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Alleged Supreme Court Corruption

Alleged Supreme Court Corruption

There are a couple of legal principles that are to be considered by the United States Congress as guidelines when they make legislation for making a government agency and composing the extent that the agency is allowed to function.  

You can view in you mind a government agency being created much like any business.  The business is created by congress but the conduct of that business has been told what is is intended to work toward and hopefully achieve positive outcomes for the people of the country, some positive result.  This business type purpose does have limits as to what it can function and how it can function by congress.      Government agencies do not sell products but instead offer services to the whole nation of civilians in separate, specific areas, as specified by congress.  A list of government agencies is very large, a quite complex.  The agencies offer mainly service of instruction, regulation, police, enforcement, research and more.

The supreme court appears to think that one of their areas of concern is to perform oversight, to regulate agencies and see if they overstep their mission specified by congress.  You would think that Congress should police it’s own government agencies.

The supreme court has a number of problems facing achieving a positive reputation.

A problem at the root of the current supreme court operation is how the supreme court judges were placed into their positions.  We need judges that understand and work toward resolving the concerns of all the American public not working for a special interest person or group. 

The appointment of some current supreme court justices appears to be flawed which may be at the root of it’s problems.  Some of the problems:

  1. None of the judges were voted in by the American public thus lacking an appointment value.
  2. Four of the eight justices currently serving on the Supreme Court were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote in their first term.  These justices are thus lacking some credibility in their appointments.  This is just one example of a flawed political practice.  The American voting public must have binding responsibility for all appointments when they are made through an intermediary politician.
  3. There has been a couple of outside special interest groups that have tried to manipulate the decisions that the court renders.  One individual who has been quite successful in making supreme court recommendations is Leonard Leo who has worked hard to push forward justices to his liking. 

    “Leo leads the conservative legal organization the Federalist Society, through which he has spent the majority of his adult life getting conservatives appointed to the most powerful courts in this country, including the Supreme Court.”

  4.  There is a couple of legal issues where the Supreme Court thinks it has jurisdiction over any government agencies.  It seems that the supreme court is concerned that an agency does not go beyond the specified limits set by congress.  This is now a convenient excuse for the court to expand its power.  

Where does the court come up with the approach to dig deeply into agencies operations to see if they go beyond what Congress specifies them to achieve?

Major questions doctrine

Congress must have clearly authorized agencies to regulate issues the Court considers to be of vast significance.

Non Délégation Doctrine

The nondelegation doctrine is a principle in administrative law that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to other entities.

This then becomes a convenient excuse for the Supreme Court to regulate a government agency’s policies if it can cite that that agency has gone beyond what Congress has told it to accomplish.  It seems the current ambition of the court is to deconstruct the administrative state which is really stupid at the operation level.  An example of this is  that the administrative states like the EPA has a very large research body of workers that help devise good climate change response regulations.  The courts can not expect to have this capability and thus must allow agencies to devise their own regulations.

This then can become a contentious situation when any agency regulates any business that is extremely wealthy and powerful. Citizens who possess special interest power with political groups, politicians and Supreme Court judges might apply their control over how the court intercedes.  It appears to many that this is the current situation where the fossil fuel industry is fighting to maintain its market.  

There is also a special interest group, Federalist Society that believes in interpreting the constitution as written, not improving upon it in any way.

“… the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

 Originalism is one of the pillars of The Federalist Society, meaning that members believe the Constitution must be interpreted as the founding fathers intended at the time it was written—and that they don’t intend or see fit to use the document to protect the rights of women, people of color, LGBT people and other individuals from communities who were not represented from the room where it was written, and in some cases were even seen as the legal property of its framers.

 

A nearly total separate issue is when the Supreme Court made a decision that has imperiled our system of Democracy.

On Jan. 21, 2010, in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Court ruled to strike down a prohibition on corporate independent expenditures, which has since enabled corporations and other outside groups to engage in unlimited amounts of campaign spending.  This is probably the most important element for allowing the plutocracy group to rule the United States instead of having a true form of Democracy.

Summary:

The implication here is that the majority of the Supreme Court justices seem to be supporting businesses that are attacking our climate and women’s rights because they claim some government agencies have gone beyond what the Supreme Court sees what Congress has told them to do.

How convenient for some industries and ultra conservatives to see the Supreme Court working for them and against climate change and women’s rights with some thin excuse.

Thus, some justices appear to have become corrupt by catering to a few powerful groups and seemingly stupid toward realizing their duty to what is correct for women, people of color, LGBT people and our future survival for all humans.

The current group of justices support the rule of the plutocrats over the rule of the citizens, an act of near criminality.

 

 

 

Recommended added information from Background Briefing podcast:

 

Posted July 3, 2022
Podcast added July 4, 2022
Updated July 7, 2022, October 29, 2022

The USA Is Now A Plutocracy Not A Democracy.

The USA Is Now A Plutocracy Not A Democracy.

