Satire | Politics | Reality

For Sale: Six Supreme Court Justices, Used, Low Mileage, Special ‘Party’ Options Factory Installed, Limited Warranty, Some Financing Available

Is it time for a change, yet?

Preamble

Let’s face it, Americans love their superlatives.

Their Grand Canyons and Great Lakes and Great Plains. Even some of our worst moments in history are elevated to The Great Wars, The Great Depression, and more recently, The Great Recession.

We like seeing words on our cities and on our buildings that reflect our sensibilities.

We love believing that we do things right and we do things big and we get results, no matter what.

But we don’t always, do we?

No, sometimes we sit back and we dither and we take stock and reflect. We wait for the dust to settle, the pain to recede and the noise to die down so we can get back to doing what we do.

Keeping busy, making money, making lots of money for some, and then we rest from all those hard days and enjoy the American Way, that our fathers and forefathers created for us.

But that’s getting harder to do.

With the noise and the pain and the dust that just won’t settle, we are waiting for other people to step forward and take care of what needs to be taken care of so that we don’t have to keep doing it.

So, we vet them, then elect them and watch them march off to state capitals and to Washington, DC filled with pride and aspirations and all spanking new.

To sit in august chambers listening and learning and hoping that one day soon they will stand up and represent our needs and our hopes and our lives and put into action, those decisions that would bring us safety and peace of mind.

But that too is getting harder to do.

Because we the people aren’t the only ones who have an agenda. There are others who have needs and hopes and goals to be the biggest and best and most profitable.

In this great country, corporations are people too. Who have their own thoughts and feelings and needs and whose needs and thoughts and feelings are every bit as important as ours are — sometimes even more important.

And when there is any doubt about which of us has a greater need, we have another august body to turn to, to make sure that all is fair and equitable.

We call this body: The Supreme Court.

Created by those same founding fathers who also gave them a purpose.

As the final arbiter of the law, the Supreme Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.

Those same four words — Equal Justice Under Law, are carved in stone above the entrance to this same court.

Yes, Americans love their superlatives.

We’ll often place a label on something special, a great label, and then we hope it to live up to our expectations as we turn away and get on with our lives.

But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Sometimes the people that we vet and elect and/or appoint to these great institutions lose their way.

Become influenced and biased because they too are human and have needs and desires.

Often to remain where they are. Immersed in power and prestige as they slowly drift away unnoticed from their original purpose.

And then conflict ensues, when at any given point in time we’ll have average people with average lives, striving to do their best, coming in direct conflict with those same corporations as people, who have their own expectations firmly in mind as well.

Then Reality Sets In

You know, that elusive state of mind that comes into direct and unflinching contact with what IS, no matter how hard we wish for it to be something different.

Reality is Justice Antonin Scalia, writing in support of the majority in 2010’s Citizens United V FEC, (Federal Election Commission) that corporations and other like entities have the same constitutional right of free speech as people and should not have this right denied by having their political donations curbed in any way. Scalia called donations, a “form of free speech.” 2, 3

He also believed that as long as the American people saw where that money was coming from, with full transparency, there would be no problem and all would be well. Right.

Brings a whole new light to the old saying: Money talks and nobody walks.

So, the next time you’re a little peeved about Super PACs and campaign costs spiraling out of control and billionaires using their dollars to bash hardworking and earnest candidates — march on down to the headquarters of Apple or Amazon, Goldman Sachs, GM or John Deere and let loose with a few of those superlatives.

And if that corporation doesn’t start answering your questions directly, like Justice Scalia implied, then write a letter to the CEO and ask for a meeting so that he and the Board can explain why a corporation that manufactures transmissions or tractors has an opinion about women’s reproductive rights and guns.

Reality is scrolling through the tweets and retweets as politicians of the far-right persuasion offer their prayers and homilies while lamenting the loss of young children in Texas or blacks in Buffalo, NY, or an Asian woman in California due to the over-exuberant expression of someone’s second amendment rights.

While they, senators and representatives of this great country, collect obscene amounts of donations from corporations like the NRA — that’s really just their way of exercising free speech, with absolutely no strings attached.

Here are a few names who’ve benefitted from the NRA's generosity. You might want to ask how is it the NRA can afford these expenditures?

