Clueless Democrats Ignore Insight of Stephen Macedo

Stephen Macedo. The New Right v. the Constitution
(Washington: Cato Institute, 1987)

"When conservatives like [Robert] Bork treat rights as islands surrounded by a sea of government powers, they precisely reverse the view of the Founders as enshrined in the Constitution, wherein government powers are limited and specified and rendered as islands surrounded by a sea of individual rights."
- Stephen Macedo. The New Right v. the Constitution (Washington: Cato Institute, 1987)

Bork and his tyrannical vision were defeated in the U.S. Senate in 1987.

But Bork won at the Court this term, as Democrats floundered and drowned in identity politics and incompetence.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden seems oblivious on how to proceed.

Asked this morning if codifying Roe or abolishing the filibuster to help protect women's reproductive choice are the offing, Biden replied, "I am not prepared to make those judgements now."

America Entrusted Roe to Democrats; Party and Identity Politics Pissed Choice Away

Democrats Are Incompetent

Update: Biden says, "I am not prepared to make those judgements now," on codifying Roe or abolishing filibuster to help protect women's reproductive choice.
Actually, now would be a good time to make those "judgements."
---
Chants of "Do something, Democrats," rang out in D.C. last night, Reuters reports.

Wrong party. Democrats don't do things.

The chants for action took place at a demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court following the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion eviscerating Roe v. Wade, (Politico) in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, designed by activists to overturn Roe.

Following oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in Dec 2021, Democrat senators vowed that they may be open to considering and looking at the issue of not doing "nothing."

Seriously, that was the Democrat reaction last year.

As millions of women stand to lose their right to choose, that's the best congressional Democrats and Pres Biden could do, as reported by the Washington Post last Dec, four months ago.

Here's a quote from a leading Democrat senator exemplifying Democrat floundering on the proposed effort to expand the number of Court justices: "I’m not ready to say we need to change the number of justices," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said. "[W]e need to take a look at how the court functions."

Morons.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg refused to resign after being diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in 2013, to Democrat cheers. Way to live female empowerment, Ginsberg, a critic of Roe, who seven years later bequeathed her seat to a lifelong foe of reproductive choice.

Hillary Clinton and corporatist Democrats rigged the 2016 Democrat precedential primary. Female empowerment, right? Trump nominated three Court justices, the margin Supreme Court politicians needed to reverse Roe.

If you believe the loss of reproductive choice will goad Democrats into action to safeguard reproductive rights, you are deranged.

I don’t want to hear one Democrat whine or fundraise or talk about how the Republicans are big bad meanies today. I want to hear how they’re going to use their power to codify and protect reproductive rights. I don’t want their sympathy; I want their battle plans.

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) May 3, 2022

On Biden SCOTUS Nominee, A Black Mass Is Coming

In coming months, Joe Biden will nominate a new justice to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Few anticipate lofty consideration from the Biden White House, or meaningful United States Senate deliberation to fill this Court vacancy, as another American institution plummets to the level of Saudi Arabian police squads or Israeli prison guards.

So, the nomination and confirmation will be an ornate charade performed in the U.S. Capitol Building, from whence CNN and MSNBC will intone on its importance in the affirmation of democratic processes.

But the confirmation fight will not be the stuff of 1987 Robert Bork nomination battles, and citizens pressuring Senate votes against a nominee out of step on civil liberties, labor rights and the environment.

Most Americans have these concerns, but today's Democratic Party is the Bork Party of corporatists and police, with a stilted concern on the right to choose, unless choice causes contemplation on changing the Court, or conflicts with identity politics.

The 2022 Court nomination and confirmation will still be Summer fun, but the type of fun my wife has when she endures watching the Super Bowl. She's more interested in the half-time show and commercials than the game itself.

A Democratic Party that somehow manages to make voting rights seem a distraction will, without question, manage to make a sacred nomination and confirmation process a defiled and fetid affair, as black identity politics rears its head.

That the confirmation fight will occur in an architectural marvel such as the U.S. Capitol seems in a visceral way another comic episode of Veep as the Senate Chambers — that should cause anyone setting foot to soar as history and the people are foisted on the soul — becomes a pit of cynicism and malice.

Already, the person of Rep. James Clyburn (Black-South Carolina) is assuring the White House that a blackish voice is needed, one Judge J. Michelle Childs, "who previously worked as a management-side lawyer," notes In These Times, and a 'throw them in prison' Democrat in rulings commonly overturned on appeal (The American Prospect).

