May 4, 2023·edited May 4, 2023Liked by Bill Astore
Every institution within The Beltway is highly politicized and, with no true oversight body, truly "a law unto themselves." That's the Supreme Court, The Pentagon/Pentagram, both houses of Congress, and any and all agencies associated with them. And it's all beyond the ken of the electorate, just too big, and little more than a distraction from the endless quest for peak experiences, compelling TV drama, and sports. Like climate change and mass shootings, it's all here to stay.
(Not that anyone else seems to have noticed, but today is the 53rd anniversary of the shootings at Kent State. No mention of it in the Washington Post. I expect it has finally been erased from the collective memory.)
Thanks for the reminder of Kent State. When I taught a course on U.S. History, I played CSN&Y's "Ohio" to my class of 30 students. Only a couple of my students had heard of Kent State and the murders there.
You are most welcome. I was 16, closing in on college but also The Draft, and the events of that day really hit home. If you didn't realize then that something was way wrong in the US, you never would.
Kent State happened seventeen months after i had returned from my second year in Vietnam, and i could only reflect that at least some Americans were finally getting a direct taste of what we had inflicted and were still inflicting on the People of Indochina.
The most important result of Kent State was ~ and still is ~ that it very efficiently and effectively killed the anti-war movement on the campuses and streets of America.
Your article doesn't explain exactly HOW the anti-war movement "forced the United States to sign a peace treaty, withdraw its remaining forces, and end the draft in early 1973." On what basis does it make that claim?
Nor does it explain why the "anti-war candidate" McGovern was totally blown away in the 1972 election, when the American people ~ for the first time since it started with the Lie about an "incident" in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 ~ were actually given a choice about that War. Even after "The Pentagon Papers" revealing ALL the Lies about that War were released in 1971, the American people rejected ending the War on any but Washington's terms.
Or why the US continued to support its lackeys in Saigon up to the bitter end in 1975. Much like we supported the French in their bid to reclaim their colonial empire in Indochina up to the bitter end in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu.
And we may have pulled the troops out of Cambodia, but we didn't stop the bombing, and thus helped pave the way for Pol Pot and his version of a Holocaust.
In sum, as far as the Peoples of Indochina were concerned, the American anti-war movement against America's War was a complete and total failure. Even if folks like the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict seem to think that it wasn't.
And there has not been even a token ~ let alone an effective ~ anti-War Movement in this nation since Kent State. At least not with regard to things like Ollie North's forays into Central America in the 80s, our participation in the dismembering of the former Yugoslavia in the 90s, and of course, America's "Forever War" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and so forth since 9/11. To say nothing of Ukraine over the past 14 months.
Kent State didn't "kill" the antiwar movement. Nor did the antiwar movement stop the Vietnam War.
But the antiwar movement did contribute to a climate that made the war increasingly untenable for the establishment to sell. Meanwhile, the U.S. military was collapsing due to the unpopularity of the war and the unfairness of the draft, among other reasons.
The all-volunteer military was the solution to growing unrest and indiscipline; it also has made it easier since Vietnam to prosecute undeclared and unconstitutional wars, which was the intent of some of its founders.
Like i said: In sum, as far as the Peoples of Indochina were and are concerned, the American anti-war movement against America's War against them was a complete and total failure. Just like the American attempt to help France regain its colonial empire in Southeast Asia was a complete and total failure in the 40s and 50s.
What the Vietnamese term "The American War" ended when Saigon was "liberated" by NVA forces in 1975; and the American anti-war movement had absolutely nothing to do with that.
America's "anti-warriors" lost all interest in what had happened and was happening in Indochina once the Draft was terminated, and nobody had to worry about themselves or their fathers, sons, or husbands being the last American to get killed or maimed in it.
And whether or not the All-Volunteer Military made it easier for the US to wage its undeclared and unconstitutional wars, it hasn't made a lick of difference. The US still hasn't even come close to winning a war since the end of WW II, even if it is much. much easier to have them. Especially when American taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for any of its Wars paid for by the magic of Deficit Spending and increasing the National Debt.
