A constitutional law scholar comments on the Supreme Court

The Washington Post published an interview with Lawrence Tribe (Harvard law school, emeritus professor). In part it includes these comments:

Do you consider the Supreme Court to be in crisis now?

Yes. I have no doubt that the court is at a point that is far more dangerous and damaging to the country than at any other point, probably, since Dred Scott. And, in a way, because we even find Justice [Clarence] Thomas going back and citing Dred Scott favorably in his opinion on firearms, the court is dragging the country back into a terrible, terrible time. So I think that it’s never been in greater danger or more dangerous.

How did we get to that point?

Well, I think a combination of a long game on the part of the far right — ever since 1980, they’ve been very concerned with building toward the kind of court that Robert Bork really would have represented — along with lots of lucky breaks. When, for example, Thurgood Marshall left a little earlier than he might have, Clarence Thomas gets that seat. At the other end, when Ruth Ginsburg stays longer, perhaps, than she should have, Amy Coney Barrett gets that seat. When there is an opportunity to put Merrick Garland on the court on [Antonin] Scalia’s death, they sort of played a hard game, and we end up with [Neil] Gorsuch.

And when you look back, the consequence of Clarence Thomas is Bush v. Gore. And the consequence of Bush v. Gore is the appointment, by George W. Bush, of [John] Roberts and [Samuel] Alito. So that led to a court in which there are now five members who clearly have an agenda and whose agenda is very prominent and activist. And when they’ve got the votes, they don’t even care if they have the reasoning.  

Do you think justices can be or ever were impartial? Is that an ideal that can be attained?

The court has always been quite political. And throughout much of our history, it’s been quite regressive. It is kind of a myth that the Supreme Court has been, you know, the shining city on the hill. It’s only during the very brief period from 1957 to 1969 or so, during the [Earl] Warren years, that the court really performed the function of ensuring one person, one vote, and moving toward racial and gender equality. That was a limited period. The court, for most of its history, has been very much in the thrall of economically and politically powerful groups. It retarded the progress after the Civil War by invalidating the civil rights acts and its invalidation of parts of the Voting Rights Act was fairly typical.  

What do you say to somebody who says maybe you’re as partisan as anybody else, that this is your vision, but maybe the will of the people is to have these more conservative judges?

Except we know that that isn’t the will of the people. The overwhelming majority disagree with the court’s restrictions on firearm safety. The overwhelming majority wanted Roe v. Wade, or something like it, to stay in place. It is not the will of the people. And many of these justices were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote by a very large number, and they are confirmed by senators who collectively represent a distinct minority of the American electorate. So this is neither the will of the people nor the traditional, at least ideal, function of the court as a check of majoritarian tyranny. It’s not checking tyranny. It’s installing the tyranny of the minority.

They don’t even care if they have the reasoning. Very much in the thrall of economically and politically powerful groups. Installing a tyranny of the minority. 

Jeez. None of that is reassuring. 

So here we have yet another expert issuing yet another warning that we are on the verge of losing democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and reality. Those good things will be replaced by bad things like authoritarianism, White bigotry powering legalized mass discrimination, Christian Sharia, QAnon-level crackpottery, and minority rule by a liar-kleptocrat-tyrant.

This is not good.

Q: Is this good or not good?

Tales from Crackpotlandia

By now, we all know that American conservative politics and the Republican Party has gone fully insane and authoritarian. The insanity is embedded deep in millions of trapped rank and file minds. After the worst of the enraged crackpots got kicked off of Twitter and Facebook, ProPublica writes on what happened:

In a Q&A with ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson, former intelligence officer and data scientist Welton Chang explains how conspiracy theorists and violent racists fled to smaller platforms. Once there, their remarks festered and spread.

Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, an entire ecosystem of right-wing social media platforms has come into existence — from Gab (where the alleged Pittsburgh synagogue shooter posted hateful screeds) to Parler (a hot spot for insurrectionary activities in the run-up to Jan. 6) to the former president’s own Truth Social (which was frequented by a fan of his who was recently shot to death after attacking a Cincinnati FBI office). This new wave of apps and sites follows in the footsteps of 4chan and 8kun, older internet message boards that continue to attract a sizable audience of conspiracy theorists and violent racists.