Clyburn is the same boss who guided the architects of prison-state America, Hillary Clinton and Biden, to Democratic Primary victories. Good thing for Clyburn the 13th Amendment has that "punishment for crime" clause because Clyburn would not have a career without it.

As class politics and concern for working families are betrayed again, a new black face assures, everything is just fine.

Come Summer, witness the Capitol edifice touching the soul and refining it, as identity politics grind hope and humanism into musty dust.

You want to know how black identity politics will work with the Biden vow to nominate a black woman to the Court? See below:

I'm gonna post it again, because it bears repeating. pic.twitter.com/9Bweda5Vsv

— Dr. Claw (@DrClaw77) August 4, 2021

Democrats' Indescribably Obtuse, Do-nothing Reaction to Death of Women's Choice

As women lose their right to choose, the best congressional Democrats and Pres Biden can do, as reported by their leading cheerleader, is offer statements that they may be open to considering and looking at the issue but not doing anything. 

Democrats didn't say they are not going to do nothing; they said not doing nothing should be looked at. Confusing?

Read the Washington Post piece by Seung Min Kim, "More Democratic senators are willing to weigh changes to Supreme Court."

Following oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) says: "And so the question becomes, well, what do we do about [this partisan court]? I’m not sure. But I don’t think the answer is nothing." 

The not-nothing party is on the job now with its collective vow to consider not doing nothing, now that Roe will soon be gone.

Here's another quote from a different leading Democrat light: "I’m not ready to say we need to change the number of justices," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said. "[W]e need to take a look at how the court functions."

Here's another one: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.): "What happened yesterday forces all of us to rethink our views about the makeup of the court."

So, we have not doing nothing, looking at, and rethinking.

Why do Democrats talk this way? But it's not just talk.

Here's a hypothesis about the Democrat Party that can be tested by looking at the last time this collection of fit-to-be-strangled yahoos ran the federal government: Democrats don't really care about much beyond their self-aggrandizement, donor money and their personal piece of the pie.

Social media!, and not the corporate press, points out: Democrats did not even consider codifying Roe when they had unitary, super-majority control of government in 2009-2011.

Two years ago, in 2019, when Democrats appeared primed to take over Congress and the presidency, there was a buzz about coalescing, pledging and considering safeguarding women's choice.

How did that work out?

Someone asks me what to do about the corrupt judiciary and individual liberty, I say: Get rid of the corrupt bunch of yahoos on the Court, Congress and the Democrat-Republican parties.

Some free public relations advice: Discussion of the proposition that a woman is not entitled to autonomy of her body is to a sacrifice one's humanity.

It's a women's choice, end of fucking story.

Democrats Have Handed Us a Republican Supreme Court in the Name of Identity Politics

Update: Sen Cory Booker (D) refuses to commit to add seats to Supreme Court on Face the Nation. Democrats are already retreating.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have resigned in 2013.

But the identity-politics crowd convinced her she was a historical figure, a rock star difficult to replace, and who are we, mere mortals, to speak on culture-war royalty? 

As Shant Mesrobian writes this weekend: "Liberals scolding people for years about pressure on RBG to retire and casting her obstinacy as a sign of female empowerment is exactly what I mean when I say liberal elites prioritize the proliferation of culture war narratives over achieving political outcomes."

Liberals scolding people for years about pressure on RBG to retire and casting her obstinacy as a sign of female empowerment is exactly what I mean when I say liberal elites prioritize the proliferation of culture war narratives over achieving political outcomes.

— Shant Mesrobian (@ShantMM) September 19, 2020

That was one hell of a gamble by the identity-polities warriors. We the people lost.

An even worse losing gamble was rigging the 2016 Democratic Primary for Hillary Clinton for the glory of the first woman president.

Clinton was and remains a historically unpopular figure who clearly was a weak candidate in 2016.

But who are we to question the Democratic National Committee and the identify-politics crowd?

Thank you for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton.

Illustrations of identity-politics failures abound.

Now, we likely will have six hyper-activist rightwingers on the United States Supreme Court.

Will Senate Democrats fight?

I have my doubts. The Democratic Party remains the Clinton-Obama party.

The only choice the Democrats have is to shut down the U.S. Senate throwing the country into a deeper depression than we were heading; and Trump will posture that he wants an expanded stimulus greater than the lame Nancy Pelosi stimulus bill passed in the House.

