Category: Justice

The Long Con

I make no secret of my extreme dislike (some may call it hatred) for the Supreme Court and the political hacks that sit on it…..none more disliked than chief justice Roberts….

This judge has done more damage to this country than most are unaware of because it is not reported as it should be….

I recently read an excellent article on his long con….

There is no bigger con man in the United States than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Not even President Donald J. Trump.

The con began in September 2005, during Roberts’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Articulate, handsome, and energetic at fifty years old, Roberts seemed to have been culled “straight from central casting,” as Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama actually remarked on the first day of the hearings. Roberts was also convincing—he famously promised that if confirmed, he would serve in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only “balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.” Seventy-eight Senators, including twenty-two Democrats, fell for the ploy and voted to give him the lifetime assignment.

The biggest yarn Roberts told during his hearing concerned his views on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), a cornerstone of American democracy, which the Supreme Court gutted this past April in a redistricting case from the state of Louisiana (Louisiana v. Callais).

As is his prerogative as Chief Justice, Roberts assigned the task of drafting the Callais majority opinion to fellow conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who responded with a 6 to 3 ruling that held that, henceforth, Section 2 of the landmark legislation would require VRA plaintiffs to meet the nearly impossible burden of proving that redistricting maps challenged as “racial gerrymanders” were created with discriminatory intent rather than for permissible political purposes. The opinion allowed Louisiana to eliminate one majority Black Congressional district. It also effectively negated legislation passed in 1982 that had amended Section 2 to permit the Justice Department and private citizens to challenge election laws that have the effect of diluting minority voting power without proving intent.

Flash back to 2005 and it is apparent that, at best, Roberts misled the judiciary committee. In response to a question from Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy about the VRA’s constitutionality, Roberts replied, “[T]he existing Voting Rights Act—the constitutionality has been upheld. And I don’t have any issue with that.”

https://progressive.org/magazine/the-long-con-of-john-roberts-blum-20260821

The voters have had long cons played on them by politicians and we could have changed that….but we chose not to do so…..but with the Supreme Court we do not have that option and once seated they are there for life….even if they live to past one hundred…..we cannot rid ourselves of their devastating rulings.

We hear promises that reform is high on the agenda during elections and so far I have not seen shit once the elections are Over with…..have you?

I am sure we shall hear much on this issue and once the election is over nothing will materialize.

Anybody see anything differently?

Educate, Agitate

I Read, I Write, You Know

cogito ergo agito

“lego ergo scribo”

I Am Protected!

U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone ruled David Hackbart exercised his constitution right to free speech in 2006 when he angrily displayed his middle finger to another driver during a parking dispute in Squirrel Hill and when he displayed the same gesture to Officer Brian Elledge, who told Hackbart to stop.

“The United States Supreme Court has long recognized that non-verbal gestures and symbols may be entitled to First Amendment protection,” Cercone wrote in his 19-page opinion and order filed Monday. “Moreover, several courts, including federal and state courts in Pennsylvania, have found that the expressive use of the middle finger is protected speech under the First Amendment.”

Now there is a precedent for the use of the middle finger as free speech…….my only problem is that few display it properly.  Just raising you middle finger does convey the thought but it is not proper “English”.  As part of the generation that made the finger a symbol of the times, I cringe when I see people just throw the finger out there, instead of taking the time to learn to display it properly and more effectively.

Make Them Pay!

I am talking about reparations here.

Iraqi parliamentarians are demanding Israel pay billions of dollars in reparations for a 1981 Israeli attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, Baghdad’s daily al-Sabbah reported Thursday.

Mohammed Naji Mohammed, a member of parliament with the United Iraqi Alliance coalition, is leading a campaign for a parliamentary resolution obliging the Iraqi foreign ministry and courts to seek billions of dollars in reparations for an Israeli air strike on the Osiraq nuclear reactor, the newspaper reported.

The Iraqi lawmakers now pushing for reparations were reportedly careful to stress that they were concerned with Iraq’s development, and that the campaign did not imply an endorsement of the former Iraqi regime.

Mohammed reportedly said that if foreign governments could hold Iraq responsible for reparations for acts committed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, then Iraq could hold foreign governments responsible for reparations for acts committed against Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power.

While the parliament has not yet taken any decision to act on the campaign, Mohammed’s affiliation with the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of mostly of Shiite parties that won the greatest share of seats in Iraq’s 2005 parliamentary elections, may smooth its passage through the legislative assembly.

They do have a point…somewhat……Iraq had to pay for damage done by Saddam in Kuwait….is it fair?  You decide.

It Pays To Be A Judge

Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention centre in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.

Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.

When someone is sent to a detention centre, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention centre, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.

Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centres for minor offences that would typically have been classified as misdemeanours, according to the Juvenile Law Centre, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.

One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months’ detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting.

Others were given similar sentences for “simple assault” resulting from a schoolyard scuffle that would normally draw a warning, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Law Centre said.

The Constitution guarantees the right to legal representation in U.S. courts. But many of the juveniles appeared before Ciavarella without an attorney because they were told by the probation service that their minor offences didn’t require one.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court removed Ciavarella and Conahan from their duties after federal prosecutors filed charges on January 26. The court has also appointed a judge to review all the cases involved.

Well Irene, that is your judicial system hard at work bringing justice to every corner of the country…….if convicted maybe these guys should be put in with the people that they have sentenced over the years so they all can become better acquainted.