In general, what are the big extremist threats that you’re following these days? What worries you?

One is just the death of critical thinking and the amount of evidence-free speculation that becomes the truth, small-t truth, on these platforms.

But it’s also just the general lack of confidence in institutions writ large. … We’re at an all-time low in terms of government trust, based on all the different metrics that are out there. …

[This brings us to] the inherent incoherence of conspiracy theories and these really outlandish ideas about how the world actually works. People believe that the government is simultaneously totally incompetent and also all-knowing and all-seeing and capable of pulling off a massive effort like helping Bill Gates spread the COVID vaccine through mind control via 5G technology.

These are diametrically opposed ideas, yet folks are simultaneously believing both of them and saying, “This is what is happening in the world today.”

Look at the Pew Research polls that are out there about how many people believe the core tenets of QAnon. I think we’ve entered a new phase in which social media has altered and warped how we encounter information, how we process it, how we internalize what counts as the truth. It’s having significant impacts on our democracy.

I really do believe that social media is an accelerator. …

An accelerator of societal disintegration?

Yes, yes, exactly.

Yes indeed. We are witnessing the death of critical thinking and lots of evidence-free speculation passing as small-t truth. 

And, social media really is an accelerator of social disintegration. Anyone who says otherwise, e.g., Twitter or Facebook, deserves this well-considered, on-point response, in its entirety:

A heartfelt Bronx Cheer, a/k/a/ a raspberry!

Q: Is it over the top to say that the Bronx Cheer is a proper response when Twitter or Facebook tells us how much money they spend to keep their platform from being an accelerator of social disintegration?

Republicans hate government and simplifying taxes

Not that it is any surprise to anyone. 

For decades the GOP has pursued an anti-tax and anti-government strategy called Starve the Beast. Wikipedia writes that starving the beast is a political strategy employed by American conservatives to limit government spending by cutting taxes, in order to deprive the federal government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force it to reduce spending. The term the beast, in this context, refers to the federal government and domestic programs, particularly social programs such as education, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Starving the Beast has created an endless festival of theft in the form of unpaid taxes that now amount to something in the neighborhood of $1 to $1.4 trillion/year.

Yes, that is about $1 to $1.4 trillion/year! 

Hundreds of billions went uncollected for years, dating back at least to 2001, when only about $295 billion went uncollected. We are talking real money here. Thieves love this kind of stuff. It's what makes America great again for crooks, Republicans and the tax prep industry. 

Republicans fostered this festival of thievery for years in part by limiting the IRS budget to collect unpaid taxes and in part by threatening to shut down the IRS entirely if it got too uppity about collecting taxes owed but not paid. The GOP hates the IRS with a white hot vengeance. One cannot starve the beast if the IRS keeps feeding it dollars to spend. 

Not only is the Republican Party pro-pollution, anti-abortion and anti-inconvenient truth, it is also pro-vast federal debt, pro-tyranny, pro-lies, pro-thieves and pro-thievery. The GOP, it's the party hardy party!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Shockingly, Democrats in congress recently managed to pass a law. More shockingly, the new law includes $80 billion to be spent at least in part on increasing collection of unpaid taxes. As expected, the Republicans have ferociously singled out and attacked this spending. There is a tiny part of that $80 billion that the GOP really hates, tax simplification for average taxpayers. ProPublica writes:

TurboTax maker Intuit has long blocked efforts to create free online tax filing for all, but this sweeping domestic policy bill provides $15 million to investigate how the IRS could implement such a program.

The United States has made a small but significant move toward creating a public system to allow millions of Americans to file their taxes for free.

The sweeping domestic policy bill passed by the House and Senate last week mandates that the IRS study options to provide a free tax filing option for Americans. That study represents a threat to the for-profit tax prep industry dominated by TurboTax, a product of the Silicon Valley company Intuit. President Joe Biden said he plans to sign the bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, today, following the party-line vote in the House to approve it on Friday.

Unlike many developed countries, the U.S. does not offer free tax filing services for taxpayers, who instead pay billions of dollars every year to highly profitable private tax prep companies.