Holding the country for hostage is the future: Give us another justice, or we kill the economy. 

This is the position we are in because the Democratic Party has hollowed out working families, and refuse to consider fighting because Clinton, Pelosi and Schumer say it's too expansive.

In 2021, Democrats will not fight for an expanded Court to off-set Republican usurpation. Fighting for the right thing, for us, is not what Democrats do. Joe Biden has never fought for us, and he sure will not start now.

Anybody who has watched Democrats for even one week let alone for years knows that there is exactly zero chance they would court-pack or do anything else meaningful in retaliation for the GOP replacing Ginsburg. It's 👏an 👏empty👏 threat issued for re-tweets and posturing. 👏 https://t.co/rsAq6fZ5Fc

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 19, 2020

The next several months are going to be witness to the most extreme examples of political and policy incompetence eclipsing anything in modern American history.

Innocent Brendan Dassey Waits in Wisconsin Prison — Wrongfully Convicted, Wrongfully Prosecuted

Corrupt Wisconsin police targeted the innocent to tragic
consequence. Image - Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz
is a major anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany, and
never recovered from the death of her son in WW I.

"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
—Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist (1898–1969)

Madison, Wisconsin—It's comforting to suppose a gentle ethic resides in Wisconsin, a decency standing ready to challenge betrayal such as defamation, child molestation, corruption, false imprisonment, torture and destruction of life.

This belief defends a lie.

This lie is perhaps the most striking message of the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docu series (Netflix, Inc), a work that holds Wisconsin up to the world and says, 'look what they have done' to a challenged, 16-year-old Brendan Dassey and an exonerated Steven Avery.

So, it is no surprise that it took a handful of out-of-state attorneys and journalists to give Messrs. Dassey and Avery hope  that exoneration is near.

One of those jurists is Seth Waxman, 41st Solicitor General of the United States (1997–2001).

A premier advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court the last 40 years, Waxman is defined more by his decency than his prominence as a litigator. See for example Waxman's work to preserve habeas corpus in 2007, (Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (06-1196)), (Center for Constitutional Rights).

Waxman appears to be animated by some core beliefs: That crucifixion of our fellows is wrong, and to bear witness is to incur an obligation to act, to think, to challenge and demand justification.

Few in the State Bar of Wisconsin seem to be animated by such concern — ethics. Rather, careerism and moral numbness define their collective passivity.

Waxman — a member of Brendan Dassey's legal team — said that when reviewing the outrageous interrogation of Dassey by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)), that his "blood ran cold."

Advocating a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019, Waxman said:

I have been a practicing lawyer since 1977. As part of my pro bono practice, in addition to representing juveniles in criminal justice proceedings, I represent death row inmates. Other than the almost seven years that I was in the Justice Dept, I've always had at least one client facing execution for a capital crime. I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent.

So, why Waxman's involvement and not the involvement or at least support of 100s of Wisconsin attorneys?

I don't pretend to know what is in Seth Waxman's heart. But I have seen hints.

Waxman made some comments at the Bernard G. Segal Memorial Lecture in Law and Ethics, April 10, 2018, explaining what animates his 1,000s of hours of pro bono work and legal advocacy since he became an attorney.

Waxman recalled attorney John Joseph Cassidy, a "cheerful and very engaged Roman Catholic," who sat with him in 1977, and asked:

'Why do you think that [religious] Jews and Jesuits are so drawn to the law?'

And, at the time, I didn't think I knew any Jesuits.

He (senior partner John Joseph Cassidy) said, that he was convinced that Jews and Jesuits excelled at the law because they both come from religious traditions steeped in wrestling with the meaning and application of God's law — a muscular intellectual engagement with religious texts.

And it is true over the course of my career, it' s actually impossible to count the number of times that the terms, Talmudic and Jesuitical, have been used to characterize particularly detailed discussions about how a specific legal principle should be interpreted or applied.

Thus, one can conclude, Waxman believes a religious and moral sensibility guides the role of lawyers during a time of lawlessness in the greater society.

I'm grateful for Seth Waxman's work for the innocent.

And to my many friends who are members of the Wisconsin Bar, I ask today for them to listen at some point to the words of Seth Waxman advocating for the innocent, video below.

To help with the Dassey commutation and pardon petition now before Gov Evers, see the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Bluhm Legal Clinic, Wrongful Convictions of Youth.

