander Hamilton over the Bank of the United States. Instead, he’s worried about the unchecked power of accumulations of capital that come with creating a class of bankers."
Thus, the Founders NEVER intended to bestowed the full rights of an individual onto a corporation. If anything, they defined as an extension of government and societal purpose.
Then again, the Founders only bestowed full rights of the Constitution to just 6% of the population, so that is neither here or there.
That being said, it is clear that as the Robber Baron Era reached its height, corporations "bought" themselves the right to call themselves "individuals", thus allowing them to operate outside of their original purpose.
My question; why are the Democrats incapable of presenting this argument?
Oh wait, they have been bought as well. My bad.
3
You referred to “Robber Barons.” Name one other group you can freely and publicly identify via a pejorative name. Just one. I’m waiting.
The term "Robber Baron" is and has been used for decades by historians to id businessmen who conduct their financial affairs as if they were the
"Big Four" RR Barons of the late 19th Century.
@Emma Jane
Historically any number of terms were used to identify groups, including the “n-word” and references to the mentally limited, homosexuals, etc that are not acceptable today. Why is Robber Baron acceptable then.
It's good to see common sense returning to the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, I find it astonishing that four members of the court would not support the Janus decision.
Unions spend much more money on political activities than on collective bargaining. Many times as much, I suspect.
3
@Mr. Moderate Bottom line--wealth and power continue to accrue disproportionately to a smaller and smaller group of people. Workers are far from too strong. What force can possibly balance the power of giant corporations but the power of government?
3
In 2012, unions outspent the villainous Koch Brothers 3-to-1 and they are bankrupting several states just as they did to the auto, manufacturing and airline industries.
2
An article here and elsewhere pointed out he sat in on more cases than all the other nominees so he HAS the experience. He himself has also said that with age his opinions have changed on many issues over the years. So based on these two facts alone let's quit the political bias and move on to getting a new Congress and Senate in 2018. Don't lose sight of the main goal now.
We as a nation cannot rely on judges for social progress. A functioning liberal democracy requires a populace that is prepared to vote for the policies it wants. The populace has not voted for the policies that the left in the US espouses.
2
The majority usually votes for policies espoused by the left. But thanks to a bias toward rural areas and gerrymandering in others, we are governed by a minority.
4
America cannot afford a judge of Kavanaugh's convictions. His environmental, abortion and constitutional leanings will harm us in the long run, to say nothing of his anti-consumer, anti-worker opinions.
Gorsuch was not a great choice. Kavanaugh is to the right of Gorsuch.
We must constantly let our Senators know that we don't like this nominee and that we don't like a president under investigation possibly setting the tone of the Supreme Court for decades to come.
3
@Barbara FDR tried to stack the court in his favor also but was defeated or have many of you forgotten? He still got his New Deal.
I would love to hear Kavanaugh, Roberts, or Alito try to explain to some poor Trump supporter in Coal Country how binding arbitration is better for him or her than being able to have one's day in court.
5
Why is it considered a foregone conclusion that Kavanaugh will be approved? Is the Senate now completely irrelevant?
@Sticks and Stones
Republicans hold the majority, and they don't fight with each other when "winning" is in sight.
It's only us silly Democrats who like to blame our fellow victims and let the perps get away with murdering our democracy.
1
@Sticks and Stones In a word; yes. They could not be more partisan and the only major legislation that they passed last year was a huge tax break for the wealthy. Heck, some Congressmen even admitted it was done for their donors - which itself is illegal - but they only care about supporting their donors, not what's right or legal. They will approve and conservative nominee without question.
2
For those not old enough to remember the Steve Martin SNL skit "How be a millionaire and never pay taxes!" It basically went like this: "First get yourself a million dollars. And when the judge asks why did you not pay taxes on your million dollars you reply, 'I forgot! I forgot to pay taxes... so EXCUSE ME!' "
In the age of the Trump GOP TP/Freedom Caucus all you need to do is get yourself a huge pile of money and they will make sure you won't have to worry about taxes or little people getting in the way of your happiness. Because they are doing everything they can to support and help their true base constituency - corporations and the wealthy. Full stop.
4
Glass house liberals need to wake up and realize their non-voting in 2016 did this to us and now we like our full life under this!
2
The corporate welfare state has won - its all downhill from here.
9
The sad thing is that even if Kavanaugh is defeated the "president" will simply move on to the next Federalist Society-indoctrinated, cookie-cutter ultra-right-winger on the list. And the next one will be confirmed - because the gutless Senate cannot stand up straight for more than one 5-second "responsible" sound bite. It is a no-win situation for the American People. We will be under the thumbs of 5 ultra-right-wing religious fundamentalist corporate hacks for the the next 20 to 30 years.
5
Didn't we learn anything from 2008 when business was allowed to proceed unfettered?
Oh yeah, we bailed them out.
Now GOP Congress dismantling the protections we put in place. Let's make sure SCOTUS is in line....
Lest we never forget, corporations are people too.
1
Trumpublicans, the Kochtopus, the Federalist Society, and the whole gang of complicit enablers in Congress wish to continue their minority rule - as the only party with a voice, despite our Constitution and historic Democracy - by judicial fiat, a range of vote cheating, ignoring or exploiting procedures as it suits them, and a whole lot of lies.
Kavanaugh's record makes it clear that he will promote this autocracy and help they keep their power.
They've almost got a stranglehold - as is apparent where votes all over the country increase for Democrats but Republicans hold on to power - on us.
This tragedy is only getting started. The temperate of the rich and powerful disenfranchising the rest for profit is about to get worse. The planet doesn't vote, but it will provide consequences, increasing over time, without fear or favor.
Lies don't cut it with reality. Reality is upon us. We're in trouble, and must act to save ourselves. Packing the courts is immoral, but these Republicans (not my former friends who have switched parties: conservation is conservative) don't have any conscience, they will win by foul means since they can't do so honestly.
4
With the demographic trends clearly pointing to more Democrat Party friendly electorate, the GOP was forced to figure out how they can stay in power. Some ideas:
1) Requiring IDs to vote
2) Gerrymandering districts to be more favorable
3) Not allowing mail voting
4) Limiting early voting
5) etc. etc.
If you can't beat 'em, change the rules.
All of these ideas are controversial and smell of discrimination. Hence, it is critical to stack the Supreme Court to ensure that, if challenged, they will prevail.
It is a brilliant (albeit cynical) strategy led by power hungry people who will do everything to hold on to their power.
This is how the decline of democracy begins.
8
I’m a Democrat and I think it’s fine to require ID of voters — but only if the government provides the identification to all citizens FOR FREE, replaces lost ones ON DEMAND and FOR FREE and makes access to them wide spread and readily available through, say, mailing them available through the mail, at local markets and post offices and homeless shelters and via social workers and visiting nurses and public health workers and at schools and bus and train stations etc. And provided that provisional ballots are allowed
from folks who may have lost or forgotten their identification on the way to their polling place.
We all get, or should get, birth certificates or, if immigrants, naturalization papers. And TSA has developed ways of authenticating identities of travelers without their state-issued ID.
1
A tainted president should not nominate a Supreme Court Justice, nor should Congress approve him.
7
He, and probably some of the they, are much worse than “tainted”
2
''In many of these decisions the five conservative justices have shown no restraint in rejecting judicial precedent...'' = ACTIVIST
Radical conservatives are always decrying that there are Liberal activist judges everywhere and they are creating some Socialist society that is disregarding the white male heritage of the U.S.
In fact it is just the opposite.
To say that this new nominee is ''just'' going to the corporate cabal that is now the Supreme Court is a gross understatement.
With this new nominee, and a radical conservative activist majority on the court, human rights of all sorts are going to be lost to religious bigotry. Privacy is going to be a thing of the past and the rule of law is going to be bent or broken to fit into that narrative that the executive is above the law.
This is not hyperbole and this will last for generations
3
Extremely bad news for our democracy.
2
A hearty welcome, Brother Kavanaugh, to the Supreme Koch of the United States.
1
Wealth gaps have always existed in the US and beyond. They will always exist.
What are you going to do about it?
Yes. You.
Brett kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court will become one of the biggest deceptions in recent history. I am not sure how the DC insiders managed to convince the general public that this sub-standard Bush appointee is ..... "conservative".....but they've pulled it off! As Ralph Nader told us live on TV many years ago......."They ALL laugh at you". Brett kavanaugh seems to only have the weakest grasp of jurisprudence....seemingly incapable of independent thought, having to check in every time with the Bush Family to make sure that he's making the right call. ...... this is the biggest problem with every Supreme Court appointee since Anthony Kennedy.......they are all LAME....with limited, if any, actual experience as a sitting judge. Trump made a good decision with Neil Gorsuch....but then followed it up with this rookie. Kavanugh is a horrible choice....almost as bad as Sotomayor, Roberts, Alito, Ginsberg, and Kagan........ I think I'm pretty much conservative-idependent type.....and I'd rather have someone of Merick Garland's caliber on the Supreme Court.
We have a Supreme Court now dominated by wealthy entitled white men (and Thomas, who seems to have totally lost any interest in the welfare of his fellow human beings long ago) so what do you expect? These people are so disconnected from the reality of the "quiet lives of desperation" most of our fellow citizens endure that they would not know what to do with a poor person if they saw them, which of course they don't. With this next pick the "corporatization" of America will be complete including unlimited money on corporate political propaganda.
7
And that’s a good thing.
1
The Kavanaugh appointment is just another open festering wound on the suffering body politic of America.
We need to be skeptical not only of the Supreme Court but of our entire one-party Republican dictatorship. They have conducted a right wing coup by corrupting the electoral process with Russian assistance. Trump is not our president- he is a Republican shill. Obama was robbed of his Constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. Kavanaugh is going to cement in place voter suppression, eliminate Roe v. Wade, and back the NRA to the hilt. Like Trump, Kavanaugh is a symptom of the collapse of the governmental foundation of "checks and balances" that were designed to prevent the rise of a fascist state. Like Trump, Kavanaugh has a history of lying.
Kavanaugh lied under oath the last time he was nominated for a judge position. He lied about his knowledge of the Bush White House’s detention and torture of enemy combatants. The best hope is that Dick Durbin who has the documents to prove it will vigorously press Kavanaugh to come clean and that Kavanaugh will step down. It is a very slim hope in our one-party GOP state.
6
The Lewis Powell Memo is mandatory reading. If you think about it as economic genocide, their plan is very easy to see and understand. There is really nothing secret about it.
3
As Condaleeza Rice once boldly lied: "Nobody could have predicted..."
2
Of course he's Trump's choice. His previous writings confirm he already has our president's 'get out of jail free card' at the ready. Forget the fact a majority of Americans don't want to see Kavanaugh 'installed' by our Neo-Corporate Republican party on the very solid grounds, that we know, full well, what will happen. All of the hard won 'rights' we take for granted are likely lost for eons if Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court.
A man who is essentially, asserting that, the 45th President, could, literally shoot and kill someone on 5th avenue, and can not be held accountable for it, or any other crime, while, he,Trump, holds the office of the presidency, has no place on the Highest Court in the Land. If we Citizens allow this pick to pass we might as well prepare Democracy's tombstone with RIP America 2018. Please call all U.S. SENATORS!! (RESIST)
8
AFTER DONALD TRUMP'S APPEARANCE IN HELSINKI, it is obvious that Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's Supreme Court nominee should NOT be allowed on the Court. I called 4 Republican senators and told them I wanted them to vote NO on Kavanaugh because Kavanaugh had written in a law review article that there ought to be "a law exempting a President -- while in office -- from criminal prosecution and investigation" -- this is UNCONSCIONABLE -- I called Jeff Flake (202) 224-4521, Bob Corker (202) 224-3344, Lisa Murkowski (202) 224-6665 and Susan Collins (202) 224-2523 -- these are their direct office numbers in DC -- if you can, please take a minute and do the same. All Senators rely on out-of-state donations to fund their campaigns so your opinion is important to them, especially if a lot of people share them! And even if they all leave the Senate, they don't want to be the Senators that forever lost our democracy. Thanks!