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Republican Party

Most American citizens think the United States is a Democracy.  It is not true any more.  Today, the United States is ruled by the rich and falls within the category of being a plutocracy or ruled by rich individuals and corporations.

A rich have the money to pay for political influence and resulting policies that ensure they keep their wealth and gain more wealth and power.  That is, if they calculate and plot accurately toward that end and they have.  

The dark slide of the United States from being a democracy to being a plutocracy really was propelled by the utter incompetence of the US “Supreme” Court decision brought to the court by Citizens United vs Federal Elections Commission.

Citizens United is a right wing, Republican, non-profit organization with an obvious agenda to allow money to buy political power.  This move resulted in the United States moving from being a Democracy to being a plutocracy.  The reason for this is that money buys politicians, both Republican and Democratic.  But, the current problem is that the Republicans have gamed the system way better than the Democrats.  

The current status is that the right wing have stacked the “Supreme” Court with conservative agenda sycophants that seem to believe in trampling on the poor and lower classes of citizens.

“… for five decades, the court has, with striking regularity, sided with the rich and powerful against the poor and weak in virtually every area of the law.”

 

 

Posted. December 25, 2020

VOTE And Save This Country!

VOTE And Save This Country!

The next election comes down to some simple national issues for voters to understand. Voters cast their ballots to further their own interests which is understandable and is an aspect of the democratic process. You should vote for what you think is best for yourself, your family, your community and the county.

Problem is, that a Republican party has found mechanisms to work the system to the advantage of their real, somewhat private constituents, which is not you even though you might vote Republican. The real rulers of the Republican party are corporations and the rich. You are just a pawn under their control. The rich may be smart in business but not in politics. They have the money to pay consultants that can plan ways to enrich their clients. The wealthy pay people that devise ways to game the system at your loss. You are at a significant disadvantage to gain from this alleged corrupt system and most often you will loose.

The Republican Party followers are three basic groups, the rich, the single issue voter and the less idealist that believes in less government (Libertarianism). This article will not cover the idealist group because they believe “less is best” and that belief does not factor into this argument too much. This argument is basically focused on “my survival interests must prevail”.

Money gains power. Corporations, and the wealthy have way more money to fund the Republican party than the lower class single issue Republican voter. They are so wealthy that to pay lots of money to support a political party and candidates is a very small investment to ensure they get what they want. The wealthy have even found ways to put money into non-profit organizations and use this mechanism to not pay taxes.

Lets list some popular single issues:

  • Gun control
  • Abortion
  • Environment
  • Taxation
  • Illegal immigration
  • Animal rights
  • Labor union rights
  • Strong national defense

The Republican Party embraces some single issues to attract the lower classes to gain votes for their issues.

The Republican Party endorses the following (a partial list):

  • Deny gun control. The National Rifle Association is a lobby for gun manufacturers which wants unrestricted gun sales.
  • Fight environment controls because this is costly for business.
  • Try to diminish unions because unions deny unrestricted corporate control.
  • Support strong national defense because the United States arms manufacturers is a big powerful segment of our nation’s manufacturing and they are a powerful lobby.
  • An unborn child has an individual right to life and that abortion should be ended entirely.  This is a religious issue but the separation of church and state is seldom honored.
  • Against same sex marriage.
  • Immigration.  President Trump wants to build a wall to stop all immigration.  This is a white male fear or concern that they will loose status as more immigrants enter this country.

The real power is held by the wealthy because they fund candidates way more than any other group. The party tries to deliver to both groups, wealthy and lower class, as best as it can but the corporate and wealthy interests always win out. The Republican party tries to explain away contradictions, when they occur, in obtuse language and lies.

The less wealthy voter who thinks their single issue is very important fails to realize that that the wealthy class will move to push forward their agenda secretly which may hurt the less wealthy.  The recent tax cut is a perfect case which lowers the tax on the wealthy which caused the national debt to increase and then the Republicans said they have to fix this debt problem by hurting the less wealthy by cutting back on Medicare and Social Security, a perfect example of corruption.

Here are some of the ploys that the Republicans use to advance their wealthy clients positions:

The single issue voter unknowingly, hurts himself and herself and the rest of the citizens of this county by casting ballots that enrich corporations and the wealthy. This is just one more factor for creating divisions because there are voters that understand this manipulation scheme that the Republicans use and are resentful against the single issue voter for not understanding that they may be voting for way less important issues.

The Republican, who is attracted to that party for single issue reasons, such as abortion, gun rights, immigration may be played for a fool. The Republican Party really stands for corporate and wealthy interests. The party embraces single issues as a ploy, such as gun rights, immigration to gain followers to push what the party is really interested in which is to help the wealthy to keep their wealth and power.

The Republican Party also uses undemocratic methods to maintain power:

Concern and care for others does not seem to be the Republican way.  You are being played. You are being manipulated. You are going to loose more and more unless you wake up and cut the strings between you and your wealthy masters.

VOTE, and by doing so, save this county!

 

Posted October 22, 2018
Updated; October 23, 2018
Updated: August 24, 2019 increased font size to 18 and improved Internet links visually.