Specifically, all Wisconsin citizens are urged to write a letter in support of Brendan Dassey's petition for a pardon or commutation.

Letter should be addressed to:

Governor Tony Evers
115 East
State Capitol
Madison, WI 53702

Seth Waxman advocating for clemency for Brendan Dassey on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin. Video is below; [See also Bring Brendan Home.]:

Wisconsin Souls Betray the Innocent — Thanksgiving 2019

Corrupt Wisconsin police targeted the innocent to tragic
consequence. Image - Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz
is a major anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany, and
never recovered from the death of her son in WW I.

"I hate injustice. I guess that's about the only thing I really do hate."
—Ben Shahn, anti-fascist artist (1898–1969)

Madison, Wisconsin—It's comforting to suppose a gentle ethic resides in Wisconsin, a decency standing ready to challenge betrayal such as defamation, child molestation, corruption, false imprisonment, torture and destruction of life.

This belief defends a lie.

This lie is perhaps the most striking message of the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docu series (Netflix, Inc), a work that holds Wisconsin up to the world and says, 'look what they have done' to a challenged 16-year-old Brendan Dassey and an exonerated Steven Avery.

So, it is no surprise that it took a handful of out-of-state attorneys and journalists to give Messrs. Dassey and Avery hope, even cautions optimism, that exoneration is near.

One of those jurists is Seth Waxman, 41st Solicitor General of the United States (1997–2001).

A premier advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court the last 40 years, Waxman is defined more by his decency than his prominence as a litigator. See for example Waxman's work to preserve habeas corpus in 2007, (Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. United States (06-1196)), (Center for Constitutional Rights).

Waxman appears to be animated by some core beliefs: That crucifixion of our fellows is wrong, and to bear witness is to incur an obligation to act, to think, to challenge and demand justification.

Few in the State Bar of Wisconsin seem to be animated by such concern — ethics. Rather, careerism and moral numbness define their collective passivity.

Waxman — a member of Brendan Dassey's legal team — said that when reviewing the outrageous interrogation of Dassey by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)), that his "blood ran cold."

Advocating a pardon or commutation for Dassey from Gov Tony Evers on Oct 2, 2019, Waxman said:

I have been a practicing lawyer since 1977. As part of my pro bono practice, in addition to representing juveniles in criminal justice proceedings, I represent death row inmates. Other than the almost seven years that I was in the Justice Dept, I've always had at least one client facing execution for a capital crime. I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent.

So, why Waxman's involvement and not the involvement or at least support of 100s of Wisconsin attorneys?

I don't pretend to know what is in Seth Waxman's heart. But I have seen hints.

Waxman made some comments at the Bernard G. Segal Memorial Lecture in Law and Ethics, April 10, 2018, explaining what animates his 1,000s of hours of pro bono work and legal advocacy since he became an attorney.

Waxman recalled attorney John Joseph Cassidy, a "cheerful and very engaged Roman Catholic," who sat with him in 1977, and asked:

'Why do you think that [religious] Jews and Jesuits are so drawn to the law?'

And, at the time, I didn't think I knew any Jesuits.

He (senior partner John Joseph Cassidy) said, that he was convinced that Jews and Jesuits excelled at the law because they both come from religious traditions steeped in wrestling with the meaning and application of God's law — a muscular intellectual engagement with religious texts.

And it is true over the course of my career, it' s actually impossible to count the number of times that the terms, Talmudic and Jesuitical, have been used to characterize particularly detailed discussions about how a specific legal principle should be interpreted or applied.

Thus, one can conclude, Waxman believes a religious and moral sensibility guides the role of lawyers during a time of lawlessness in the greater society.

I'm grateful for Seth Waxman's work for the innocent this Thanksgiving Day.

And to my many friends who are members of the Wisconsin Bar, I ask today for them to listen at some point to the words of Seth Waxman advocating for the innocent, video below.

To help with the Dassey commutation and pardon petition now before Gov Evers, see the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law; Bluhm Legal Clinic, Wrongful Convictions of Youth.

Specifically, all Wisconsin citizens are urged to write a letter in support of Brendan Dassey's petition for a pardon or commutation.