9
Can’t h lo but wonder if the whole Helsinki performance and aftermath was meant to create a massive distraction while trump & co. gut us domestically.
Getting rid of important campaign finance reporting, yanking protections for our planet and our fellow creatures on it, still immorally and illegally keeping child as young as 5 away from their parents, trying to slip
In a lifetime Supreme Court appointee ready to give the potus total immunity while in office — which could allow potus to make the the presidency a lifetime position (chills up spine when wrote that), and ramping up the engine to strip people of their citizenship.... it’s beginning to smell like the 1930s — which is precisely what Trump’s beloved (if ousted) Bannon et alt (t is intended) want.
5
Funny, the same group of people who don't mind an endless supply of illegal aliens depressing wages, and thus cutting corporate labor costs, is worried about the Supreme Court favoring ocrporate interest.
4
The New York Times is a corporation. The Editorial Board opposes the Citizens United decision. If the decision were reversed, would the Board acknowledge that the Times has no first amendment protections?
2
Pro-small business investors or facilitators anyone?
1
Possible Republican SCOTUS nominees who are extremely pro-corporate power to the detriment of workers and families are a dime a dozen. Take your pick; they're fungible.
What makes Kavanaugh so attractive to Comrade Trump is his ideology about never even investigating a sitting POTUS- let alone allowing POTUS to be subpoenaed or impeached.
That alone makes Kavanaugh the golden boy and that will get him approved by the complicit GOP Congress- and of course, Putin.
Every day Trump is in office, we see a slow moving coup and our democracy and institutions under attack; ditto for this Congress.
5
Pro-Corporate? That should make MSM and Twitter feel good!
Thank goodness that Mrs Kavanaugh's little boy Brett, will defend the health insurance corporations and citizens United !
America cannot wait to drop its confidence in the Department of Justice, and stacking the supreme Court with wing nuts, who believe that any president who lies, violates the Constitution on an hourly basis, and has dozens of scary court cases piling up.
If only our supreme court would defend children's rights to clean, safe water, and air safe to breath!
2
These kinds of rulings are one of the "precursors to fascism" ensconced in the Holocaust Museum. I take this very seriously. Trump, in conjunction with this incipient court is leading us down this path, and to our shame Trump's sycophantic cult is supporting him, despite the obvious danger to themselves and their families.
Take note of history and vote on November 6.
7
Professor Beeman: Are you kidding — some of them are using the Holocaust museum as an instruction manual.
And have you noticed how naturally-brunette trump has died his hair more and more blond? (Though it’s a mystery why he, hated of all with darker skin, is constantly fanning his own.)
And affinity for white Russia (pun and historical allusion intended) — listen up on what ex-neonazi now anti-racism educator Chris Picciolini has to say about that.
Good people of the world, get and be strong.
* meant HATER, not “hated” though that, too, now may be true
"widening the chasm ... between the country’s elite and everybody else"---- The problem is that Kavanaugh does not recognize that he is a part of the "everybody else" group. I want to laugh, but it is so sad, this lack of knowledge: of the World and what is "out there".
Kavanaugh should be an embarrassment for Yale and the Ivy League. I am sure, that in higher Higher Education circles he is. ---- Essentially, Kavanaugh, the Republican supporters of Trump/Pence, and other supporters of this poorly educated White House Administration: Sold themselves short. I hope they enjoy their multi million dollar infantile way too expensive uneconomical parade while they can.
Intelligence is Power. None of them can compete with people who are better, higher educated. They are certainly not a part of the elite. ----- The New York Times seems to be in a Middle Class Rut. Try interviewing the Intelligent Class, The Highly Educated Class, The Intelligent Speaking/ Speech Class, The Brilliant IQ people... the real ones... not just those who are self-appointed geniuses like Trump.
I suspect the Corporations are developing. The Kavanaugh supported Corporations, are going to be out-of-business... soon. In the Future, Education and Intelligence will be rewarded, and illiteracy, lack of education, lack of intelligence and ignorance will not.
I advise people to stay home from the Trump rally, and do their Homework to improve their IQ Score and Resume.
1
Fascism the unholy alliance between the State, Business and the Church.
2
Oh yeah, that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. that upheld Obamacare.
Got it.
As defined by it's creator, fascism IS the corporate state.
4
While you're at it re: Kavenaugh, allow me, as a thinker of language, to demolish, by reductio ad absurdum, the argument of so-called 'intentionalism' with something that just happened to me on a sunlit street on on a Sunday afternoon in Downtown Minneapolis, and which serves as a parable in this: I had just finished the Sunday ritual of shopping for items you don't want to have to buy during the week (I had a bad back all week) -- laundry detergent, other cleaning products, etc. Against my habit (I'm 55) I was speaking to a friend in public on my cell phone (I loathe speaking on a phone in public). A plainclothes cop opens the door of the bank-owned lobby where he must have been killing time in his suit and tie, and informed me, leaning (my back, again) against a wedge of marble next to the door of the building, obstructing nothing and no one, disturbing no peace. I had been there less than a minute when he says, "sir, this area is not intended for seating." I hung up, got up immediately, and said to him, respectfully, that there was no sign, and besides, the thought-grammar of the utterance is weak, since it conveys no responsibility for the intention, and doesn't materially imply that one may or should not sit there. (Who intended? Any utterance has to be interpreted in context. There is no hot line to the Framers of the Constitution, otherwise, why bother with case law at all?). Intentionalism is a dumb fraud. Were I a person of color, most likely I'd be in jail.
1
If ever there was a time for an aggressive, assertive, in-your-face Democratic leader (LBJ-style), it is now. We need additional justices on the court - sure, it's difficult - that's never stopped McConnell or any other Republican. Where are these people? Who will step up?
3
“In 2012, Judge Kavanaugh wrote an appeals court opinion striking down an Environmental Protection Agency rule that required upwind states to reduce power plant emissions that cause smog and soot pollution in downwind states, a decision that was later struck down by a 6-to-2 majority of the Supreme Court.”
That should tell you all you need to know. The Koch bros. are salivating at the thought of his confirmation. SCOTUS will become a shooting gallery against environmental lawsuits, as well as protections for adequate and affordable healthcare, voting rights, civil rights, etc etc etc. If something happens to RBG while Trump and the GOP are still in power, God help us. The blindfold is off Lady Justice and she’s got her political finger on the scale. In this globalized world, American corporations have no default “loyalty” to the US or it’s workers. Their loyalty is to maximize profits for shareholders and ownership. Only 54% of Americans own any stock and the top 10% own 84% of all stock. America’s great wealth spiral is winding tighter and tighter in the hands of fewer and fewer people. That can only go on so long. Without a solid, thriving, healthy middle class, America will be vulnerable to anger, unrest, fear, scapegoating, and every other descriptor of the tribal disunity we’re experiencing. If the SCOTUS 5 entrench corporate power, it will only get worse. Mueller....2018....2020....vote.
4
The central myth promulgated by the founding elites was that the US experiment was an egalitarian effort where the wealth and resources are shared equally to collective benefit. But, in fact, our government has always been dominated by the wealthy. When the all-inclusive phrase “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, it was later edited to “life liberty or property” in the Constitution, thus indicating who the Founding Fathers intended our “democracy” to benefit: white, propertied, males.
Many of the founding fathers (notably Hamilton) were fearful of democracy and in favor of a government controlled by elites. The challenge for the elites has always been how to retain power and wealth in a few hands without incurring a revolution from below. Their strategy has been to rig the laws in their favor, give the lower classes just enough economic crumbs to discourage discontent, and to cement it all with unifying 4th of July propaganda. Eventually “political capitalism,” where business interests controlled the government, became the norm.
In the 19th and 20th centuries there were thousands of labor strikes across the country in response to draconian work conditions and poor wages. Did it have any lasting effect? Today the CEO of Amazon makes the median annual salary of his average employee every 9 sec.
The question now is whether “the people” will have the courage to revolt again against the elites and corporate interests.
5
I saw this somewhere and it is perfectly appropriate to our situation today:
In an 1873 law school commencement speech Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan of the Wisconsin Supreme Court said: “The question will arise, and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule — wealth or man; which shall lead — money or intellect; who shall fill public stations — educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital?”
I truly hope there are at least one or two patriotic Republican senators who will say that the decision on Kavanaugh's nomination by an illegitimate president needs to be put on hold until after the 2018 election.
If Kavanaugh is appointed, the answer to Ryan's question will be pretty clear, and the Robert's Court will go down in history as the SCOTUS that led to the demise of our Republic and our way of life.
5
Please don't mince words now that the Supreme Court ruled corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals. Corporations existed in 1776, but Patriots correctly derided oligarchs and land barons who ran them. Oligarchs are ascendant today in part because Obama, Clinton, and other limousine liberals catered to them, allowing demigods like Trump to fleece our great nation. Trump will ensure the judiciary simply favors the private greed of oligarchs over the common good of our nation. If we think Kavenaugh dissent that government has nor right to regulate workplace safety, wait until some unscrupulous contractors come along and claim they have the right to demand their workers scale bamboo scaffolding barefoot like you can see in Bangkok--and they win!
1
The far right wants to steal from the poor and give to the rich. They love to milk the cow of the general public. We pay for everything, the ric h don't pay much, they all have lawyers, exemptions,low tax and offshore accounts. What I can see from here is that starving cows give little milk.Why don't they want a happy thriving and healthy public cow that gives lots of milk?They must all be misers.
Sorry for the metaphor, but I feel it works.
3
As the Supreme Court and lower federal courts undermine
the working class by diminishing union power while expanding
corporate advantages the disparity of wealth in America will
continue to widen to the detriment of the middle and lower classes.
2
The only thing I recall Trump saying that resembled the truth was that if the average American citizen believed that the US Chamber of Commence was working for their benefit, they were delusional.
Henry Ford's idea was that his workers should be paid a decent living wage so that they could buy his products and all would prosper. Today's American corporations don't agree with that idea.
Here's a solution to today's problem: Tax corporations as if they were natural persons (in accordance with their newly discovered right of free speech ).
In the 1950s, corporate income was taxed at 52%. Now, thanks to reforms ushered in by Reagan, the corporate tax rate has gone to 21%. The corporate tax share of federal revenue has fallen to less than 10%.
In 2010, GE employed more than 130,000 workers in the US and earned $14.2 billion, 5.1 billion which was generated in the US, and yet its American tax bill for that year was zero. Further, its global tax ate was 7%.
So, by slashing the corporate tax rate and forcing a reliance on payroll taxes to finance government spending, we have redistributed income to the already wealthy and powerful, and our corporate tax rate as fostered even greater inequality.
The solution is to make corporations pay a tax rate based on a progressive tax code, so the country can solve an impending financial crisis where 50% of the population cannot earn a decent living wage from the once respected job creators - corporations.
Corporations are not good citizens.
8
We need to remind ourselves that E Pluribus Unum is really E Unum Pluribus. There never has been just one voice out of many but rather many voices out of one. This certainly is our SCOTUS and Congress. The pendulum swings across the chorus with some regularity. The music is melodious to some and shrill to others. Such is our society and most likely it will always be that way.
The pro-business justices on the Roberts court take an enormous leap of faith in believing that corporate management is enlightened and "the markets" will correct all issues. Corporate managements will cut corners not because they are evil, but because they are competing and the accumulation of a lot of small cuts can result in bigger profits.
The Roberts justices, like many conservatives, look out and see clean skies, river and lakes, see automobiles in which people walk away from horrific accidents with minor injuries, see factories with stellar safety records and assume that this is all the result of good corporate managers and the markets. In fact all of those things and many more are the result of the government stepping in to correct the excesses of corporations and the markets.
4
Isn't anyone concerned about Kavanaugh's judgment given that he spent hundreds of thousand of dollars on baseball tickets on a judge's salary? Suggests that he is a spoiled white guy which is the last thing we need on the US Supreme Court given the demographic make up of this country.
Also this mind reader originalist nonsense allows guns in the hands of mostly any adult even if they don't belong to a militia thanks to Scalia. Kavanaugh is cut from the same cloth. I will celebrate the day McConnell is ousted. He trampled on the Constitution and has yet to pay.