The industry has tried to block or subvert a government free tax filing system for decades. ProPublica has reported for years on how companies have sometimes even tricked customers into paying for services that they should have gotten for free. Those articles led to investigations by federal agencies and states as well as a barrage of consumer legal actions. The reporting was also cited by Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden, who was behind the new provision. The companies maintain they did nothing wrong.

As we detailed in our story on Intuit’s 20-year campaign to prevent a government-provided tax filing service, the so-called Free File program was flawed from the start. Supposedly available to 70% of taxpayers, it only reached between 2% and 3% in recent years. After ProPublica reported that Intuit and others were intentionally making it harder for taxpayers to find the program online, there was renewed focus on Free File, including numerous investigations. The company stopped including code on its Free File website that made it harder to find the free version. Eventually, both Intuit and H&R Block, by far the largest providers, pulled out.

See how hard the free markets work hard to make life better. Better for the elites who own all the stuff and the markets and the politicians. Arguably not better for us average mushrooms who are fed bullshit and kept in the dark. 

Parts of a transcript from an NPR broadcast in 2017 about doing taxes:

BEN CONTRERAS, New Zealander: I never thought about taxes when I lived in New Zealand. For most people, you don't really have to take any time out to take care of your taxes every year.

T.R. REID: Americans spend about six billion hours a year collecting the data and filling out the forms. We spend $10 billion to H&R Block and other preparers and, on top of that, $2 billion in tax preparation software, which still takes hours of work.

I was in the Netherlands on March 31, the day before their taxes are due. I was with an executive who makes $200,000 a year, two mortgages, a lot of investments. He'd have to fill out 12 forms in America. I said, Michael, how do you pay your taxes? He pops a beer. He goes online. The government's filled in every line. If the numbers look right, he clicks OK. It takes five minutes.

And, in Japan, you get a postcard from the IRS that says, we think you made this much. We withheld this much. We owe you a refund of that much. We will put it in your bank on April 1. It takes one minute, if you think the numbers are right. And I said to my friend Togo, you know, in America, people spend hours, days filling out these forms. And he said to me, why would anybody want to do that?

Q: Yeah, why would anybody want to do that?

Traveling in the U.S.

 In my younger years I traveled a LOT throughout the States. Midwest, East Coast, Southern States.

Alas, I missed out on western U.S. places like California and Texas, etc.

On my travels, I met nothing but kind hearted Americans. Now, that I have traveled far less over the last 40 or so years, I keep hearing and reading about how "bad" it's gotten. I never noticed "bad" in my home State of Minnesota. Then again, the George Floyd incident happened. 

When reading the headlines, I have to wonder HAS things gone from "bad" to "worse?" HAS civil discourse become worse? Is it less safe to travel NOW, and if I was in my youth NOW and traveled throughout the States, would my experiences be different?

Some perspective:

The Best Countries to Travel Alone ranking draws from a global perceptions-based survey and ranks countries based on scores from a compilation of seven country attributes: culturally accessible, fun, friendly, pleasant climate, safe, scenic and unapproachable.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/best-countries-to-travel-alone

Typically, we all have our unique perspectives and experiences. I might have some issues with the listing in the link. Example: Malaysia is listed ahead of the U.S. I personally would never travel alone to Malaysia. Canada is ranked 13th, and from personal experience, traveling alone there has never been an issue. Yet Brazil is listed #7 best for traveling alone.

WE could quibble whether "best" also means "safest" but when I look at lists like the above one (and an internet source will provide you with other sources and links) and see how far the U.S. has fallen, I wonder. 

So, how about YOUR experiences? Is the U.S. more or less as safe as ever, or is it now less safe? Outside of the safety factor, would you recommend people visit the U.S. in this current political climate? OR, are there still enough decent Americans that despite what we hear and read in the media, the U.S. is still an awesome country to travel through or visit?

The rule of law is going to bite the ex-president? Nah, that won't happen

All kinds of sources are reporting that Allen Weisselberg has pled guilty to 15 counts of felony tax evasion. He has to pay back taxes and gets 5 years probation after serving maybe about another 100 days in the slammer. 