Letter should be addressed to:

Governor Tony Evers
115 East
State Capitol
Madison, WI 53702

Seth Waxman advocating for clemency for Brendan Dassey on Oct 2, 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin. Video is below; [See also Bring Brendan Home.]:

I went to visit Brendan last night & he wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving..
Here a little note he wrote to everyone. pic.twitter.com/hrgYLimGXH

— Carla Chase (@averydassey) November 27, 2019

Trump Mocks Kavanaugh Accuser as GOP Promises Confirmation Vote

Donald Trump and Republicans will not let credible sexual assault accusations and Brett Kavanaugh's torrent of lies detour his successful Senate confirmation vote.

The Republican Party is a white supremacist, misogynistic, indecent faction of America.

Three Republican U.S. senators will decide the future of liberties, as determined by a rightwing United States Supreme Court.

"[I]f I were a senator, I would vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation. I would do it both because of Ford’s testimony and because of Kavanaugh’s. For reasons I will describe, I find her account more believable than his. I would also do it because whatever the truth of what happened in the summer of 1982, Thursday’s hearing left Kavanaugh nonviable as a justice, writes Benjamin Wittes in The Atlantic.

As the Republican Party looks to pull off a coup, Kavanaugh could have killed and raped people, and Trump, looking to the rightwing for help, would press on.

Watch these 3 men at Trump’s Mississippi campaign rally laugh and laugh as Trump does a mocking impersonation of Dr Blasey Ford describing her sexual assault. pic.twitter.com/kRZPuW36wo

— John Aravosis 🇺🇸 (@aravosis) October 3, 2018

In the last 12 hours we've seen Trump cruelly ridicule #DrChristineBlaseyFord so his fans could laugh at her + GOP Sen Chuck Grassley release a letter "slut shaming" Julie Swetnick saying she can't be believed because she enjoyed having sex with men. This is today's GOP.

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) October 3, 2018

Brett Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings Veer into Absurd Comedy

Saturday Night Live is necessary to process the pro-
rape faction attempting a take over of the United States.
Above is a head shot of Matt Damon offering a
brilliant depiction of Brett Kavanaugh's appearance
before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

Meticulous journalism is insufficient to describe the macabre affair of the rapist wanna-be nominee to the United States Supreme Court.

Committed to the state taking away a woman's right to choose, and other liberties deemed threatening to the Republican Party, Brett Kavanaugh's denial of attempted rape before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary left civilized Americans traumatized and outraged.

Saturday Night Live is necessary, truly.
---
The Intercept has consistently offered the most insightful coverage of Kavanaugh, a partisan and personally repulsive figure, leading America into a land of permanent Republican rule.

Mehdi Hasan writes today on solutions:

Only a new FBI investigation into Ford’s allegations, time-limited to a week, now stands in the way of Donald Trump entrenching a hard-right conservative majority on the Supreme Court for a generation or more.

To be clear, such a majority on the Court would be an utter disaster for women, for people of color, and for the poor. One upside of Kavanaugh’s raw and angry rant on Thursday—he referred to the Democrats on the panel as 'you people,' a 'disgrace,' and accused them of exacting 'revenge on behalf of the Clintons'—is that it exposed the Court for what it is, a partisan on the political battlefield, not a disinterested defender of the Constitution.

So it’s past time for liberals and the left to consider court packing: When they next have control of the House, the Senate and the White House, Democrats should add at least two new seats to the Supreme Court and then fill them, ideally, with left-wing and well-qualified women of color. They could even call it 'court balancing.'

'Pack the courts as soon as we get the chance,' tweeted Indiana University law professor Ian Samuels, the co-host of the popular Supreme Court podcast First Mondays, on the the day Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in June. 'Pack the courts' should be a phrase on par with‘abolish ICE.'

This might sound extreme – but it isn’t. The Constitution allows for Congress to decide on the number of Supreme Court justices. 'There is nothing magical about the number nine,' HuffPost’s Zach Carter observed in June. 'The court was founded in 1789 with just six justices and has included as many as 10, from 1863 to 1866 — when a Republican legislature intentionally shrank the court size to seven justices to prevent President Andrew Johnson from making any appointments.'

Do not believe for a moment that even at this time of maximum peril, the Democratic Party necessarily knows the stakes.

Most, if not all, social questions would be decided without regard to the general welfare and the rule of law. Much of the progress made in the United States in the past 150 years would be eroded, including civil rights, women's rights, workers' rights, and other liberties we take for granted.

Raising Brett Kavanaugh to the highest court in the land is the fulfillment of the Republicans' long game.

As David Brock has stated, "I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights. But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us."