11
Like Congress the Supreme Court appears to be a rubber stamp for special interests -the wealthy, the evangelical, the gun lobby. Human rights especially women’s rights are relegated to the dustbin. It’s difficult to look at these privileged justices with a penchant for the good life and imagine that they care for the vast majority of this country. The women justices are the last of their kind. We honor them.
8
where do you come off establishing this relationship - "The court’s pro-corporate decisions are widening the chasm in power and wealth between the country’s elite and everybody else"?
the California courts are the most liberal in the land and their chasm is one of, if not, the deepest in the country.
you'll write anything to hack together anti-trump messages.
2
OK. I want some conservative who supports Judge Kavanaugh because he'll be a constitutional conservative, to explain to me where in the Constitution is the sports and entertainment exemption from workplace safety rules. And while he/she is at it, where in the Constitution is it that corporations have free speech rights - or any rights, for that matter.
The ugly little truth is that the Right wants a POLITICAL Supreme Court just as much they claim the Left wants one.
8
Modern capitalism: Private profits, socialized costs. The Koch brothers' plan is coming to fruition.
9
Remember, a large portion of living citizens are willing to give up all their rights and everyone else's to ensure the courts has conservatives judges that will one day overturn Roe vs Wade.
4
Franklin Roosevelt fit the mold until he was forced to make " a deal with the Devil" to save American Capitalism.
Earl Warren's father was murdered while Warren was a DA. As governor of California he issued the order to intern the Japanese. He was involved in Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona, to name a few cases.
Nixon came from a modest background. His brother died of TB. He was pro-business. He created the EPA and, but for Watergate, was on the road to a National Health Care Plan.
Roe v. Wade, with its reasoning, hardly made a stir until the Moral Majority politicized the decision. Up to that time, only the Catholic Church protested the decision.
The point is that one cannot predict what a supreme court justice or a politician will do. I suspect that there will be an epiphany when the streets are full of angry people.
1
This is what a plurality of the American people and a majority of the trump cult voted for and want. They want to lose their freedoms to corporatism and have their rights subsumed to profits so that they don’t have to make decisions about important things. This is the freedom they crave. It is unfortunate that the rest of us will have to ride along with them for a generation or two, reliving the worst aspects of the American past. By the end we will be in a state of neo-feudalism.
5
Read or re-read the "Grand Inquisitor" by Dostoevsky. It's a chapter out of his "The Brother's Karamasov".
No matter how sophists on the SCOTUS justify their one-sided activism and reckless overturning of precedents, their actions compromise basic consistency, which corrodes the system of Common Law in the most fundamental way.
Stopping Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation is worth a long and hard fight.
6
I thought Reagan was the worst thing the electorate could foist on the country. And then came W and I was proved wrong. And now comes Trump and I am proved wrong again. The cumulative effect (Supreme Court picks come to mind) of these three ensures that this country will never again be free for generations. If someone out there is worse than Trump, leave it to the Republicans and the crazies in this country to find him or her and run that person (remember Sarah Palin?).
3
The only way to neutralize the "conservative" (read right wing) take-over of SCOTUS is to return the house and senate to Democratic control. SCOTUS can't make laws, congress can.
Citizens United must be turned back by legislation. Dark money is poisoning our democracy. The American electorate may already have been brainwashed too thoroughly by to comprehend the danger. If we let the oligarchs win, America, as we knew it, will be no more.
4
Kavanaugh shouldn’t be called a “conservative”. If confirmed, he’ll be a revanchist radical extremist right winger who ignores all precedent unless it is supportive of the Trump GOP dogma. Not only are his views elevating corporate above personal rights radical in the extreme, he openly advocates to strip away from women the the long established right to make their own reproductive decisions, imbue unfettered monarchical powers on a president, and stymie regulations protecting consumers.
Kavanaugh should not be confirmed.
5
Since fruit of the poisonous tree is evidence wrongfully obtained and therefore deemed inadmissible in court - the same principle ought to hold true of nominees to the court of a president whose election is suspect, whose behaviour is indistinguishable from that of a Russian lackey, and who refuses to release his tax returns.
5
Americans have lost faith in the court’s ability to be impartial. Much of this is the members’ own fault. Overturning previous decisions, cozying up to lobbyists, inserting themselves into an election that many felt was hijacked, and worst of all equating money with speech all have served to alienate the populace from the court. Perhaps it is time to eliminate lifetime positions, stagger terms and institute new rules keep court members separated from those who bring cases before them. And if we don’t pass a constitutional amendment nullifying Citizens United soon, we will have sold our Democracy. Great job, Justice Roberts.
4
I have trouble understanding how any of these justices have risen to their positions without a shred of humanity. For them, these questions seem to be academic exercises where they are completely removed from consequences. The right loves to rail against elitism, but these Justices are the worst kind of 'elites.' Most have no idea what it means to be marginalized or powerless, and they've deluded themselves into believing those people don't exist.
Republicans know the only way they'll win the game is by controlling who gets to be the ref.
They don't have the values that the majority of Americans have, and by their behavior this past year, they clearly don't have the honesty and integrity that Americans expect of government officials.
When Dems take the House, I hope one of the first things they do (after dealing w/Trump), is to negate Gorsuch's appointment to the bench.
3
Kavanaugh is as conservative as Gorsuch, and as reprehensible. The average American has no chance of winning any case in such a court, especially if that case is against a corporation. We all know that corporations are people without hearts. It seems that the majority on SCOTUS (say, if Kavanaugh is confirmed) also lack hearts. And Republicans in the legislative branch lack spines. These people need to go to Oz and get their missing body parts from the Wizard.
But what really needs to happen is to cancel Kavanaugh as a candidate because Trump is so compromised and his behavior last week in Helsinki shows elements of treason. If only some of the so-called moderate Republicans (they aren't really moderate, but they aren't as rabid as the rest) like Collins, Murkowski, Sasse and Corker, would leave the Republican Party ASAP and become Independents. That way they could get out of McConnell's strong-arm tactics, not vote for Kavanaugh, and show their patriotism for America instead of support for Trump and his backer, Russia.
3
@Karen P.
Gorsuch's opinions are so weak and thin. He is an embarrassment on the S Ct.
1
There are some questions that need to be answered:
First can a president who holds office by means of fraud on the American people and collusion with a hostile foreign power (with whom he is in business) appoint a legitimate Supreme Court Justice with a lifetime tenure? What if the answer is no?
.
Second why would any representative democratic government allow any President under such a serious investigation make any judicial appointments until that investigation is concluded and where the American people know the results of whether their President is a criminal who stole his office and is therefor illegitimate?
Third should the decisions of a jurist appointed by a criminal President guilty at the time of the judicial appointment have his/her decisions nullified Ab Initio. and removed from office as the poisoned fruit of the poisoned tree?
3
The Supreme Court will now defend those who need it least.
2
@Chicago Guy
They will concretize the already insidious condition of this country where might is right and rich is right and white is right and male is right, if and only if white.
This is how Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavenaugh, Thomas read the constitution:
We the Corporations of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Wall against the people, establish arbitration panels, insure domestic Immunity, provide for our common defense from Taxes, promote the Corporate Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Money to ourselves and our Shareholders, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Corporate States of America...
2
Time for an FDR Supreme Court expansion to include 11 judges.
1
@Doug Broome
who would all be white Republican and corporatist.
Mealy-mouthed Susan Collins said in an interview that "pressure groups" were wasting their money buying ads to encourage her to vote her stated principles and reject Kavanaugh, saying the money could be put to better use. I consider it money well spent if it educates any number of people about the damage this guy can do, and how craven she really is.
3
40 years of practicing law taught me if nothing else that judges will decide based on their political ideology first, not some judicial theory like original intent being true to the text. They make a gut call based on ideology then use their brilliant legal minds to rationalize. They fool a lot of people, even themselves. Human nature. The stretching of the first amendment in recent years is prime example. They decide the result, then use the law to get there.
5
As a recent newcomer to Washington, I had the opportunity to attend the catholic parish that the de facto new Supreme Court justice also attends. A parishioner indicated that from time to time any number of far right and far left Catholics attended this congregation including Patrick J Buchanan as well as Brett
Kavanaugh.
It's apparent that the members, left or right, are a flock in a highly affluent parish in the far northwest corner of DC. As I left the beautiful meticulously landscaped gothic edifice, I realized just how detached Mr Kavanaugh could be. Just as perhaps Nancy Pelosi or RBG may be equally detached.
It's easy to stake positions that affect the powerless, when such positions don't affect you, or your loved ones. This is the fundamental problem with our leaders in Washington.
It would be interesting to see the reactions of trump voters, southern republicans, and disenfranchised white people of the rust belt if they could see the lavish lifestyle of such a jurist who lives in one if the most affluent and progressive suburbs of the nation.
Another thread that belies this nominee is just how wrong his Catholic position has been on sex and abortion in American life. Our hierarchy has failed on both accounts, and the prior archbishop in DC, McCarrick, however kind he was, is also another pedophile.
Cavanaugh, like Alito, and Roberts, are right-wing Catholics who were put there by a plurality of white catholic voters brainwashed by bishops over abortion.
2
5 to 4, The ultra far- right of the Catholic Church rule CONTINUES to affirm the law of the land (including Goresuch, as his late conversion to the Anglican church is but a cosmetic trompe-l’oeil). Kavanaugh’s ascension will ensure the undisturbed continuation of what amounts to a theocratic judicial order that calls for certain comparisons with that of Iran.
4
@citizennotconsumer
except the poor are made more poor which is not what the Catholic Church supports
@Nb
My comment did not speak of the Catholic Church, but of itsultra right wing. Just as in Iran it is not Islam that dictates the law, but its extremist fundamentalist expression. There are parallels to be drawn, at least in principle.
''In many of these decisions the five conservative justices have shown no restraint in rejecting judicial precedent...'' = ACTIVIST
Radical conservatives are always decrying that there are Liberal activist judges everywhere and they are creating some Socialist society that is disregarding the white male heritage of the U.S.
In fact it is just the opposite.
To say that this new nominee is ''just'' going to the corporate cabal that is now the Supreme Court is a gross understatement.
With this new nominee, and a radical conservative activist majority on the court, human rights of all sorts are going to be lost to religious bigotry. Privacy is going to be a thing of the past and the rule of law is going to be bent or broken to fit into that narrative that the executive is above the law.
This is not hyperbole and this will last for generations.
1
It’s a little close to mid-terms to vote for a new SCOTUS right?
1
With Kavanaugh on board, Roberts, who has played a bigger part in destroying American democracy than he is given credit for, should see that citizenship status also be given to dollars or bitcoins or other measurements of wealth and greed favored by his oligarch sponsors.
Elevating Trump from human citizen to untouchable deity should be another slam dunk for the wise men of the United States Supreme Court.
1
The Supreme Court does not represent the people, it represents corporate power.
Corporations are are entities much like an artificial intelligence machine. They have no morality and their goal is to control everything to increase their power. People do not exist in the calculations of corporations.
We must stop normalizing the Supreme Court, they are not by, for, and of the People.
We must recognize that they have become - exactly like the Executive and Legislative Branches - enemies of the People. Every branch of the government is now illegitimate as they actively thwart the People's will.
This is fascism designed by corporations. The ideal future they envision has no people, just slaves doing the will of the corporate masters.
2
The saddest part about the impending strengthening of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority”s pro-corporate tilt is that most Americans stuck in the middle and lower classes are too overwhelmed with economic concerns caused by the conservative takeover of our government to take the time necessary to wrap their heads around the importance of the judiciary in their lives. Most Americans simply lack a full understanding of government issues, such as wealth and income disparity and regulatory capture. If they had a basic understanding of these issues the federal judiciary would not be so red. We Democrats who possess this knowledge have failed to connect with our fellow-citizens. Democrats must fund an accessible educational vehicle, “Schoolhouse Rock” comes to mind, to provide Americans with the remedial education in government they so desperately need. This is the best way to stem the tide of the conservative revolution.
3
"President Trump’s choice for the latest Supreme Court vacancy will continue a trend toward widening America’s power and wealth gaps." - sub-heading to this story
It's not Kavanaugh who will do that. It's the legislative branch which makes the laws which may our may not widen the wealth gap. Justices' sole function is to apply law made by others. Isn't this the heart of the debate every time a Court vacancy arises?