As i have stated before: The purpose of America's wars is not to win them; whatever "win" actually means or ever meant. The purpose is simply to Have them; and lay the groundwork for another one someplace else down the road.
And at this, the A-VM has proven itself to be very successful in every possible way.
"The purpose is simply to have them" -- yes, there's much truth to that, Jeff.
Because war is a racket, because it's profitable, because it keeps people distracted and disempowered, and for many other reasons that you know too well.
The rot and corruption have infested the entire political system in the USA. All branches of the USG drink at the same trough of pay-offs and bribes. While such practice in other countries is denounced as corruption, here the rulers just slap the word "donations" on to the payments to cover their tracks and legitimize the status quo. The system is totally, 100% rigged--let's stop kidding ourselves and stop holding on to the delusional fiction that this is a democracy. We live in a plutocracy controlled by oligarchs and corporations, backed up by the bought-off politicians and Supreme Court judges. It is best to conceptualize it as a self-reinforcing ecosystem that ensures concentration and control of wealth and power. Once we come to this realization and finally let go of the fiction, we might actually figure out what the hell to do about it.
Supreme Court Justices are put there by the White House and Congress. So is there any surprise at all as to the quality and character of those Justices? Particularly given the quality and character of the folks occupying both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue?
And don't volunteer to hold Your breath until the American people come to that realization about a system that is totally focused on increasing the "concentration and control of wealth and power" of the Chosen Ones. Let alone their trying to figure out what to do about it. Let alone actually, really even trying to DO something about it.
The American system of government and governance is one in which Vested Special Interests vie for access to the legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, the spending capability of governments ~ at all levels, but especially at the federal ~ to advance those VSI's individual, organizational, and institutional agendas.
To "DO something" about that system of government and governance requires not merely changing those elected politicians and their entrenched military and civilian bureaucrats and anointed appointees. It requires changing that whole system that enables their owners and operators ~ America's Ruling Political Class ~ to do what they do, and to get away with it.
In any event and at this stage of the game, it will be very interesting to see if:
~ 1. There is an election in 2024; and
~ 2. If the United States survives to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, 1,157 days from today. And if it does survive, if it will be in any condition or mood to celebrate anything.
And that second question is rapidly morphing from "Will America survive?" to "Can it survive?" to "Should it survive?"
Those who doubt that as "unthinkable" ~ let alone gloom-and-doomer, unpatriotic, and even treasonous ~ should remember that 1,157 days before December 25, 1991 ~ the day of the official disintegration of the USSR and European Communism ~ was October 24, 1988. The Berlin Wall was standing tall, the Warsaw Pact is totally intact, Cold War I was raging [particularly in Central America and a place called Afghanistan], and Bozo's "Evil Empire" had justified increasing American "defense and security" spending from $144 billion in 1980 to $325 billion in 1989.
And as Sonny and Cher once put it: "The Beat goes on... ."
Was just reading yesterday how Sandra Day O'Connor (a conservative) provided the structure of the ruling that gave Bush II the win over Al Gore in 2000. She had her opinion finished before the conclusion of oral arguments. In other words, she'd decided ahead of time how she'd come down on the issue. The other justices were kind of one-upped by her tactic, and the rest of the conservatives agreed to adopt her reasoning. That reasoning, as laid out in the article, sounded pretty sketchy to this layperson, almost as if O'Connor had cherry-picked some rather obscure precedents to bolster her opinion. Where have we seen THAT before???
Gore didn't lose that election because of the SCOTUS decision.
Gore lost both Arkansas and Tennessee to Bush; making him the only candidate in history to lose the state of his own party’s incumbent President, and only the second candidate in history ~ after McGovern in 1972 ~ to lose his own state.
If Gore had won EITHER of those two states -- his own home state or the state of his boss and titular head of his own Party -- he would have won the election, regardless of what happened in Florida, or how the SCOTUS ruled.
So if anybody is to be blamed for Gore's defeat, it is the voters of Tennessee and/or Arkansas.
The real problem was that the Florida Supreme Court, a majority of which were appointed by Democrats, kept allowing recounts, which I think totaled 22 if I remember correctly. All but 2 or 3 gave the win to Bush. The US Supreme Court stepped in and said enough already, and the country had an elected President.
