First bit context
Everything degenerates, even the administration of justice, nothing is safe that does not show it can bear discussion and publicity. .... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton, 1834-1902Power cloaked in unwarranted opacity, tends to accelerate, harden and deepen corruption. The Supreme Court has an awful lot of power and it is awfully opaque. That opacity can hide an awful lot of corruption, including partisan politics. Hidden corruption in government deceives and betrays the public. -- Germaine, 2021
Our thesis may be simply stated: basic democratic theory requires that there be knowledge not only of who governs but of how policy decisions are made. .... We maintain that the secrecy which pervades Congress, the executive branch and courts is itself the enemy. .... For all we know, the justices engage in some sort of latter-day intellectual haruspication[1], followed by the assignment of someone to write an opinion to explain, justify or rationalize the decision so reached. .... That the opinion(s) cannot be fully persuasive, or at times even partially so, is a matter of common knowledge among those who make their living following Court proclamations. -- A.S. Miller and D.S. Sastry, Secrecy and the Supreme Court: On the Need for Piercing the Red Velour Curtain, 1973
The investigation told us nothing, and that plus the totality of circumstances leaves plenty of room for rational cynicism: A couple of points are worth mentioning about the internal investigation into the leaked draft Dobbs anti-abortion decision of last year. First, the Republican court put Michael Chertoff in charge of the investigation. Chertoff is a longtime loyal Republican elite who worked as Homeland Secretary under George Bush. For some people, that leaves him with no credibility, for others it bolsters his credibility, while others have no idea of who he is and/or don’t care. For some, the investigation’s credibility will reflect their trust in the court and/or Chertoff.
Second, the final report claims that al though the investigation was thorough, the investigators were unable find a “preponderance of evidence” for anyone who might have leaked the draft. The preponderance of evidence standard is the lowest level the law recognizes as needed to establish liability for any law breaking. In common language, it literally means more likely than not, or any amount over 50% likelihood. One interpretation of that is that internal court operations are rather sloppy.
Two court watchers speculated that the investigation did not even talk under oath to any of the justices themselves. They just pleasantly chatted off the record. That feels probably right to me. The boundless smug arrogance and utter unwillingness of Supreme Court judges to even think about any significant public transparency or accountability has been well-known for decades. For decades, the court has refused to allow cameras at oral arguments. For centuries, the court has refused to allow one glimpse of the inner workings of its decision-making process. The Supreme Court is just an arrogant beast that puts out decisions is strict secrecy.
On rare occasions when anyone has the guts to actually ask a Supreme Court judge why all the secrecy, the answer always has been and still is, more or less, “the secrecy is needed for obvious reasons.” Of course that assumes the judge will answer the question. Usually they won’t answer because they know there is no rational answer. The secrecy is in place to hide the judge’s partisanship and party loyalty, prejudices, incompetence, conflicts of interest, irrationality, authoritarianism, sympathy for corruption, treason, etc.
Finally, the first sentence of the investigation report flatly stated that the leak of the draft Dobbs anti-abortion birth decision, which now underpins forced-birth laws in red states, constitutes one of the greatest breaches of trust in Supreme Court history. Think about that for a moment. What trust was breached? How was it breached? By letting the public get a glimpse of the court’s reasoning in a draft opinion, the public got to see something that it us usually prevented from seeing. The justices would answer those questions about any allegedly breached trust with a dismissive the secrecy is needed for obvious reasons.
Pardon my French, but what a bunch of fucking lies from a bunch of fucking arrogant, lying jackasses. In my opinion, lying jackass justice Sam Alito leaked the draft pro-theocracy Dobbs decision, just like he leaked his 2014 pro-theocracy Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Store decision. If he didn’t, I put the burden of proof on him to show his innocence. Of course with his vast imperial arrogance, he would never deign to even listen to the allegation. So, my opinion will remain safely unrebutted forever.
At least, that’s how I analyze it. (Woof! Sounds like someone was in a snit! Cool your jets there dude!)
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The endless legal morass that is Trumplandia: What an awful mess of blither, lies, slanders and enough crackpottery to make QAnon flinch (briefly) before posting it or Faux News flinch (briefly) before “reporting” on the horrors and persecutions that poor Trump was suffering under. Two days ago, a judge finally blew up. The judge whacked scumbag Trump and his scumbag lawyer for filing a frivolous lawsuit against Hillary and a slew of other people. The judge imposed $937,989.39 in liability against Trump and Alina Habba, his lead attorney. Clinton's share of those legal fees will be $171,631.
Yesterday, Trump withdrew an other lies and crackpottery lawsuit he had filed against NY AG Letitia James. James was suing Trump for $250 million in a fraud lawsuit against his New York-based real-estate empire, the Trump Organization. The same judge was handling both cases. The judge had already warned Trump that his lawsuit against James “had all the telltale signs of being both vexatious and frivolous.”
Vexatious and frivolous? That’s an understatement to say the least. Trumplandia is a hellscape.
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From the Aw Crud, Rut Roh! Files: Playing Russian Roulette with climate change and our lives: Accidental discoveries about a massive glacier in the Antarctic is sending out waves of intense creepiness and mounting fear. The NYT writes about a series of accidental discoveries that are deeply worrying. Now the possibility is at least 15 feet of sea level rise. This could happen in an unknown time period from a massive glacier that was believed to be stable but isn’t.
The article is long and complicated, but the upshot is that scientists are now scrambling to get research ships and remote controlled submarine instrument vessels sent to the site as soon as possible. The glacier in now play for sea level rise is called the Denman Glacier. Not only is it gigantic, it acts as a cork to keep much larger glaciers from being exposed to sea water than has just been discovered to be much warmer than was previously believed.
The initial accidental discovery was when a big elephant seal with instruments attached to it traveled to Denman Glacier in 2011. Elephant seals were not believed to go there. The data the instruments sent back was scary, i.e., the water was too warm, but scientists overlooked it and the data was ignored. Then another accident occurred when a remote controlled submarine instrument vessel got taken off course by water currents and it wound up at Denman in 2020. It sent back very scary data. The water was way too warm compared to what it was believed to be. Scientists went back to the data from the seal in 2011 and confirmed that warm water (slightly below freezing, which is way too warm for that area) had reached Denman.
Now, everybody is frantically planning trips to Denman. Research ships from Australia and Germany are now planned to get to Denman in 2024. The NYT article concludes with this:
One of the most disconcerting things about climate change is that what we do not know may hurt us the most. When it comes to Denman, said Van Wijk, “we probably know more about parts of the moon.” It is thanks in part to good fortune that we know as much as we do. We have had news from a seal and a robot, but it looks like it is time to send in the humans.
What the hell else is there we still do not know about?
This being a site about politics, this has to be said: The pro-pollution, pro-climate change, anti-climate science Republican Party and businesses that profit from polluting and climate change are playing Russian Roulette with our lives, our standard of living and modern civilization. Climate change is deadly serious business, but the polluters lie about it, downplay it, deny it, slander the scientists, lie about the science and do whatever they can to maintain a profitable but dangerous and unsustainable status quo. This is far beyond unacceptable.
This is not democracy. This is fascism.
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