1
@HurryHarry No it's not. A Justice can also reverse law made by others. Or is everything under the sun Constitutional simply because some legislators made it law?
1
@Michael Gilman
The point is that Democrat-appointed Justices are far more likely to make certain the Constitution "agrees" with their personal politics than are Republican appointees - whether or not they're reversing a prior decision in any particular case. You see that all the time when liberal Justices base their votes on what will happen to the environment, or on family separation immigration issues - all matters that properly belong in the legislative sphere.
The study by Epstein, Landes, and Posner also found that Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor have been among the ten most pro-business justices since 1946. Six of the ten most pro-business justices since 1946 are serving now. Add Brett Kavanaugh and that could be seven of the ten most pro-business. In practice, this means that neither Kagan nor Sotomayor is acting as a moderating influence on business conservatives, much less a progressive influence.
This underscores the fact that, when it comes to business versus the rest of us, Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been almost as hostile to us as Republicans. This is part of the reason Democrats have experienced critical losses to Republicans in recent decades. (Of course, gerrymandering and voter suppression are also key elements.) It is why, as the Times recently reported, machine Democrats like DNC or Hillary Clinton or Andrew Cuomo are scared of people like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Cynthia Nixon.
The Obamas and Clintons respond by contending that there need be no conflict between business and average Americans. Perhaps, but 45 years of soaring inequality and declining conditions for workers demonstrate that business and the 0.1% have in fact treated this as a zero-sum game that they are determined to win — at any cost (to the rest of us).
6
"This underscores the fact that, when it comes to business versus the rest of us, Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have been almost as hostile to us as Republicans."
@Hugh Sansom - I disagree. It more likely underscores the probability that many if not most lawsuits against corporations are not supported by the law or the Constitution.
1
if a Democrat wins in 2020(and that's a big if,)
and assuming Breyer and Ginsburg last that long,when they retire,he or she must appoint
4 judges to the Supreme Court. let the right
wingers scream about court packing.they have
planned this judicial coup d'etat for decades and
they fully intend to do away with social security,
under the guise of privatizing it,and roe vs wade
as well as almost every other safety net program.
if the republicans choose to play in the gutter,
then the democrats must be willing to play there
as well.
12
Whether it's parents, lawyers, judges, or doctors, some holders of power identify with their power and authority so much that side with power no matter what question comes before them — which is what the slanted scales in the graphic portrays. At the roots of the current extremist conservative outlook in Congress, the White House and around the world is a greed for power in which all who share it scratch each other's backs. Meanwhile, despite long-time rumors that the Age of the Dinosaurs ended when a meteor hit the earth and wiped them all out, this is still the Age of the Dinosaurs, with corporations and most of their beneficiaries living in a delusion that economic gain can be pursued regardless of damage to the environment. The meteor that hits them may be climate change; it may be the collapse of ecosystems linked to human food production, such as the wiping out of pollinators; or it may be an economic collapse due to dwindling resources. But it will come because the web of life that supports human beings on the planet can only be ransacked and polluted for so long. These dinosaurs and their governmental and legal enablers are deranged from the laws of living things. If life on the planet survives, their disconnect from the needs of biological survival will one day be seen as a form of psychopathy that killed millions.
7
If the examples given here are true without qualification, Kavanaugh is simply a bad judge. I am not sure how someone can make it so far on the bench using blatantly blurry logic and ignoring inconvenient precedent. I feel like there should be more to the story of his decisions, but in this day and age experience tells me that there's probably not.
11
Kavanaugh should not be confirmed, but regardless of the outcome we have an illegitimate Supreme Court because a seat was stolen unconstitutionally. McConnell cites this as the crowning achievement of his career. It is indeed, as it cements his career as one of a hack who puts party far above country and its institutions.
We have an illegitimate Supreme Court. It cannot be repaired in less than a full generation.
We have an illegitimate Supreme Court.
17
@KAN
Exactly, the Supreme Court is not the highest law of the land - the People are (via the Constitution, "We The People...").
Since the Congress and the President also do not now represent the People, we have the right to dissolve them.
1
Yup. No surprise here. Although I commend the NYT's for pointing it out.
There is absolutely nothing that money can't buy. Now big business and wealthy power brokers have stacked the ' Supreme Court'. It's no longer a 'supreme court' in terms of a mandate to serve justice and the rule of law. It's a 'Corrupt Court' serving and protecting the interests of the rich and powerful.
Now all three branches of government are in the service of greed and power. Sad.
10
Citizen’s United equates money with speech. The practical result is government by and for money.
18
@Larry Roth...think George Soros and Clinton Foundation SuperPACs.........then see if your condemnation of Big Money is valid.
Watch for D.C. Dems to primarily use abortion rights in the upcoming nomination fight. The media will play along, as abortion is an incendiary issue. Unfortunately, there are very few people left to convince about this issue, and therefore, less to persuade to our side.
This NYT’s editorial covers an issue that the Democratic Party should own – reducing Corporate Power over our lives and livelihoods. We should use this Supreme Court fight to launch Sen. Testor’s (or another’s) Constitutional Amendment clarifying that Corporations aren’t people. That effort will have a broad appeal and a lasting message for future elections. And make no mistake about it, winning elections is the ONLY sure way to ensure Supreme Court members to our liking.
Another interesting factoid, and disqualifying issue specific to Kavanaugh, is that ALL Supreme Court Justices will be from only two Ivy League Schools – Harvard & Yale. These are two excellent schools, but law isn’t like teaching engineering. Law requires interpretation about nebulous concepts. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to be similar to having all our economic advisors from the Uncle Milt’s school of Economics located at the University of Chicago. Not a good thing.
Corporate Power and elitism are two issues Democrats can use to broaden political support even after Kavanaugh is confirmed.
11
The title is unfortunate. It implies that being pro-corporate must come at the expense of private citizens and the environment, while many of America's most successful corporations have a mission statement that includes operating in sustainable and responsible ways.
1
I spent my professional career working for a major multinational corporation. In my experience, corporate mission statements are always well-intentioned, but seldom allowed to get in the way of financial profits. Never forget that corporations have only one objective when all is said and done. To wit, to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. That's what capitalism is all about.
17
@JKH67
As it should be.
The packing of the Supreme Court by the GOP represents a coup d-etat on the constitutional rights of the American people. This usurpation of citizens rights as opposed to corporate privilege has reduced the economic and political power of the middle class and now is working hand in hand with domestic and foreign powers to cripple the democratic system our fore fathers created and fought to preserve. This dilemma does not in any way represent "conservative" values either politically or economically. It is simply a real and imminent threat to everything that we hold dear and depend on for the wellbeing of our children and grandchildren. No foreign enemy that we have faced in the past was as dangerous to our country as those who are now being anointed as our masters by this court.
16
A broadband company can restrict information to the public as a First Amendment right? Just the opposite of the decision to allow unlimited campaign contributions because it (Citizens United) would help corporations to provide information to the public (supposedly the public's right to hear all opinions - yeah, right). With these twisted (and contradictory) interpretations of the First Amendment soon it will be perfectly legal for a corporation to dump toxic waste into your drinking water since it would be considered an expression of free speech. That's "justice" and the "Constitution" in America these days - according to our Corporate Supreme Court.
11
The reputation and trust in the Supreme Court rests in the principle that its justices, no matter their political or personal beliefs, will decide each case solely on its merits and whether the case can reasonably be judged as to whether it affirms generations of settled Constitutional law.
No longer. Republican nominees to the Court over the last 30 years do not adhere to these bedrock principles. Their personal beliefs have filtered into their decisions in the same way moisture seeps into a basement. Of all the threats to our nation, the transformation of SCOTUS into a forum for the expounding of personal ideologies and preferences over the rule of law is perhaps the most consequential legacy of extreme, right wing appointments to the nation’s highest court of law.
The worst of it is that this is an organized, well-financed assault on the Court’s independence, led and managed by the Federalist Society and other entities who receive anonymous financial backing. Seats on the SCOTUS bench are now bought and paid for; Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are only the latest examples of this takeover.
14
There is nothing supreme about the Supreme Court. It has become a political arm of the current administration. Without true legal support and assistance, we have no effective legal system. And with Trump stacking all minor courts in the land with his Republican cronies, we are not winning on that front either. So we are rapidly becoming a Putin state with a Trump run dictatorship. This is a proper place for Kavanaugh. He really fits well.
6
Why is it that justices who are predictably pro-corporate well-being are almost always anti-voting rights, civil liberties and environmental protections?
10
In order words, Congress and their law making abilities have now been basically neutered. This pro-business, anti-worker SCOTUS will find all laws and regulations that protect workers and/or try to level the playing field between workers and companies, moot. The more I read/hear about Kavanaugh, the less I like him (and it appears that quite a few of his decisions have been overturned by either the full appellate court or the SCOTUS over the years). Yes, Roe is a big deal. But so are decisions like Citizens United. So is the fact that he has basically come out and said that the president is above the law (although he gleefully worked on Ken Starr's investigations for years as well as Gore v Bush). Kavanaugh is not a good choice for this country.
11
The threat to Roe is the issue that gets the most energetic and publicized reports. It gins up both the Democratic and Republican base. However, the tilt on regulation, the economy and business interests is where the vast majority of Americans will be affected. Losing elections both congressional and presidential has serious consequences.
14
If the court continues to make adverse decisions affecting a majority of its citizens, it will be illegitimate.
If it becomes illegitimate, it will be challenged and eventually changed, by increasing the number of judges, term limits, etc. Right now we could pass a law that judges who did not get 60 votes to confirm, are illegitimate , and so should be obliged to resign. No institution can for a long time thwart the wills of a majority of its citizens.
7
I general can't argue with the point made here that the court is moving toward corporatist interests, but the writer doesn't always see things objectively. He sites Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and conclused that the ruling "will hurt all workers because benefits won by unions often establish benchmarks that help improve wages and working conditions" but doesn't point out that union fees are also used to promote causes not only inimical to the interests of workers but to one's community and to the society at large. I was forced by LAUSD for 15 years to pay fees which were used to promote Democrat Party candidates yet I was not a Democrat. These fees were used to push California State referendum which promoted open borders, higher taxes, sanctuary cities, higher rents, and all sorts of policies which did nothing to help me as a citizen or as a teacher. Fees were also used to buy fabulous world tours for union leaders, expensive perks, extended days off, reduced teaching loads and fabulous salary buy-outs for union big-shots. My salary went up one year 3% and then down the next 5%. One year there was a strike, the next the state was bankrupt. Every gain ultimately became a loss. I had no choice and my hard earned salary was squeezed for campaign contributions to the causes I despised.
3
And don't expect it to get any better any time soon, if ever. The 70% figure seems sort of low. I cannot think of a case of consequence where the decision came out for the consumer/worker as opposed to business. These are dark times, sort of like the year 300 AD. The Dark Ages lasted until about 1300. Settle in and enjoy what is left of safety and security. This turkey of a country is done, stick a fork in it.
9
So what else is new? It's always been wealth over workers and business over labor since we've been under minority rule. Since 2000, Republicans have won the White House twice, while losing the popular vote. In 2014, House Democrats won one million more votes than Republicans but still, Republicans have the House majority.
It's been over 50 years since there were Democratic appointed justices in the majority on the Supreme Court. The Republican majority on the Roberts Court have consistently found for wealth and business to the point where it is not much of an exaggeration to expect CEOs of major corporations becoming the majority of senators within the next 50 years. They will not be representing "we the people."
14
The Supremes can-canning as the chorus to the Minelli/Grey rendition of Money Makes The World Go Round comes to mind. In Cabaret they were satirizing a decadent social phenomenon that Americans seem to ignore, in their love of celebrity.
The untoward power of the wealthy is not unique to America, of course, but what is unique, is that Americans once believed they were not ruled by the very rich. The kind of wealth that exists today, and the power that it exerts, is unprecedented in American culture, it truly is. We're not doing very well with it.
8
Gee, I thought the election of Donald Trump was going to "stick it to the elites." But the "elites" sure seem to be doing pretty well.