Ah, the era of "hanging chads" and "dimpled chads." The good old days.
There was no reason for SCOTUS to step in as the decider, and a partisan vote of 5-4 was a bad way to end an election. Anything less than a unanimous (or nearly so) decision was wrong here. And I'm no Gore fan.
Once the Gore team sent the matter to the Florida Supreme Court it was only a matter of time before the US Supreme Court stepped in. The issue was one of national significance - not just Florida. And the US Supreme Court vote on Bush vs Gore was 7-2, not 5-4. Only Stevens and Ginsburg voted "no". The majority held that the Florida Supreme Court's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.
Alex: there were two parts of the decision. One was decided 7-2; the other 5-4 along ideological lines. Not good.
An excerpt from the above article:
In the first part of the decision, seven justices (including liberals Stephen Breyer and David Souter) agreed with Bush that his Equal Protection rights were violated because there was no existing legal standard to recount the punch-card ballots.
Another part of the decision, a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, said that any solution to the recount problem couldn’t be put in place by December 12, the safe-harbor deadline. The Florida Supreme Court of Florida, the majority said, indicated that the Florida state legislature wanted Florida’s electors to “participat[e] fully in the federal electoral process” by honoring the December 12 safe-harbor deadline.
The Supreme Court decision, in total, went against the Florida Supreme Court, remanding the case back to it for further action. But since the safe-harbor deadline was passed, Bush remained as the certified winner in Florida, and Gore conceded the next day.
Since 2000, there have been attempts to figure out what would have happened if various types of recounts were permitted. The website Factcheck.org looked back on these efforts in 2008, concluding that “nobody can say for sure who might have won. A full, official recount of all votes statewide could have gone either way, but one was never conducted.” (In 2001, three other media groups did their own recount studies, with various results.)
In 2012, Justice Antonin Scalia told CNN that in his time on the bench, the Bush v. Gore decision was the one decision most people had asked him about. “My court didn’t bring the case into the courts, it was brought into the courts by Al Gore. He is the one who wanted courts to decide the question,” Scalia said. “The only question in Bush versus Gore was whether the presidency would be decided by the Florida Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court. That was the only question and that’s not a hard one.”
But retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who voted with the majority, later said in 2013 she had regrets about the decision. In 2013, she told the Chicago Tribune the Court “took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue. … Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’”
I believe that after all the votes actually were counted---i.e., after the recount was officially stopped---Gore won. If not for the GOP's "Brooks Brothers Riot," evidence says Gore would have been declared the winner.
From the Wikipedia article: "In the 2000 United States presidential election between candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore, in the state of Florida, George W. Bush achieved an election night majority by 1,784 votes, a very close margin." The Brooks Brothers Riot refers to the Republican's reaction after being locked out of the recounting process by the (Democrat) Miami-Dade County election officials.
Yes that's true. The Democrats, who controlled the election offices in Miami-Dade county, moved the counting to a smaller room and excluded the other (Republican) side. And the press. It was a corrupt counting process with an obvious conflict of interest and deserved as such to be shut down. Presumably had the Republicans proposed that they themselves take the ballots to Republican headquarters for counting (no Democrats allowed) the Democrats would have vigorously objected. Rightly so.
Word. We have to break from decorum. Decorum and sacntimonious bullshit allows the status quo to push us backward toward the precipice of Nevermore. It's time to ask ask some hard questions - like Bill Astore.
P.S. I interviewed the sister of Kent Sate victim Allison Krause on the 52nd anniversary: https://youtu.be/7jhPRH8E2yU
I'm more inclined to fault the people who are assailing the Justices than the Justices themselves. It seems like the left goes to the wall every time they don't get a nomination to their liking. And since our news media is also on the left the stories get magnified. It's all so predictable.