Making a Murderer Victim Is Denied Hearing from United States Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court denies the petition of
Brandan Dassey, an innocent who will remain in prison for
life. Case is highlighted at the bottom of above Court image.

Wisconsin Republicans lead defense for wrongful convictions such as Dassey's

The United States Supreme Court will not hear the case of Brendan Dassay, who was coerced as a 16-year-old into uttering a false confession that is featured in the 2015 Making a Murderer documentaries.

The so-called confession is the sole basis for the conviction of Dassey. The interrogation was conducted by demonstrably corrupt and dishonest investigators who promised Dassey that he could go back to his high-school class if he could just clear up a question. This led to Dassey’s conviction in the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach.

Writes atty Jerome Buting in May:

So WI Department of "Justice" doesn't care about justice in Brendan's case. They want him to rot in prison because they can't admit they went after innocent 16 yr old boy to convict his uncle.#makingamurderer#cjreform https://t.co/hLxeFy3MfC

— Jerome Buting (@JButing) May 10, 2018

The Court refused to grant cert in Dassey's petition, and its refusal came with a simple list of cases denied, a quiet snuffing out of a man's life, (highlighted at bottom of image, at right).

Wisconsin law enforcement, as with the rest of the nation, attracts Republicans and criminal personality types for whom prosecuting and imprisoning innocent people is seen a means to establish careers and gratifying a need to harm people.

The United States Supreme Court denies the petition of
Brandan Dassey, an innocent who will remain in prison for
life. Case is highlighted at the bottom of above Court image.

The Dassey case is featured along with another wrongful prosecution, Steven Avery, in the Making a Murderer series.

Len Kachinsky, Dassey's attorney, threw Dassey, a cognitively challenged 16-year-old, to two criminal investigators, Mark Wiegert, (sergeant at the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator), who in 2005 weren't looking for the truth but trying to get Dassey to mutter words portrayed as admissions of guilt and supporting a lurid, contrived tale of guilt of Avery in the revenge prosecution (Ferek, Appleton Post-Crescent).

Wiegert, Fassbender and former District Attorney and sex offender Ken Kratz contrived a case against two men whom they knew to be innocent.

Republican-led state police organizations in 2008 awarded Wiegert and Fassbender actual awards for their work in railroading innocent people.

As noted here previously, in America there exists a hostile and deceitful domestic police force, a careerist, conviction-at-any-costs prosecutorial ethos, racism and taboo ethics in the criminal justice system, and a commitment of district attorneys to defend wrongful convictions irrespective of truth or any consideration of justice present conditions perfect for mass incarceration constituting a "leviathan unmatched in human history," (Glenn C. Loury, Boston Review).

We're there, people.

Consider if your daughter, brother, father or mother were wrongfully convicted. Who stands with you then?

Think it could not happen to you? It happened to Penny Brummer in 1994, a young military veteran wrongfully convicted by a Dane County jury because in part she is an out lesbian.

Ask the family of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska, 1968-2009) (1923-2010), (Cary, Rollcall). The reader will have a full-blooded understanding of a Brady violation.

Ask the mother of Madison, Wisconsin's Penny Brummer: Interrogated, defamed, arrested, convicted and sentenced to what amounts to a life sentence.

Contrary to popular wisdom we live in a land of the Sovereign (the people of the state and not the law) and bad faith and deceit on the part of law enforcement are a huge part of the problem.

I'm thankful for the Richard Posners, the Sidney Powells (there is a force of nature), and the Alex Kozinski for shining lights on not a democracy, but a brutal prison state. And am always mindful of I.F. Stone's admonition: "Every government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed." First read this quote in 1985 on a large poster that used to occupy a prominent place of the late Erwin Knoll's (NYT) wall at the Progressive Magazine, a journal carrying out this legacy and reporting the truth to this day.

The only route for Dassey now is a pardon from a new Wisconsin governor if one is elected in November. It's a long shot.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Election—Tim Burns Towers over Two Opponents

Comment such as that above leave Tim Burns, candidate
for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, labeled a heretic.
The National Review today calls Burns a "Sandernista."

Finally, a, Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate calls bull-shite on this farce

Madison, Wisconsin—There is a case decided in 2001 by the nation's highest appellate court that instructs the Wisconsin Supreme Court primary on Feb. 20.