Then again, I always suspected in the context of the 2016 election, "elites" was always a code word referring not to people who are wealthy and powerful but people who can read and write at or above a fifth grade level.
19
Corporations have no obligations to do anything except to make money for owners. They have standard practices to avoid all constraints which will reduce their opportunities to make money. If the most profitable operations destroy the environment or pollute the bodies of living things so that life expectancies shrink, corporations are obliged to operate that way unless society forbids those operations. Conservatives favor practices where the harm be done before businesses can be made to stop. Better to make money than save lives.
11
‘We the people” used to be good for the people and most responsible businesses.
Now it is “We the business’ which will be good for some businesses, bad for others and bad for the people.
The country will suffer and the economy will suffer a few years down the road.
7
The SCOTUS has been pro-business for a long, long time and it's not just the reactionary Republican appointees to the bench. Last year, the justices unanimously - yes, even liberal darlings RBG and Sotamayor - vacated the conviction of a corporate Republican governor, and in doing so, made it harder for prosecutors to win convictions in such cases in the future.
15
@Ed Watters you don't know if that vote was part of a deal to moderate other rulings
you write:
"... make sure that Republican presidents appoint judges and justices who are reliably pro-corporate. "
Actually the aim is to appoint judges who interpret the law, not make the law. In several cases this year judges have implored Congress to either change the law or make new laws, but they have not made law from the bench. This judicial restraint frustrates liberals because they do not have the votes to pass the laws they would like. Answer? Focus your efforts on winning some elections rather than trying to brow-beat the judges.
11
@JB
What piece of legislation created Citizens United? Or was it in the Constitution?
That's the cog in the wheel that keeps the legislature in thrall to corporate interests. Of course they aren't going to pass legislation that hurts their sponsors or they won't have any.
24
@JB
".....the aim is to appoint judges who interpret the law, not make the law."
Really? There were campaign finance laws, which the justices chose unmake.
11
@JB. It is "interpreting" the law when you agree with the decision. Activism when they don't.
1
So the NYT thinks that the purpose of the courts is social engineering to reduce the wealth gap? How about if we select judges to interpret the law as written, regardless of who wins or loses? If wealth redistribution is your goal, you should be looking to the legislative branch, not the judicial branch. Unless, of course, you think 9 unelected judges should be deciding what is best for the citizens of the US.
11
@J. Waddell If there was no ambiguity in the law, the case wouldn't be in court. A judge does not that just "call balls and strikes." A court that routinely comes out on the side of business is not more "neutral" than a court that decides the ambiguity in favor of regular consumers, workers, or the environment. The "conservative" justices have been very willing to overturn laws passed by Congress (e.g., voting rights act, parts of Obamacare) if the law departs from their philosophy. It seems conservatives only object to "activist" judges when the judges are not helping corporations or imposing their religion values on us.
45
@J. Waddell - the case could also be made, using your yardstick, that bad laws have increasingly favored the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class, the poor, and small business owners.
10
Every decision handed down by the Roberts Court has been to serve the short term interests of the GOP (yes, even his vote to save Obamacare, it saved the GOP from its own excesses on that issue) and the long term interests of the.00001%. This will leave him remembered in infamy with Roger Taney (of Dred Scott fame). With Kavanaugh on the Court that will be reinforced and at the same time the legitimacy of the court as a impartial adjudicator will be destroyed. This will be the Roberts/Trump legacy. History will not be kind.
27
"History will not be kind."
Roberts/Trump et al., aren't too concerned about History. They want to make their money now.
1
The assumption here is that it is corporations against the people. I think that most sixth graders know that corporations are not all bad and people are not all good. This editorial is written at a fifth grade level. Citizens United gave us the Koch Brothers. Not many people worry about Walmart's political contributions. The owners of Hobby Lobby were people, not corporations. The greatest environmental hazard is carbon dioxide resulting from our ridiculous energy consumption.
Corporations are a convenient scapegoat for our excesses. If you pretend it's big business against us, you don't have to take responsibility for being most of the problem. Until Americans take personal responsibility -- and stop blaming the oligarchs, the 1% and the government -- things will not get better.
9
@michjas
Please face the fact that, in modern times, most individual persons have minimal power, vs. corporations on which most of us depend for livelihood, goods and services. Unless, of course, we're born rich, or have singular entrepreneurial talent and luck. So we can only exert personal responsibility within a small zone of influence. Without the leverage that unions have used in collective bargaining , we remain captive to corporate power. That leaves the vote as the one remaining lever of power.
And now voting rights are in trouble, too.
1
The most distinctive and disturbing effect of Kavanaugh's accession to the Court may be his support for giving the president even more power than he has now. As others have pointed out, he argued that the 8-0 decision of the Supreme Court forcing Nixon to turn over his tapes to prosecutors during the Watergate investigation may have been wrongly decided! If he is able to persuade fellow justices to agree, they may give the president powers to dismiss the special prosecutor, to pardon indicted persons, to pardon himself perhaps, and to ignore subpoenas.
The standard explanation for dictatorship or an authoritarian leader, such as Victor Orban or Vladimir Putin, is the dictator's ability to provide more effective government. The American government in recent years has not been very effective in coping with political crises arising from external pressure or internal tension ( the Russian interference in our election or the widening inequality in our economy), and support seems to be growing for the strong rule of a single leader. Mr. Kavanaugh seems to be part of that support, and may be in a position to enable its aim.
22
@Diogenes. Perhaps you should spend a little more time researching your opinions before posting.
1. The POTUS does indeed have the constitutional authority to dismiss a special prosecutor (or anyone else in the executive branch of government).
2. There is no need to pardon someone who is indicted, only someone who has been convicted of a crime. No one can be pardoned until they have been convicted of a crime.
3. No president has pardoned himself, so there is no case to argue before the SC.
4. Mueller has not issued a subpoena to President Trump, so there is nothing to ignore.
Please get your facts in order before posting.
For a group of highly educated, intelligent people, some on the Supreme Court are breathtakingly historically ignorant. The last paragraph in the article reads "The court’s pro-corporate decisions are widening the chasm in power and wealth between the country’s elite and everybody else. And the Roberts court is also increasingly preventing lawmakers, regulators and the public from doing anything about that growing problem."
Throughout history, people have tolerated precisely this sort of situation for a period of time, but eventually they will no longer accept it; and when that point is reached, it usually results in violence. Let's hope that enlightened self-interest will convince those in power to be more equitable, if only to save what they have.
26
Many people believe we'll be able to right this ship in 2020, with a Democratic president. I have news for them. By 2020 it will be too late.
Trump has named two Supreme Court justices just a year and a half into his term. These two appointments alone create a solidly far right Court.
What many people don't understand is that simply appointing more centrist or center left justices from 2020 onward will do very little to undo the damage from this current Court. Simply adding more liberal judges will not result in more open, fair, or democratic decisions starting in 2021. This is because of the role of stare decisis, and the high court's reluctance to overturn prior decisions which they believe establish precedent. For example, the Supreme Court members who decided Plessy v Ferguson were long dead before the court reversed this decision in Brown v Board of Education some sixty years later.
So we need to understand that simply changing judges will not result in a meaningful change in the law that will affect all of us, for decades. Everyone alive today will live the majority of their lives under the far right interpretations of law by this current Court. Minorities and the LGBTQ community will live in a nation whose highest court sanctions discrimination. Any girl or woman alive today will live in a nation in which she has no control over her own body. Those of us who must stay in this country have no other choice but to live with the erosion of our Constitutional rights.
32
@James Tiptree. This current court has already shown its disdain for stare desicis and its lack of regard for judicial precedence. We do need to have more liberal justices appointed to return the Supreme Court to its former position of promoting the general welfare of all our citizens.
@James Tiptree
Actually, in recent years, this court by 5 to 4 decisions has all too often overturned prior decisions when it suits their religious fervor and pro-business philosophy. Stare decisis be damned if it helps them take this country backward!
1
@James Tiptree
Stare decsis is not a law of physics.
No, he will not fit in at all because he should never be confirmed.
Democrats in Congress have zero benefit to voting to confirm him.
Our Democracy can not afford such an extreme partisan on SCOTUS.
Reject Kavanaugh.
Repeal Citizens United.
33
A number of Republicans voted in favor of Sotomayor and she is an extreme partisan, maybe even more so than Kavanaugh. And her confirmation was of no benefit to Republicans.
Hillary lost. Trump won. Deal with it.
1
In this time of wild assertions and fake news and conflicts everywhere which I call the Trump effect- general chaos- we need intelligent, thoughtful, capable and wise leadership to get us through this dangerous and uncertain time. I am sure there are leaders that fit this description and they need to step up and be heard. They need to put country first and be prepared for some sacrifice for their country.
We can't continue just dropping the reins and letting the horses run wildly. It is getting nowhere, certainly nowhere good.
We need order, and law abiding elected officials and no question about honesty, service to the Constitution, reliability, and a feeling for the well being of the general public. Don't forget courage to confront those who lie, line their pockets and work behind closed doors. We have a great deal of this hidden dealmaking going on today and it can only lead to more and more trouble for the entire country.
Vote them out, all of the hidden dealmakers. Clean the slate.
Start fresh with good honest people that don't lie. Republicans and Democrats.
You can do it, you can find good people by paying careful attention.
Start now.
11
Legislating, executing or in this case interpreting and holding the law in narrow consolidations of resource ownership among a small percentage of people would seem to further compromise national security, especially now.
Fewer bargaining targets (shareholders, corporate directors and officers) would seem unreasonably exposed and easier for foreign “oligarchs” or “state-run” CEOs to out-leverage. An more equitable system could be the single matter of national security most ripe to decide in the US and elsewhere.
3
Citizens United held that the first amendment, applying the earlier precedent, Buckley v. Valeo, to unions and corporations, allows them to engage in election-related advertising. It did not give them the power to contribute without limit to political campaigns.
4
I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Here’s another.
Some jurists don’t see an explicit constitutional right for citizen’s groups to prey on corporations to satisfy the ideological ends of elites; and some jurists don’t believe that it’s the job of the federal courts to do more than listen to cases, weigh the facts or, in the case of appeals courts such as the U.S. Supreme Court, to how other courts weighed the facts; and do their best to balance legitimate interests within the constraints of the Constitution. If enough in society want to enslave corporate interests to popular interests as interpreted by those elites, well, that’s for Congress and regulatory agencies to do, which are answerable to one extent or another to voters – unlike the Supreme Court.
What the editors really want is for the federal courts to make law, but only law that supports a Kumbaya worldview regardless of what the Constitution actually says. Law they make that supports other interests, of course, is fascism.
Yes, Brett Kavanaugh, as an originalist and a textualist, will fit right in to the Roberts Court: he’ll be a jurist and not a legislator.
You guys have a beef? Take it up with Congress, where it really belongs or, to some extent with the Executive. Oh … but then, you lost THOSE branches, too, didn’t you? Well, I guess that’s what commentary in the New York Times largely is for.
14
You obviously support big business. "Elites" are people intelligent enough to see how big business gets what it wants regardless of what is good for the ordinary citizens. Environmental protections do not have a motive other than protecting the environment. If it takes educated people to know how to speak up then so be it. You can call them "elites" all you want.
Citizens United also is one of the biggest lies to ever come out of any country. Democracy is about individual humans voting based on clear information not corporate donations. Slight conflict of interest, don't you think? Its clear where you get your bread from Mr Luettgen.
@Richard Luettgen
Ah yes, yet another right winger who labors under the tiresome delusion that so called originalism/textualism, which oddly always seems to align with conservative political values, produces that perfect jurist who perfectly interprets the constitution and is above all politics.
Obviously you've been drinking the Kool-Aid if you don't recognize one of the biggest legal frauds ever perpetrated, utterly political in its intent through and through.
1
@Richard Luettgen
More snarkey mularkey!
If you don't like Trump's appointees to the Supreme Court, you better hope the Dems get their act together for the 2020 Presidential election and nominate someone who has broad enough appeal to overcome the electoral college handicap and win. My personal guess is that a winning Democrat will have a positive platform and that constant reference to American faults and constant criticisms of Trump won't do the trick.