Heh. Well, Bill: It certainly looks like America’s favorite Leftist Octogenarian ~ Bernie Sanders ~ might be making a move to get some of that power. And one has to wonder: What self-respecting American Leftist could possibly disagree with his latest scheme? Especially if they get to get what they regard as merely their fair share of the looted loot? ..... :
BERNIE SANDERS CALLS FOR INCOME OVER $1 BILLION TO BE TAXED AT 100%: “People can make it on $999 million” by Chloe Taylor / Fortune 050223
Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that ALL EARNINGS ABOVE $1 BILLION IN THE U.S. SHOULD BE CONFISCATED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
In an interview with HBO Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, the Vermont senator was questioned about HIS LONG-STANDING VIEW THAT BILLIONAIRES SHOULD NOT EXIST.
“Are you basically saying that once you get to $999 million, the government should confiscate all the rest?” he was asked—to which Sanders responded: “Yeah.”
“You may disagree with me, but I think people can make it on $999 million,” Sanders added. “I think that they can survive just fine.”
Earlier this year, Sanders published It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism. During Friday’s show, he responded to questions on whether billionaires could actually boost the economy by creating employment.
“You can have a vibrant economy without [a handful of] people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society,” he said, adding that IF HE HAD THINGS HIS WAY THOSE MAKING “A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY” WOULD HAVE TO “PAY A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY.”
Sanders has long touted the idea of imposing much higher taxes on the wealthiest factions of U.S. society, proposing a wealth tax in 2019 when he was running to be the Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election.
The Vermont independent senator called for the richest 0.1% of American households—or those with a net worth of more than $32 million—to be liable for a new annual tax, with the tax rate increasing with net worth.
Under his proposal, a married couple with a net worth of $32 million would have paid a 1% wealth tax, while wealth over $10 billion would have been taxed at 8%.
“Under this plan, the wealth of billionaires would be cut in half over 15 years, which would substantially break up the concentration of wealth and power of this small privileged class,” Sanders argued during his campaign.
The SCOTUS is not now on the left. The Presidency and Senate are, and the House was until this year, as is most of the mainstream media and most of the academic world. Actually, until last year's vote, the SCOTUS was the only power center not on the left.
Alex, you're conflating the Democrats with "the left." Biden is not a leftist. The Senate isn't "left." Nor is the media "left." The Democrats are a pro-war, pro-business, pro-profit, pro-banking, pro-rich party.
Please tell me how they are "leftist." Other than rhetoric about wokeness.
I basically call "the left" any group that wants to increase government power (for themselves, naturally) at the expense of the citizenry. That is in keeping with leftist movements such as socialism, communism, etc. I would also include Naziism (Germany) and Fascism (Italy) in that, although I recognize that putting such groups on the left is a minority view. "The right" is the opposite. It's very difficult for politicians to be on the right since people who go into politics tend to want government to "do more". In my telling, the right is broadly similar to movements that stress liberty.
Broadly true. Although some standard politicians can do libertarian policies. Trump issued an executive order telling agencies they had to delete two regulations for every new one they put into effect. Bravo! And of course Rand Paul is a Republican. One the other hand, Joe Biden wants to expand federal regulations and so I would consider him a leftist.
I take it that your definition of "the right" is anything that aids or is in concert with business interests, especially big business. That seems to me to be somewhat unwieldy, as businesses are not the primary actors in government decisions. They may be behind the scenes, but political decisions are made by politicians, bureaucrats, and judges. Businesses often go where the power is, and so often line up on opposite sides of an issue. Example: fossil fuel companies vs green energy companies.
Every institution within The Beltway is highly politicized and, with no true oversight body, truly "a law unto themselves." That's the Supreme Court, The Pentagon/Pentagram, both houses of Congress, and any and all agencies associated with them. And it's all beyond the ken of the electorate, just too big, and little more than a distraction from the endless quest for peak experiences, compelling TV drama, and sports. Like climate change and mass shootings, it's all here to stay.
(Not that anyone else seems to have noticed, but today is the 53rd anniversary of the shootings at Kent State. No mention of it in the Washington Post. I expect it has finally been erased from the collective memory.)
Thanks for the reminder of Kent State. When I taught a course on U.S. History, I played CSN&Y's "Ohio" to my class of 30 students. Only a couple of my students had heard of Kent State and the murders there.
You are most welcome. I was 16, closing in on college but also The Draft, and the events of that day really hit home. If you didn't realize then that something was way wrong in the US, you never would.