What is shocking about this is not the pathetically light sentence. What shocks are reports that claim his deal requires him to testify truthfully in the lawsuit against the ex-president’s companies. The AP reports:

A top executive at former President Donald Trump’s family business pleaded guilty Thursday to evading taxes on a free apartment and other perks, striking a deal with prosecutors that could make him a star witness against the company at a trial this fall.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to sentence the 75-year-old executive to five months in New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex, although he will be eligible for release much earlier if he behaves behind bars. The judge said Weisselberg will have to pay nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest and complete five years of probation.

The plea bargain also requires Weisselberg to testify truthfully as a prosecution witness when the Trump Organization goes on trial in October on related charges. The company is accused of helping Weisselberg and other executives avoid income taxes by failing to report their full compensation accurately to the government. Trump himself is not charged in the case.  

If Weisselberg fails to comply with the plea terms, prosecutors said they would seek a “significant state prison sentence,” and Merchan warned that he could be subject to the maximum punishment for the top charge — grand larceny — of 15 years.  

Trump, a Republican, has decried the New York investigations as a “political witch hunt” and has said his company’s actions were standard practice in the real estate business and in no way a crime.

Since the traitor is not charged in the case, he will probably remain untouched by the law. Teflon Don, the con, expert at plausible deniability and tossing his associates under the bus. Nothing sticks to him except dollars he grifts from his flock. Don the con is probably mostly right to say that his company’s actions were standard practice in the real estate business and in no way a crime.

Nothing sticks to Don the con

RINO hunts: The end of pro-choice Republicans

The big tent has collapsed. A June 2018 New York Times op-ed article says:

Why We Are Leaving the G.O.P.

 

When the obituary for the Republican Party is written, the year 1980 will be cited as the beginning of the end. Reaganism was in full flower, but the big tent was already folding. Republican leaders endorsed a constitutional ban on abortion at the convention that summer, ending the party’s historic commitment to women’s rights and personal freedom.

“We are about to bury the rights of over 100 million American women under a heap of platitudes,” protested Mary Dent Crisp, the co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Her colleagues assured her that the platform was nonbinding and that reproductive health services were not in danger.

But she was prescient. As pro-choice Republicans, we refuse to support a party that has rightly earned the labels anti-woman and anti-common sense. Our organization, the Republican Majority for Choice, the organization founded by Ms. Crisp in 1988, is shutting its doors. The big tent has collapsed for good.

As Republicans, we spent four decades working inside the party to produce effective policies helping women and families. Despite growing malice from an anti-choice faction, we kept our disagreements within the family. We redoubled our efforts to find common ground, rather than simply walk away.

.... The far right was more interested in conflating abortion and birth control for political purposes. It is fiscally disingenuous to deny birth control coverage and then bemoan unintended pregnancies and abortion.

Lifelong Republicans were booed out of state and local committee meetings for just raising abortion rights and family planning ideas. The nastiness escalated to personal attacks on men and women who had dedicated countless hours and dollars to the party.  

Lifelong Republicans were booed out of state and local committee meetings for just raising abortion rights and family planning ideas. The nastiness escalated to personal attacks on men and women who had dedicated countless hours and dollars to the party.

We don’t have the space to outline President Trump’s transgressions, but it is important to understand that his rise is an inevitable result of the hostility to women within the Republican culture.

We can no longer support a Republican Party that is shutting down low-cost health care clinics offering cancer screenings, basic health services and much-needed family planning services. It has become a party that wants to punish pregnant women by limiting their economic choices, that wants to reduce access to sex education programs that prevent unintended pregnancy and disease. 

For years we have debated whether to close our doors. Our founding principle had been that proponents of abortion rights should be comfortable in both major parties. But we have to face reality: There probably will not be a single pro-choice Republican member of the House after the fall election, and only two in the Senate — Ms. Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

It has become taboo within the party to even say “pro-choice.” Most of our supporters gave up on the party as it moved to the extremes not just on abortion but also on other social and fiscal issues.

This Republican Party is no family of ours. And so we say goodbye.

The authors were Susan Bevan and Susan Cullman, leaders of Republican Majority for Choice

Ah, ain't that sweet. They thought that Collins and Murkowski were pro-choice. They were wrong.

RINOS (not RINO'S) are fat and lazy things, not sincere 

people who just have a different opinion