8
At least a Democratic president won’t betray his country as your president did. In Helsinki.
When Chief Justice Marshall wrote in Marbury v. Madison that
"It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret the rule."
He meant that the Court should do so using justice, and that the justices and judges not make the rules. And, when Justice Roberts said that he is like an umpire, he neglected to say that the strike zone alters depending on the umpire.
Unfortunately, we are returning to the Gilded age, the age of another Republican Chief Justice: William Howard Taft's Court, which from 1921-1930, continued the Lochner era - that protected economic rights, tended to strike down economic regulations of working conditions, wages or hours in favor of laissez-faire economic policy - largely reflecting the conservatism of the 1920s. Indeed, Justice Taft, writing for the majority, struck down the 1919 Child Labor Tax Law, which Congress passed to tax companies using child laboor (Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922)). Similarly, in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), the Court struck down a national minimum wage law for women.
So,unfortunately our legal system will continue to retrograde.
17
@justiceaboveall
The strike zone is not SUPPOSED to alter depending on the umpire.
1
@Richard Luettgen: Thanks for the irrelevancy. The rest of us are discussing facts.
@Richard Luettgen
Are you a baseball fan? Of course the strike zone is not supposed to be altered. But, if you are a bb fan, you know that it does. That's why Roberts' use of the analogy was silly. Just like Gorsuch's "there are no Democrat or Republican judges."
HOGWASH!
"In many of these decisions the five conservative justices have shown no restraint in rejecting judicial precedent and in substituting their own judgment for that of lawmakers."
This tells us that "conservative justices" are Republican politicians in judicial robes. They obviously have their thumbs on the scales of justice.
36
The conservative justices believe in the free hand of the marketplace, unleashed by the founding fathers before the Industrial Revolution. There is nothing in the original text of the Constitution that allows for regulation or restraint of business. But the founders never foresaw industrialization.
Now, in an era of climate change and overpopulation, the industrial powers must be constrained and channeled lest civilization. or an opportunity for a decent human life end.
I don't suggest fascistic central planning. I posit an economy that works smarter and more efficiently in a way of life that is more natural, more renewable, more salubrious, and which allows more common citizens the pursuit of happiness.
There's not doubt that Roberts and Kavanaugh have redoubtable intellects. However, it is facile to use supreme legal reasoning and recondite pretzel logic to go along with the tremendous inertia and momentum of Business & Industry.
It's always easier to paddle downstream in the torrent that leads to Niagara Falls. Going against the current to a more healthy, sustainable future is difficult.
13
@Wordsworth from Wadsworth
Wordsworth said, " There is nothing in the original text of the Constitution that allows for regulation or restraint of business. "
Wrong! The US Constitution grants to Congress the "commerce power," which authorizes Congress to regulate and restrain commerce.
The "commerce power" was championed by Alexander Hamilton and fully debated in the Federalist Papers before it was adopted.
3
@Wordsworth from Wadsworth
RE: "There is nothing in the original text of the Constitution that allows for regulation or restraint of business."
While that has been demonstrated as an untruth by means of the commerce clause, here is a truth: there is nothing in the original text of the Constitution that allows for political parties or their control over government. No House or Senate majority or rule by party. No party primaries. Yet political parities have been intertwined in the government and acceptable as part of the power structure. None other than George Washington warned about the inclusion of parties in our system.
This nation was founded on the principle that all people are equal. The fact is, a Corporation is not a person, but a certified entity of business made that way by law. When a "Corporation" acts as a person, it is just one person or small group of board members that use the funds of thousands or millions of customers and the works of their labor to advance their singular views many times contradicting the many they profited from. So you see, the Citizen's United decision is grossly Unconstitutional and unfair to the many voters whose rights are tread upon.
One man one vote. That is the past.
33
It's both interesting and gravely disturbing how the conservative majority on the court now uses free speech arguments to protect corporate interests. Traditionally, free speech rulings were often used to protect private citizens's ability to speak out, particularly if that speech was deemed offensive. With rulings like Citizens United, the conservative majority now turns that notion on its head, ruling that anything that limits unfettered spending by corporations (or owners like the Koch Brothers) on political campaigns infringes on their "free speech." Such rulings are obscene, and do grave injustice to our democratic institutions while advancing the interests of the monied few. Sophistry replaces justice.
62
I wouldn't appoint anyone to a judicial role who believes that a "sincerely held belief" is the equal of, or even superior to, an established scientific fact, under law.
62
In our system corporations are the site of jobs creation, wealth creation, and innovation. Are Times editors, commentators, and readers really against corporations? That seems like sophomore sociology discussions to me: make silly and vacuous assertions in a vacuum with the reassurance that no one is listening (but a few other sophomores looking for an easy grade). Free markets work and centralized economic decision making does not - and that *is* social justices. Who fed more people: Karl Marx or Sam Walton?
9
Since when do corporations have free markets ?Or free anything. The very definition of a huge corporation is a regulated internal pricing system. and clout with politicians. and attention to the shareholders and profit regardless of the environment, public safety, health, etc. The fact that they are treated like persons in the courts gives them an advantage they should never have been given. They have too much power.
14
@TJ Theoretically, no one is actually against corporations per se; we only object to the overweening greed of those "job creators", "wealth creators" and "innovators.". Truth is, Mr. Bezos couldn't fulfill all of those orders or deliver all of those groceries himself. Without the folks who show up for work every day, some of whom perform their duties in sweat shop conditions, Amazon would still be jockeying for position with Barnes & Noble. Free markets are not "free" - someone is paying the freight, and there is nothing more infantile than the unremitting self-absorption of the true "elite" in denying the need for any levelling of the playing field. And, incidentally, TJ, neither Karl Marx nor Sam Walton fed more people. WalMart employees were on food stamps to make ends meet, so I'd have to say those who actually pay taxes fed those workers.
9
@Anita
"Neither Karl Marx nor Sam Walton fed more people" - really?
And , Anita, your assertions about "sweat shop conditions" sound like they come from someone who's spent more time on campus or on the Upper West Side than like they've been validated in any thing like a sweat shop. Who said Wal-Mart employees are on food stamps? The victims study professor? The "WalMart effect is the reduction of the average family's grocery bill by $2500 per year - they were told they couldn't tell people that because most people can't think in terms of the moments of data - saying "the average" was assumed to lead to people thinking they specifically would save $2500 - sort of like saying "neither Karl Marx nor Sam Walton fed more people" - but still, WalMart has reduced the cost of food, allowing more people to eat than all of socialism put together.
Simply looking at the gross number of decisions rendered in favor of or against corporate litigants means nothing in the absence of the substance of those cases. For better or worse, the law is the law, and the fact that one party may be an individual or group of individuals is not really relevant. Unless, of course, you are speaking of so-called social justice which actually has no place in the law.
3
@TW Smith
i am sorry! Did you read the article? It clearly stated that these judges were no longer following precedent. There is your context. Try and tell me that no legal decision or interpretation is not politically interpreted by one's own viewpoint and I will laugh out loud!!!
1
Whose country is this? I guess it doesn't belong to any of us ordinary people.
You'd think that the corporate and business world would eventually implode since none of it is possible without ordinary people doing extraordinary work for stagnant wages.
If the courts don't recognize and protect us, no one will.
31
@wihiker
And this is exactly why we need a general strike in this country. We are overdue. We need to show who owns this country by showing who has the power to bring it to a grinding halt if we're ignored and disregarded and abused.
2
@wihiker
And when there are fewer and fewer people who can afford to buy things, how will they prosper. And if our tweeter in charge continues to alienate the formerly allied countries, their boycotts of our products won't help either. We will wither on the vine and the one percenters will simply invest elsewhere and move to other countries as well. There is no real patriotism here. It has already been reported that the two richest supporters of Brexit are moving their businesses to the EU and I heard via the grapevine that Lord Digby Jones, another big Brexiter is moving to one of the Channel Islands that is a tax haven. So sad!
1
@wihiker, Robert Mercer and his ilk believe that only desperation motivates lesser mortals.
If being pro-corporate was the only concern, note there are consequences to any election and move on. But the justices Trump picks see the president as above the law. If there is no separation of powers, no check and balance, then American democracy is no more.
25
It is good that these trends are noted and explained. It is unfortunate that such knowledge seems to matter so little to most people with power.
3
I'm not worried about corporations. We can tackle them later.
I am worried that Brett Kavanaugh, given his leanings re presidents, investigations, and immunity, will help keep Donald Trump in office. And then we'll have a lot more to worry about.
In another year or two, the EPA will be a thing of the past, as will a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy, marriage equality, Social Security, and Medicare. Ditto for NATO and our relationship with our allies.
The ability of the mentally impaired to own guns, and lots of them, evangelical churches' incursions into our civic life, and the Trump family's ability to make money off the presidency, will survive.
49
@B. Not a one of these hoots even understands that the rights of minorities are protected by limiting the powers of majorities under the theory of the US Constitution, and the rationale it was sold with.
1
@Steve Bolger
The rights of a minority against a majority is very important. I am sure the bottom 99% wants the top 1% to pay more, and the bottom 1% wants the top 99% to pay more. The people who work, and pay the most taxes (ie high earners and no, I'm not talking about investors here, just people who work and are highly compensated), do not want to be told by a majority (those who earn less) to pay more.
It works both ways.
1
@Ny Surgeon
You know, NY Surgeon, taxing the wealthy was in part what won us World War II and, afterwards, built our interstate highways, maintained our National Parks, sent our GIs to college, rehabilitated Germany and Japan and helped forge relationships with those countries as well as with Europe in general.
The tax cuts put into effect during Ronald Reagan's administration began our country's decline.
When my mother died just before George W. Bush's estate tax cuts, and it came time for me to write checks to the Feds and New York State, I was astonished at the amounts I had to pay.
But my mother, a staunch Republican, would have approved. A child during the Depression, a teenager with brother, boy cousins, and male school chums all in World War II, she knew what tax money could do: It could help people get jobs and buy relative safety for her loved ones in the Armed Forces. "I believe in paying my taxes," she said more than once.
Before most people, she knew that George W. Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. "He's a liar," she said. "He wants to get us into a war."
I can only imagine what she'd say about Donald Trump.
Pay your taxes.
Many commentators here would prefer "a wise Latina" making up rulings based on( social justice) Sotomayor.. or Ginsberg and her sometimes preference of foreign law.
Imperfect as it is our Constitution is still the best at insuring equality under law for all.
The Constitution is not a vehicle for leftist wealth distribution schemes. Only socialist would find fault in Kavanaugh.
9
@Lane The Constitution may not be a vehicle for leftist wealth distribution schemes, but it's not a vehicle for right-wing wealth distribution schemes either.
51
@Lane: Carole Dunn is correct: citizens are allowed to vote for whatever economic system they prefer. Here are the words of one or our two or three most brilliant U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was no progressive:
....a constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire. It is made for people of fundamentally differing views,...
14
@Carole A. Dunn
Carole- I agree, but your premise is that the government has a right to every dollar we earn, and then gives us back what it wants us to have. Most of us believe that we are entitled to keep what we earn, and give the government what we want it to have. Anyone who calls tax reduction a "gift" to corporations or the wealthy needs to understand this distinction.
1
It is worse than people realize. It started with Social Security and the change in policy that the limitation of government was defense and the protection of private property as it was in the age of the robber barrens. Now there is a war on "the administrative state" limiting what government to what was specifically enacted by Congress and signed.
The whole social safety net can with this new Trump Justice, if seated, on a 5 to 4 vote which cannot be appealed hold that the use of government to better the lives of the people is unconstitutional, that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance SNAP, children's health care etc. etc, are all unconstitutional as are laws creating them. Whos is to stop them. Did the Founders intend to create a 5 Justice Junta to govern this country and make such a decision irreversible except by a constitutional amendment? With every ruling as is Citizens United, where money was confused with free speech and the more money you have the louder your free speech, the politically activist Supreme Court has been amending our Constitution.
Of course there is the radical rights view of constitutions. Germany had a constitution when he took power and it did not last long and the Russian Federation has a constitution guaranteeing free and fair elections and freedom of the press. We had a constitution that entitled that when a Supreme Court seat became vacent, the president then in office had the right to fill that seat. .