Kent State happened seventeen months after i had returned from my second year in Vietnam, and i could only reflect that at least some Americans were finally getting a direct taste of what we had inflicted and were still inflicting on the People of Indochina.
The most important result of Kent State was ~ and still is ~ that it very efficiently and effectively killed the anti-war movement on the campuses and streets of America.
No, it didn't.
https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/us-anti-vietnam-war-movement-1964-1973/
Your article doesn't explain exactly HOW the anti-war movement "forced the United States to sign a peace treaty, withdraw its remaining forces, and end the draft in early 1973." On what basis does it make that claim?
Nor does it explain why the "anti-war candidate" McGovern was totally blown away in the 1972 election, when the American people ~ for the first time since it started with the Lie about an "incident" in the Tonkin Gulf in 1964 ~ were actually given a choice about that War. Even after "The Pentagon Papers" revealing ALL the Lies about that War were released in 1971, the American people rejected ending the War on any but Washington's terms.
Or why the US continued to support its lackeys in Saigon up to the bitter end in 1975. Much like we supported the French in their bid to reclaim their colonial empire in Indochina up to the bitter end in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu.
And we may have pulled the troops out of Cambodia, but we didn't stop the bombing, and thus helped pave the way for Pol Pot and his version of a Holocaust.
In sum, as far as the Peoples of Indochina were concerned, the American anti-war movement against America's War was a complete and total failure. Even if folks like the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict seem to think that it wasn't.
And there has not been even a token ~ let alone an effective ~ anti-War Movement in this nation since Kent State. At least not with regard to things like Ollie North's forays into Central America in the 80s, our participation in the dismembering of the former Yugoslavia in the 90s, and of course, America's "Forever War" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and so forth since 9/11. To say nothing of Ukraine over the past 14 months.
Kent State didn't "kill" the antiwar movement. Nor did the antiwar movement stop the Vietnam War.
But the antiwar movement did contribute to a climate that made the war increasingly untenable for the establishment to sell. Meanwhile, the U.S. military was collapsing due to the unpopularity of the war and the unfairness of the draft, among other reasons.
The all-volunteer military was the solution to growing unrest and indiscipline; it also has made it easier since Vietnam to prosecute undeclared and unconstitutional wars, which was the intent of some of its founders.
Like i said: In sum, as far as the Peoples of Indochina were and are concerned, the American anti-war movement against America's War against them was a complete and total failure. Just like the American attempt to help France regain its colonial empire in Southeast Asia was a complete and total failure in the 40s and 50s.
What the Vietnamese term "The American War" ended when Saigon was "liberated" by NVA forces in 1975; and the American anti-war movement had absolutely nothing to do with that.
America's "anti-warriors" lost all interest in what had happened and was happening in Indochina once the Draft was terminated, and nobody had to worry about themselves or their fathers, sons, or husbands being the last American to get killed or maimed in it.
And whether or not the All-Volunteer Military made it easier for the US to wage its undeclared and unconstitutional wars, it hasn't made a lick of difference. The US still hasn't even come close to winning a war since the end of WW II, even if it is much. much easier to have them. Especially when American taxpayers don't have to foot the bill for any of its Wars paid for by the magic of Deficit Spending and increasing the National Debt.
As i have stated before: The purpose of America's wars is not to win them; whatever "win" actually means or ever meant. The purpose is simply to Have them; and lay the groundwork for another one someplace else down the road.
And at this, the A-VM has proven itself to be very successful in every possible way.
"The purpose is simply to have them" -- yes, there's much truth to that, Jeff.
Because war is a racket, because it's profitable, because it keeps people distracted and disempowered, and for many other reasons that you know too well.
The rot and corruption have infested the entire political system in the USA. All branches of the USG drink at the same trough of pay-offs and bribes. While such practice in other countries is denounced as corruption, here the rulers just slap the word "donations" on to the payments to cover their tracks and legitimize the status quo. The system is totally, 100% rigged--let's stop kidding ourselves and stop holding on to the delusional fiction that this is a democracy. We live in a plutocracy controlled by oligarchs and corporations, backed up by the bought-off politicians and Supreme Court judges. It is best to conceptualize it as a self-reinforcing ecosystem that ensures concentration and control of wealth and power. Once we come to this realization and finally let go of the fiction, we might actually figure out what the hell to do about it.