• Mitt Romney (UT) $13,647,676
• Richard Burr (NC) $6,987,380
• Roy Blunt (MO) $4,555,722
• Thom Tillis (NC) $4,421,333
• Cory Gardner (CO) $3,939,199
• Marco Rubio (FL)$3,303,355

Reality is Justice Clarence Thomas writing in the Supreme Courts’ very recent decision of Shinn v. Ramirez stating that a federal court “may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state-court record based on the ineffective assistance of state post-conviction counsel.”

In 2018, a federal court overturned a state decision against Barry Lee Jones and David M. Ramirez, allowing them to present new evidence in the appeal process because the court felt their attorneys did not do an effective job in defending them in state court.

The Supreme Court overturned this lower court decision, with Justice Thomas’ view of our sixth amendment rights being, that if counsel provided by the state ineffectively manages an appeal process, by say, omitting evidence, failing to question witnesses appropriately, or failing to provide proper counsel due to overwhelming caseload, then the defendant is SOL. And in this case — sent back to death row.

Reality is, the Supreme Court (most of them), sees no problem when the spouse of a sitting justice, in this case, Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, sends texts and emails to White House Presidential Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, exhorting him and others to Stop the Steal and alternately, Release the Kraken, in a bid to overturn the 2020 election. 7

Is it just old-fashion hubris or some unknown judicial meditation that prevents justices from becoming biased by outside influences, like spouses, political parties, special interest conferences, etc.?

Let’s face it, reality is a fluid concept in America today, especially in American politics where it is whatever the Ads say, the pundits espouse and the politicians themselves preach on any given day.

It’s that guns are bad and need to be controlled when standing in front of weeping parents, and a second amendment right that no one shall contravene when standing before an NRA conference.

It’s when individuals are nominated to the highest court, not because of their judicial record and ability to remain fair and impartial but for their record in following political and religious dogma.

It’s the settled and complacent indifference that any human being might aspire to when promised a lifetime appointment, universal healthcare, admiration, and an almost God-like right to interpret a document written over 230 years ago as if it were the Bible, Quran, or Torah.

What’s Before Us

More of the same. Roe v. Wade overturned because it goes against the teachings of the religious right, regardless of the spin Justice Alito and others put on it.

It’s more guns and more shootings and far more pointing of fingers, as donations ramp up, and corporations continue to reinforce the illusion that these corporate entities themselves are actually deciding what should and should not be financially supported and not the CEOs, Board members, and other executives who actually attend the conferences and sign the checks.

It’s billionaires buoyed by admiration and iconic status, delving ever more deeply into politics with the same malevolent glee of a medieval Punch and Judy Show.

Unless of course, we change.

Unless we realize that there is something wrong with our political system. Not our form of government but how its leaders are made.

That somewhere along the line a viable candidate loses connection with the people they represent, falls in line behind a slogan, a party, or a sponsor, and becomes something wholly different.

Unless we eliminate Citizens United and place limits on campaign spending, despite Justice Scalia’s epiphany and get monied sources out of the business of running our government for their own profits.

Or we can just do nothing. Turn the TV back on. Change channels when the latest shooting is aired or clips of McConnell, Rubio, Cruz, and the other Boys in the Band, telling us again that guns don’t kill people as they read from the latest NRA press release.

19 Children were murdered at Robb Elementary School. Why? Because the shooter could do it efficiently with his weapon of choice. Because it was done before and no one stopped them or changed the system so it couldn’t happen again.

Because his rage and his beliefs overrode any moral compass he may have had and because …

Hell, do we really need to know why? How about we stop focusing on the reasons someone acts insane and harms others — because it’s a damn misdirection anyway, and those that focus on it, know it — and focus on making people’s needs first and corporate needs second.

How about we de-emphasize profits above all else and start asking corporations the difficult questions.

• Like why is it that no matter how many guns are seized and destroyed for criminal acts in this country and elsewhere — by the millions or tens of millions — there is always more to replace them?
• Or why, no matter how many painkillers and opiates, and other Class A drugs are stolen, confiscated, and destroyed, there is never a shortage?

We don’t have to witness another shooting, we really don’t. They’ll stop when we start asking tough questions and make those that should answer them, actually do so. And when the people we elect to represent us, actually do their jobs.

George J. Ziogas Dr Mehmet Yildiz Tree Langdon Karen Madej The Secret Aspirant Paul Myers MBA James Knight Jenine Bsharah Baines Rebecca Romanelli Caroline de Braganza Melinda Blau Esther George Stuart Englander Sherry McGuinn P.G. Barnett Salvatore Cagliari Linda Caroll Adelia Ritchie Klara Jane Holloway