20
Yes. While some conservatives obviously care deeply about abortion and other social issues, many pro-corporate conservatives ultimately care principally about the bottom line: enhancing profits, minimizing taxes, gutting regulation, undermining unions, etc. Wall Street was generally elated by John Roberts's confirmation, and is equally elated by Kavanaugh's nomination. Roberts, son of a corporate executive, and Kavanaugh, son of a lobbyist, both depict themselves as "aw-shucks, we're just regular guys," but don't be deceived by their corn pone routine: both are scions of the business elite, and both favor the interests of that elite.
43
@Chris Rasmussen
Right you are about both of them. A year or so ago the latest tax returns of all the Supreme Court justices were made public. I was astonished by the wealth of John Roberts and the many, many pages of his equity holdings. He is deeply invested in corporate America, especially its Fortune 500 companies. How can he be objective? Some of the other justices also had pages and pages of disclosed holdings. Let’s find out what Kavansugh’s tax return reveals. I bet he has lots of equity in big corporate America.
11
@Barbara
Brett Kavanaugh is NOT a wealthy man. They are attacking him for having credit card debt and yet they are betting "he has lots of equity in big corporate America." You can't have it both ways and this just shows people will pick any possible angle to attack President Trump's nominees. Oh well...desperation.
In normal times, we adhere to norms, support a Presidential nomination and accept that the party in power has earned that power through the legitimate function of a vote.
But these are abnormal times. Our President was elected to disrupt all norms. Initially, his election was upside down because of a lopsided electoral college. Today there is very real evidence of election interference and a possible conspiracy. Finally, the president’s performance in Bruxelles, London and Helsinki cast doubt on his fitness while the party in power steadily loses its legitimacy.
How can we move forward with something so significant as a nomination to the Supreme Court when the nominator has no credibility to the overwhelming majority of Americans.
25
The Supreme Court has been mounded into a similar beast as the Republican Party, where money trumps long standing precedence and practice. We know that corporations control the economy, but this is the first time they have absolute control of the peak judicial body in the US.
That 40% of Americans can see no issue with the corporate takeover of the Supreme Court, is deeply troubling, if not deplorable.
26
"will fit right in" is write...into the Right, as into right of left into super Conservative. Not good.
2
As our empire falls, it might be historically useful to mention that many saw this coming, this assault by the barbarians at our gates, at our seats of power and wealth, Wall Street and the big banks.
Now the global international corporate investor class, who in reality belong to no country, owe no allegiance except to their board rooms and bank accounts, will consolidate their hold on all of our lives.
If you think this is just nonsense, look to what happened in Russia when the corporate barbarians consolidated under Putin and his oligarchs, and the war veterans and pensioners begged on the streets as the private wealth stole it all from the public treasury. It happened in Athens, Rome, London, Moscow, and now it is happening in America. The rule of law becomes, after a time, the rule of the few.
Isn't America bankrupt today? Of course it is, and we are headed down the same dark path as the Russians stumbled down, one stolen Supreme Court seat at a time.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
89
Our nation stands at the edge. We have lost the focus on the citizen, equal rights and science in favor of corporate religion, corporate business political rights and corporate science denial (not technology denial). To have control of the means of mass communication is to have control of the nation. Soon enough we will lose it all. This may be the last year that we have a real chance to choose our political leaders. Our president and his partners in congress have no interest in saving the nation and 40% of our citizens are OK with that. Our younger citizens are mostly politically illiterate and I suspect are fearful of voting since it admittedly isn't sexy and what isn't sexy is seen as castrating. How many of us have taken our children with us when we vote? Should voting days be a holiday from school so that all kids could see adults vote and do we have real voting booths available at all schools to help demystify the process?
16
When the Citizens United decision was handed down in 2010 one prescient commentator ( I no longer remember a name) predicted sizable amounts of foreign money entering American politics on behalf of the republican party. Eight years later, with Trump and Putin and Russia, we have seen a fusion of dirty money and dirty politics that gives the US about an even chance of surviving the next five years. And Kavanaugh, groomed by the US far right, will be on the court, sitting in a stolen seat, doing his best to destroy the country.
107
@Al, I recall that babe in the woods Samuel Alito mouthing the words "That's not so!" when Obama during a State of the Union speech, pointed out the inevitable result of the "Citizens United" decision on US politics, which has transformed it to an interlocked directorship running a patronage system.
13
@Al One prescient commentator who predicted exactly this was President Obama during the State of the Union message following Citizens United. And I distinctly remember Justice Alito, sitting below Obama, shaking his head and mouthing, "Not true, not true."
Welcome back to the Gilded Age. And this time it will be worse because those conservatives judges have also a theocratic agenda.
67
@Wilbray Thiffault, not a one of these hyped-up phonies can even make an ungarbled interpretation of the expression "establishment of religion". It is not a building or an organization, it is a belief held on faith alone and impossible to substantiate with hard evidence.
1
This is the approach to his upcoming hearings. Making it just about abortion and gay marriage won’t result in anything
6
It has been thirty two years since the anti-American Antonin Scalia was given a seat on the court.
I am a 70 year Canadian who knew the USA when it was committed to the values and ethics of the founders. I have read Jefferson when he warned about the corporate take over of your country.
Back in 1980 if you had told me that in 38 years the average Canadian would be wealthier, healthier, better educated, happier and more secure than the average American I would ask you what you were smoking.
The conservatives were right about one thing neoliberalism would provide maximum economic growth. Low taxes and small government would make the richest most powerful country in the world richer and more powerful. The conservatives never told you that for most Americans conservative economics would do exactly the same thing it did in the 19th century. Most Americans would see less opportunity, stagnant income and a dramatic drop in their personal security.
Nafta saw your GDP grow at twice the rate as ours but as we invested in the health , education of our citizens your citizens became consumers and those that could afford to consume the most became the new aristocracy.
The Canadian historian, writer and philosopher John Ralston Saul says America is the most European country on the planet. Saul is an historian and he means 18th and 19th century Europe like the Europe that saw three million Irish starve to death or deported from a land where food was plentiful except for potatoes.
85
Once upon a time, the fastest way to be sure you didn't get elected POTUS was to proclaim you would choose SCOTUS nominees from a list provided by an outside group - any outside group. Americans must understand we're dealing with Radicals, who too often get a pass because they wear suits, are greying or balding, and parade about under the pelt of one of our major political parties.
The only way to stop the Radical Rightists will be for GOP'ers to vote with Dems in the mid-terms, to counter the egregious gerrymandering which the tilted SCOTUS has blessed this last term.
As GOP'er Comey says: "Vote Democratic in the mid-terms" !
55
What I can't fathom is, why would any judge, particularly a Supreme Court Judge, favor a corporation over the individual.
"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth." - Abraham Lincoln
These judges and nominees really need a refresher course on what this Country is all about, and what it stands for.
Abe had it right.
37
@cherrylog754
The justices should just favor the law. That's it. Corporations are owned by people, and deserve respect under the law.
The people who own corporations can vote and participate in democracy. Corporations should be treated with respect limited by what they are - commercial vehicles of said individuals. Owners of commercial vehicles should not be given two bites at the apple of participation.
4
@Maria
A basic principle of law is that a corporation is an identity. They can be sued, enter into contracts etc.... and we all benefit from that.
This is all great research and information, but the sad truth is hardly any Trump supporters or right-wing GOP types will read it this article, and the few that do will call it fake news.
48
Yep. The GINI coefficient will continue to skyrocket and the inability of the GOP to understand that the tax policies of the mid 20th century created the middle - and not unbridled capitalism - will turn our nation into Brownback's Kansas on a national scale. The party of Ayn Rand supply-side sociopaths is ascendent to the detriment of ordinary folk.
#plantingtheseedsofrevolution
13
Actually, wouldn’t Judge Kavanaugh be indicative of returning the job of legislating back to Congress and away from the Executive and Judicial branches? Shouldn’t the passing of new laws be enacted by Congress?
His rulings are more about restricting the administrative state than they are about being “pro-business” and having limits on the powers of unelected officials is a good thing.
3
That's nice in theory and good intellectual cover for conservative legal scholars but thanks to Newt Gingrich and the conservative movement Congress is completely broken and doesn't represent the people. So how nice that Judge Kavanaugh just happens to want Congress to go to work. Knowing it won't.
19
@LegalEagleo
Not really. In some cases, like citizens united, the SC invalidates laws. This court will be pro business, anti environmental and anti citizen.
22
"Richest 1% now owns half the world's wealth" according to CNBC 2017. The super-rich are getting even richer. Trump and the GOP catalyze this trend. I fully understand the logic behind the rich people in the US supporting Trump. What I simply cannot wrap my head around is why ordinary US citizens vote for Trump and GOP.
With the risk of offending these voters they seem to lack some perspective and international outlook (which you'll not get watching Fox or reading tabloid papers).
The sad thing is that these voters (of course) believe they are doing what is best for them. It is nothing less than spine chillingly scary that so many US citizens live in a poorly informed bubble making them believe GOP is their best representative.
139
@EuropeDenmark The GOP represents them very well. Their highest priorities are their relative (not actual) status and to be relieved of any responsibility for their mistakes. The GOP and its leadership provide them the requisite narratives to allow them to tell their neighbors something better than the truth. The truth is that conservatives are up by destroying others. All they need is soft targets.
4
Well, what else can we expect from 'our' wholly-corporate-owned mass media*? In their view, the only "good" socialism is when it's give to the Wealthy in the form of tax breaks and forcing the Citizenry to pay for 'externalities' -- costs business pass on to We, the People.
*this article in the Times notwithstanding.
1
@EuropeDenmark. PT Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute” and many, many of them are so socially conservative that they don’t see how the GOP PICKS THEIR POCKETS .
1
I would respectfully request that the Editorial Board also weigh in on the resistance Senate Democrats are starting to receive from McConnell regarding their legitimate request that before confirmation hearings be scheduled for Kavanaugh, a complete archival record be provided of his work in the Bush White House, particularly on the issue of military detainee treatment. McConnell, of course, wants to expedite the confirmation before the midterm elections are held.
31
We could have had the most progressive court in years, but many progressives chose to defy logic, voting for Nader then and Stein recently.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...
78
@Ricardo The US trails most developed countries in voter turnout (see e.g. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/21/u-s-voter-turnout-trails.... The good news is that getting the vote out is something every Democrat who wants to roll up his or her sleeves can work on.
1
@RicardoEvery other wealthy democracy has a party of the left, be it socialist, labour or social democratic, as a major political force. The U.S. is alone in offering only a conservative party (Dems) and a neofascist party (Grand Old Poverty).
The Clintons abolished FDR's basic family support program, AFDC, and the Dems bear responsibility for the U.S. having by far the worst poverty and weakest social programs of all wealthy democracies.
The Alito Roberts and soon to be Kavanaugh Court does not see income inequality as a 'growing problem' as the Board puts it. They see it as a direct extension of the Constitution which of course was composed by the most elite people of the day. Citizens United, such an ironic title for the ruling destroying the rights of citizens, is a direct outgrowth of this elitist thinking. We are truly in the grip of an elitist era dominated by the rich. and our Congress and those in the sway of Trumpist lies will not change anything. Keep talking NYT. Someday the people may wake up.
20
"President Trump’s choice for the latest Supreme Court vacancy will continue a trend toward widening America’s power and wealth gaps."
Well golly, surprise, surprise, surprise.
Trump's real estate developments, resorts, and golf courses have all catered to the well heeled so why should this pick be any different.
Still waiting for his infrastructure plan that would mean good paying jobs for the working class but that would mean sharing the wealth with the people that need it the most.
66
Reading this editorial gave me a deep breath. Relief flowed through me as I read something that reflects my own understanding of the challenges we all face with the new Supreme Court. What on Earth does the president have on the out-going Justice? Sad times, indeed.