Well said, Charlie K.
Supreme Court Justices are put there by the White House and Congress. So is there any surprise at all as to the quality and character of those Justices? Particularly given the quality and character of the folks occupying both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue?
And don't volunteer to hold Your breath until the American people come to that realization about a system that is totally focused on increasing the "concentration and control of wealth and power" of the Chosen Ones. Let alone their trying to figure out what to do about it. Let alone actually, really even trying to DO something about it.
The American system of government and governance is one in which Vested Special Interests vie for access to the legal power, administrative authority, and, above all, the spending capability of governments ~ at all levels, but especially at the federal ~ to advance those VSI's individual, organizational, and institutional agendas.
To "DO something" about that system of government and governance requires not merely changing those elected politicians and their entrenched military and civilian bureaucrats and anointed appointees. It requires changing that whole system that enables their owners and operators ~ America's Ruling Political Class ~ to do what they do, and to get away with it.
In any event and at this stage of the game, it will be very interesting to see if:
~ 1. There is an election in 2024; and
~ 2. If the United States survives to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, 1,157 days from today. And if it does survive, if it will be in any condition or mood to celebrate anything.
And that second question is rapidly morphing from "Will America survive?" to "Can it survive?" to "Should it survive?"
Those who doubt that as "unthinkable" ~ let alone gloom-and-doomer, unpatriotic, and even treasonous ~ should remember that 1,157 days before December 25, 1991 ~ the day of the official disintegration of the USSR and European Communism ~ was October 24, 1988. The Berlin Wall was standing tall, the Warsaw Pact is totally intact, Cold War I was raging [particularly in Central America and a place called Afghanistan], and Bozo's "Evil Empire" had justified increasing American "defense and security" spending from $144 billion in 1980 to $325 billion in 1989.
And as Sonny and Cher once put it: "The Beat goes on... ."
Judge Sotomayor took millions in book payments, and failed to recuse herself In Publishers' SCOTUS Cases eh?
Apparently Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined to recuse herself from multiple copyright infringement cases involving Penguin Random House.
Oh dear!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KY2lmGE2sM
It's ironic indeed that lawyers believe they are beyond the law.
Was just reading yesterday how Sandra Day O'Connor (a conservative) provided the structure of the ruling that gave Bush II the win over Al Gore in 2000. She had her opinion finished before the conclusion of oral arguments. In other words, she'd decided ahead of time how she'd come down on the issue. The other justices were kind of one-upped by her tactic, and the rest of the conservatives agreed to adopt her reasoning. That reasoning, as laid out in the article, sounded pretty sketchy to this layperson, almost as if O'Connor had cherry-picked some rather obscure precedents to bolster her opinion. Where have we seen THAT before???
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/politics/bush-gore-oconnor-supreme-court-2000/index.html
It seems there's no way to keep SCOTUS honest for any length of time.
Gore didn't lose that election because of the SCOTUS decision.
Gore lost both Arkansas and Tennessee to Bush; making him the only candidate in history to lose the state of his own party’s incumbent President, and only the second candidate in history ~ after McGovern in 1972 ~ to lose his own state.
If Gore had won EITHER of those two states -- his own home state or the state of his boss and titular head of his own Party -- he would have won the election, regardless of what happened in Florida, or how the SCOTUS ruled.
So if anybody is to be blamed for Gore's defeat, it is the voters of Tennessee and/or Arkansas.
The real problem was that the Florida Supreme Court, a majority of which were appointed by Democrats, kept allowing recounts, which I think totaled 22 if I remember correctly. All but 2 or 3 gave the win to Bush. The US Supreme Court stepped in and said enough already, and the country had an elected President.
Ah, the era of "hanging chads" and "dimpled chads." The good old days.
There was no reason for SCOTUS to step in as the decider, and a partisan vote of 5-4 was a bad way to end an election. Anything less than a unanimous (or nearly so) decision was wrong here. And I'm no Gore fan.
The SCOTUS decisions on 2A I think were the most egregious Bill.
Along with Citizens United and Dobbs. All three have absolutely adversely impacted the country as a whole.
I suppose we could add Roe vs Wade eh Denise?
Hope you are well today my dear.
Well, actually, the Dobbs decision was the one that overturned the Roe v. Wade precedent. Don't suppose many of the details made it to NZ.
I'm well, thank you, and hope you are, too!
Once the Gore team sent the matter to the Florida Supreme Court it was only a matter of time before the US Supreme Court stepped in. The issue was one of national significance - not just Florida. And the US Supreme Court vote on Bush vs Gore was 7-2, not 5-4. Only Stevens and Ginsburg voted "no". The majority held that the Florida Supreme Court's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutional.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-bush-v-gore-anniversary
Alex: there were two parts of the decision. One was decided 7-2; the other 5-4 along ideological lines. Not good.
An excerpt from the above article:
In the first part of the decision, seven justices (including liberals Stephen Breyer and David Souter) agreed with Bush that his Equal Protection rights were violated because there was no existing legal standard to recount the punch-card ballots.
Another part of the decision, a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, said that any solution to the recount problem couldn’t be put in place by December 12, the safe-harbor deadline. The Florida Supreme Court of Florida, the majority said, indicated that the Florida state legislature wanted Florida’s electors to “participat[e] fully in the federal electoral process” by honoring the December 12 safe-harbor deadline.
The Supreme Court decision, in total, went against the Florida Supreme Court, remanding the case back to it for further action. But since the safe-harbor deadline was passed, Bush remained as the certified winner in Florida, and Gore conceded the next day.
Since 2000, there have been attempts to figure out what would have happened if various types of recounts were permitted. The website Factcheck.org looked back on these efforts in 2008, concluding that “nobody can say for sure who might have won. A full, official recount of all votes statewide could have gone either way, but one was never conducted.” (In 2001, three other media groups did their own recount studies, with various results.)
In 2012, Justice Antonin Scalia told CNN that in his time on the bench, the Bush v. Gore decision was the one decision most people had asked him about. “My court didn’t bring the case into the courts, it was brought into the courts by Al Gore. He is the one who wanted courts to decide the question,” Scalia said. “The only question in Bush versus Gore was whether the presidency would be decided by the Florida Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court. That was the only question and that’s not a hard one.”
But retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who voted with the majority, later said in 2013 she had regrets about the decision. In 2013, she told the Chicago Tribune the Court “took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue. … Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.’”
Agree about the impropriety of SCOTUS making the decision there, Bill.
I believe that after all the votes actually were counted---i.e., after the recount was officially stopped---Gore won. If not for the GOP's "Brooks Brothers Riot," evidence says Gore would have been declared the winner.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
From the Wikipedia article: "In the 2000 United States presidential election between candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore, in the state of Florida, George W. Bush achieved an election night majority by 1,784 votes, a very close margin." The Brooks Brothers Riot refers to the Republican's reaction after being locked out of the recounting process by the (Democrat) Miami-Dade County election officials.
The Republicans wanted to SHUT DOWN the recount process.
Yes that's true. The Democrats, who controlled the election offices in Miami-Dade county, moved the counting to a smaller room and excluded the other (Republican) side. And the press. It was a corrupt counting process with an obvious conflict of interest and deserved as such to be shut down. Presumably had the Republicans proposed that they themselves take the ballots to Republican headquarters for counting (no Democrats allowed) the Democrats would have vigorously objected. Rightly so.
Wasn't the appointment of a SCOTUS judge FOR LIFE a dumb idea?
Could this be changed/repealed constitutionally by due process?
Word. We have to break from decorum. Decorum and sacntimonious bullshit allows the status quo to push us backward toward the precipice of Nevermore. It's time to ask ask some hard questions - like Bill Astore.
P.S. I interviewed the sister of Kent Sate victim Allison Krause on the 52nd anniversary: https://youtu.be/7jhPRH8E2yU
I'm more inclined to fault the people who are assailing the Justices than the Justices themselves. It seems like the left goes to the wall every time they don't get a nomination to their liking. And since our news media is also on the left the stories get magnified. It's all so predictable.
Alex, there's no left with any power in this country.