1
Clearly, the defining truth of how justice is served depends on the mindset, even morality, of its administrators. If these conservative judges truly believe that pro-corporate, anti-union, legislation is going to be a genuine boon to everybody, they need to show precisely how in a meticulous fashion. To simply argue that union membership breaches First Amendment rights abrogates the mechanism that unions protect the right of free speech in the workplace whereby, for instance, a worker can safely express concerns regarding safety without fear, in theory, of punitive repercussions. I use this example from practical experience.
This fundamentalist application of the Constitution is an abomination because it uses the core of the US political institution as a weapon against a majority in defence of a tiny minority, setting up a precedent that will protect an insouciant corporate culture from maintaining values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness as it relates to the health and welfare of workers, thus denying constitutional rights to myriad persons.
It seems that states need to circumvent the dangerous biases of the federal Supreme Court at their level of legislative process, enacting laws which insulate them from federal oversight. The effect, however, will be the Disunited States of America.
Supreme Court selection should be a process aloof from politics. It is judges with a proven record of functional jurisprudence who should select judges, not rabid agendas.
3
@Marcus Brant You are correct and on point that these ideological "purist' justices want to turn us back to a time during the gilded age when the rights of people are disregarded. The conservative justices during the FDR era tried to destroy his programs because they saw them as not spelled out in the constitution. If we had listened to them we would have no safety net and social security. Fortunately a new court interpreted the constitution more freely as fulfilling the rights of everybody. Now we are back to that old era of societal injustice which believes only in the right of people to suffer without the help of any kind from government sacrificed for the right of the wealthy to get richer at the expense of those who have little money or clout which according to Citizen United are what really matter and are equivalent
1
The Court is moving from corporations are people to only corporations are people.
164
@Milton fan That is Corporate Fascism.
Brett Kavanaugh may be pro-corporate, but what's even worse is that he's pro-Trump. He's advocated allowing the President to fire the Special Counsel for (just about any) cause, and be allowed to refuse a subpoena by him. That's why he's been called a "Get Out of Jail Free" card judge. With Donald Trump now exposed as "in the pocket of Putin" Judge Kavanuagh must not be confirmed nor should anyone until the cloud of treasonous criminality is lifted from Mr. Trump. As it now stands, Kavanuagh would be the decisive vote on matters concerning the Special Counsel as well as the sexual harassment case by Summer Zervos and the campaign finance violation case involving Stormy Daniels. It's now clear why Donald Trump picked Kavanaugh. It amounts to jury tampering which is a criminal offense now facing Paul Manafort. To allow anyone, especially a President, to be "above the law" by appointing a person who will rule in his favor, as both judge and a jury member, is as outrageous as it should be illegal.
19
And why do Trump's working class supporters ignore or even applaud these decisions that hurt them more than any other sector of society? Guns, God and gays as stated by the one person they hate as much as they like Trump. President Barack Obama.
He was skewered for saying that. They said that he was being elitist, he was being condescending, he was not being respectful of their culture. And he was he was 100% correct.
The establishment Republicans, whom the Trump supporters claim to hate, use these culture wars to sway their base while they cut them off at the knees by making it harder and harder for them to earn a living. The GOP transfers their wealth to the 1% each opportunity they get.
Their victims fall for it each and every time. The two dominant issues are abortion and guns, with guns being most crucial. The Republicans all line up in fealty to the NRA and lay prostate to the gun makers to get the votes they need to stay in power. Their victims truly believe that guns represent freedom and liberty. Well, try and buy a house with an AR15. Try and fill up a cart of groceries with pistols at the checkout.
Our laws give us our freedoms and the dismantling of those freedoms is exactly how the Republicans line the pockets of their wealthy donors. The red staters refuse to notice. If they do, they use the trickle down lie to placate themselves and they are still waiting for the drip.
They will applaud Kavanaugh and he will shutoff that tiny drip.
124
@Bruce Rozenblit
You are so right. And the money these people spend on guns and ammo could buy a lot off things that would make their lives better, from food to health care to better housing, etc. Bullets and shot gun shells don't come cheap.
@Bruce Rozenblit Actually, at this time, I think Trump is annoying and disgusting many swing voters, but the thought of the Democrats' open borders (Abolish ICE) policies keeps them in the fold. The parties are losing voters, those who call themselves independents are growing in numbers. Many of them would like to keep a decent ACA, Social Security, Medicare / TriCare, get some common sense gun regulation, and keep the government out of everyone's bedroom, but they will not tolerate 11M illegal immigrants and more on the way.
This editorial has it exactly right. As then Senator Obama said during Roberts" confirmation hearings "he has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak.” And Kavanaugh will just be more of the same. He will create a pro corporate and wealthy majority on the Court for a generation. That is even without considering his positions on the power of the executive, which will no doubt change again if and when a Democrat occupies the White House.
And transferring power and wealth to those who already posses the vast majority of these commodities is what the modern Republican Party is all about. Roe v. Wade, Hobby Lobby, DC v. Heller are just distractions that help them maintain their electoral coalition. Not that the courts decisions on these cases don't hurt real people. But, the pro-business and anti-working people decisions are why they are on the court. Even if they overturn Roe v. Wade it will disproportionately impact people of limited means. The well off from the bible belt will always be able to use a long weekend in New York or California to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. This option won't be available to many who will be forced to either use dangerous measures to end the pregnancy or bring the fetus to term.
So I commend you on characterizing the divide on the Court as it really is. It is not liberal vs. conservative or Republican vs. Democratic. It is weak vs. strong and as usual the strong are winning.
12
Our Founding Fathers could not have even envisioned the sway held today by corporations. The Supreme Court is supposed to uphold the Constitution, as closely as it can be interpreted for present day society. It is disingenuous for the High Court Justices to give businesses such favorable rulings and set precedents to further elevate corporate power.
The Constitution was not written to help big business railroad We The People. This is just about political power plays, not the rule of law.
19
"Corporations won the power to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns in the 2010 Citizens United decision."
Isn't it interesting that in discussing Citizens United, the NYT always leaves out "and unions."
1
@Sumner Madison
Slave holders and their financial backers could pass as today's corporations. Big cotton?
This was inevitable because of Citizens United. The whole purpose for ruling the way they did on Citizens United was to effect a "democratic" system that was hyper capitalist. Corporations and wealthy individuals will gain more power and America has been placed on a path to becoming an oligarchy.
97
Not to worry, Mitt Romney said "corporations are people my friend" so they will look out for the American people on the Pro-Corporate Supreme Court, right?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/corporations-are-people-a_b_...
3
I guess a conservative court’s view of constitutional fidelity is to steamroll the 'general Welfare' of the populace in favor of corporate interests.
76
Republicans sell the court, as arbitrators of right to life and second amendment issues. They have too, if their voters found out their main concern was allowing corporate America to take advantage of them through binding contracts, and refusing to enforce anti-trust laws, they would lose them.
12
Most people miss the bigger picture. The taking over the court and courts are just one portion of the political infrastructure that the GOP and other gangster think tanks and groups are currently building to maintain their coming minority control over a majority population.
The GOP knows they have a demographics problem and that they’ll soon be out of power unless something is done and quick....the courts are one part of this plan.
It’s that simple
256
@Prometheus I wish I didn't agree with you but the Democrats and liberal thinking constituents have a lot of work to do starting with the upcoming elections.
Curing the long-term has to start with challenging and curing the short-term.
1
@Prometheus
While I completely agree with everything you say, Putin's Puppet does not care about any of this. Kavanaugh was selected because he believes the president is above the law. Sooner or later Putin's Puppet is going to generate cases that will come before the Supreme Court. Putin's Puppet is simply picking judges who will hear his cases.
1
@Prometheus
Many have said the Trump administration is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. If this trajectory continues unabated how long will it take before we become like Saudi Arabia or Iran or even Russia?
A nation state controlled by a mere handful of powerful and wealthy actors. A Supreme Court that is overwhelmingly aligned with extreme right policies. And government controlled by a small group of uber rich billionaire activists - each financing and controlling elected officials all the way from national level down to local districts cementing their grip on everything from local elections to national policies.
1
Never before have I seen political advertisements on television exhorting viewers to call their senators in support of a court nominee.
It is appalling, but not surprising, that Supreme Court justices are now publicly bought and sold just like senators, or laundry soap.
246
One could even say it's something "Communist" countries do to strengthen their cult of personalities.
The GOP would reject that of course, like other facts. It's only Communist, racist, and un-American if a Democrat does it. If a Republican does? They just say "Elections have consequences."
We agree. 11/6
10
@SR
Yes, you are so correct.
Advertising is assuredly an attempt at creating a Kavanaugh cult.
It reeks of dictatorship, with a very bad smell oozing out...ick!
@Myrasgrandotter
Given that both senators from your state are Democrats it's possible they need some encouragement to divorce themselves from the "resistance". Here in GA we need no such blandishments.
Asking citizens to call their Senators is hardly buying and selling.
1
Business is necessary, and a strong business environment is necessary for all of us to live comfortably. But like every thing else, balance is necessary.
We are out of balance. When you push too much on corporate ownership rights and corporate profit and corporate power, and overrun labor rights, consumer rights and protections, you end up with either a kleptocracy or fascism. I was pretty certain we'd end up a kleptocracy, but now I lean towards fascism. Too many like to weight the dice with authoritarian power.
The Court is trouble, with too many Justices who view the market with an almost religious belief in its supremacy, and in the supremacy of riches accruing to capital and not labor. In a similar time at the turn of the last century, the struggle between capital and labor ignited communism, riots, fascism, and war. These things matter.
We need to balance the right to succeed in business, and the right to be paid a fair wage, to healthcare, to clean air and water, to consumer protection from predatory practices and corrupt and criminal behavior. Don't hold your breath.
54
@Cathy
“...belief in its supremacy, and in the supremacy of riches accruing to capital and not labor.”
Agreed. Those who worship an unfettered laissez-faire free market economy are what I call Wealth Supremacists. Like White Supremacists who believe that their race is superior and therefore entitled to more rights than all other races, Wealth Supremacists believe that they are superior and therefore entitled to more rights than those who are economically insecure.
They believe that anything interfering with the creation of wealth (ie regulations, taxes, social safety nets, Democracy) is to be eliminated.
2
The Preamble to the Constitution says nothing about promoting business or trade; it certainly does not subscribe to capitalism.
When it begins by mentioning the People, it did not envision either small-town businesses or large, international firms. The very idea of companies being corporations, that is, a corpus or a body with rights comparable to those of individuals, is one of the great judicial perversions of American legal thinking. From it, nothing good can come. Trouble ahead.
1
The Federalist Society is the judicial version of religious fundamentalism. Like fundamentalism, the Society holds a document (in this case the Constitution) to be sacred and claim to be It’s only true interpreters, and it then proceeds to interpret it in ways that have nothing to do with the “original” intent of the “scripture” or even common sense. The founders never meant for money to be speech. The 14th amendment was never meant to apply to corporations as persons. Centuries of Amendments and precedent have moved the country to an ever-expanding electorate, not gerrymandering and voter purges. SCOTUS was never meant to “elect” the President.
Further, by claiming that they are only ruling as to the original intent of the founders, and not by their own reason and consciences is the judicial equivalent of “I was only following orders.” Why would we consider people who won’t take responsibility for their own actions and decisions fit for the Court? Personal responsibility and integrity should be the first qualifications for a Justice.
To claim that the Constitution is not a “living document” is hypocritical. If it’s not a living document, then the foundation for ultra-conservative ideology and doctrine disappear along with any foundation of law in the US. If the Constitution applies, it “lives.” If it doesn’t live and breathe it was dead on arrival.
24
It somewhat amazes me that you can write this piece without once mentioning the doctrine of standing. Since the Rehnquist era, the court has been systemically limiting the definitions of who is allowed to seek redress in the courts. The definitions for class actions have narrowed, the definitions for what constitutes actual harm have narrowed. Even otherwise good reporters often cover these decisions as meaningless and technical, but the systemic denial of access to the courts has been a far more powerful mechanism to protect powerful interests at the expense of the average person than any of the decisions on health coverage or money in elections. If you can't sue Wal-Mart when they blatantly violate anti-discrimination law, for instance, that law might as well not exist.
It would be wonderful if publications like the New York Times could shine a light on this effort.
20