If you think there is, please tell me the last "leftist" decision by SCOTUS.
Heh. Well, Bill: It certainly looks like America’s favorite Leftist Octogenarian ~ Bernie Sanders ~ might be making a move to get some of that power. And one has to wonder: What self-respecting American Leftist could possibly disagree with his latest scheme? Especially if they get to get what they regard as merely their fair share of the looted loot? ..... :
BERNIE SANDERS CALLS FOR INCOME OVER $1 BILLION TO BE TAXED AT 100%: “People can make it on $999 million” by Chloe Taylor / Fortune 050223
Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that ALL EARNINGS ABOVE $1 BILLION IN THE U.S. SHOULD BE CONFISCATED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
In an interview with HBO Max’s Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, the Vermont senator was questioned about HIS LONG-STANDING VIEW THAT BILLIONAIRES SHOULD NOT EXIST.
“Are you basically saying that once you get to $999 million, the government should confiscate all the rest?” he was asked—to which Sanders responded: “Yeah.”
“You may disagree with me, but I think people can make it on $999 million,” Sanders added. “I think that they can survive just fine.”
Earlier this year, Sanders published It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism. During Friday’s show, he responded to questions on whether billionaires could actually boost the economy by creating employment.
“You can have a vibrant economy without [a handful of] people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society,” he said, adding that IF HE HAD THINGS HIS WAY THOSE MAKING “A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY” WOULD HAVE TO “PAY A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY.”
Sanders has long touted the idea of imposing much higher taxes on the wealthiest factions of U.S. society, proposing a wealth tax in 2019 when he was running to be the Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election.
The Vermont independent senator called for the richest 0.1% of American households—or those with a net worth of more than $32 million—to be liable for a new annual tax, with the tax rate increasing with net worth.
Under his proposal, a married couple with a net worth of $32 million would have paid a 1% wealth tax, while wealth over $10 billion would have been taxed at 8%.
“Under this plan, the wealth of billionaires would be cut in half over 15 years, which would substantially break up the concentration of wealth and power of this small privileged class,” Sanders argued during his campaign.
Continued at https://fortune.com/2023/05/02/bernie-sanders-billionaire-wealth-tax-100-percent ; EMPHASES added.
The SCOTUS is not now on the left. The Presidency and Senate are, and the House was until this year, as is most of the mainstream media and most of the academic world. Actually, until last year's vote, the SCOTUS was the only power center not on the left.
Alex, you're conflating the Democrats with "the left." Biden is not a leftist. The Senate isn't "left." Nor is the media "left." The Democrats are a pro-war, pro-business, pro-profit, pro-banking, pro-rich party.
Please tell me how they are "leftist." Other than rhetoric about wokeness.
Here, for instance, is a recent article about the Biden administration making it easier for the bureaucratic state to enact new regulations. Over there on the left. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/house-republicans-sound-alarm-on-biden-executive-order-that-will-open-the-regulatory-floodgates
I basically call "the left" any group that wants to increase government power (for themselves, naturally) at the expense of the citizenry. That is in keeping with leftist movements such as socialism, communism, etc. I would also include Naziism (Germany) and Fascism (Italy) in that, although I recognize that putting such groups on the left is a minority view. "The right" is the opposite. It's very difficult for politicians to be on the right since people who go into politics tend to want government to "do more". In my telling, the right is broadly similar to movements that stress liberty.
Alex, by this definition, the Democrats and Republicans are both "the left."
Only Libertarians, I think, want to decrease government power.
Broadly true. Although some standard politicians can do libertarian policies. Trump issued an executive order telling agencies they had to delete two regulations for every new one they put into effect. Bravo! And of course Rand Paul is a Republican. One the other hand, Joe Biden wants to expand federal regulations and so I would consider him a leftist.
I take it that your definition of "the right" is anything that aids or is in concert with business interests, especially big business. That seems to me to be somewhat unwieldy, as businesses are not the primary actors in government decisions. They may be behind the scenes, but political decisions are made by politicians, bureaucrats, and judges. Businesses often go where the power is, and so often line up on opposite sides of an issue. Example: fossil fuel companies vs green energy companies.