Atwater V. Lago Vista is a Fourth Amendment case in which a mother and her two young children, three- and five-years old, were pulled over by an over-zealous Texas cop, verbally abused, and arrested in front of multiple, gathering witnesses who all confirmed the same story: Young children were traumatized and cried, as their mother was arrested by a vicious police officer for a traffic violation.

"The question is whether the Fourth Amendment forbids a warrant-less arrest for a minor criminal offense, such as a misdemeanor seat-belt violation punishable only by a fine. We hold that it does not," the United States Supreme Court held 5-4

A powerful dissent by Justices O’Connor, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer notes the demise of the Fourth Amendment right to privacy and security in this "severe intrusion on an individual’s liberty," (as custodial arrests are), in a decision preceding 9/11 by five months, after which for other reasons: Good bye, Fourth Amendment and hello, American police state.

Atwater is animated by a general disdain the state and federal courts have towards the liberties of Americans against police incursions. For all the fluff about 'land of the free,' after Atwater, the Fourth Amendment barely exists today.

With respect to the Wisconsin Supreme Court election tomorrow, three candidates are on the ballot, two of whom will continue as candidates in the April 3 Spring general election.

Only one candidate, Tim Burns, cares about the liberties and humanity of Gail Atwater of Texas, brutalized by a cop.

Tim Burns

Tim Burns, has made concern for citizens against powerful interests the basis of his campaign.

The only appellate attorney in the race, Burns acclaims the primacy of voters' rights, the right to safe, clean water, civil liberties and citizens' right to an impartial judiciary among other liberties that 20 years ago were not controversial in Wisconsin.

Rebecca Dallet

Rebecca Dallet is a judge pretending the Wisconsin Supreme Court is a trial court.

Dallet's tendency to mislead the electorate plays well politically with some of the state Party and legal establishment.

But Dallet's record belies her claim to instructive experience for Wisconsin's top appellate court, as a bulwark for citizen liberties against unlawful lower courts, and the corporation and police interests for whom jurists like Dallet work.

Dallet is the presiding judge in Wisconsin v. Ryan Erik Diggins, (2003), (overturned on appeal)), in which Dallet found blacks leaning against a wall were engaging in suspicious conduct because racist Milwaukee police said so.

Under Dallet's black-hence-suspicious theory of liberty and people, one can understand how America has evolved into a police state.

Dallet is the problem, so it's no surprise Dallet donated $2,500 to he Koch brothers' chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

This is how Dallet thinks about the world, a land with little rights dominated by Koch brothers-approved stooges.

Michael P. Screnock

Michael P. Screnock is manifestly unqualified, directly funded by corporate Wisconsin. In the Republicans' view of Wisconsin, privacy and liberty claims are of no moment.

This is a moment for Wisconsin.

But if 15 percent of the electorate votes on Feb. 20, I will be quite surprised.

Making of a Murderer Appellate Decision Shows American Police State at Work

Image -Kathe Kollwitz, (1867-1945). Kollwitz is a major
anti-fascist artist who lived in Germany.

Update: Judges David Hamilton, Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit are dishonest people. Hamilton in his rush to reverse the federal court decision that would have freed Brendan Dassey confused Bobby Dassey with his older brother, Brendan Dassey. JFC. Critical reading.
---
When Richard Posner announced his resignation from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in September 2017, it was clear real people would get hurt in his absence from the bench.

Posner blew the whistle on the federal judiciary, telling Adam Liptak in the New York Times that judges are not-so-judicious and often vicious: "there are others who are just, you know, reactionary beasts. They’re reactionary beasts because they want to manipulate the statutes and the Constitution in their own way," said Posner.

Posner had people like the innocent-and-convicted-anyway Brendan Dassey in mind.

Dassey was railroaded by east-central Wisconsin human garbage and convicted of crimes of which the cops knew Dassey to be innocent. The case drew outrage after it was featured in Making of a Murderer.

The conviction was reversed this year in federal court. Now, reactionary beasts on the Seventh Circuit reinstated the conviction in (16-3397), Dassey v. Dittman last week.

There is almost never accountability for the inhumane infliction against the innocent. Police and prosecutors remain immune to virtually any crime they inflict.

In Dassey v. Dittman, Judges David Hamilton, Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit are reactionary beasts, dishonestly and indifferently snuffing out an innocent, young life.

I wish Posner had been around for just a few months more.

Writes James Warren:

It's ironic — maybe tragic — that Richard Posner, generally conceded to be perhaps the most influential judge-academic of his generation and the most influential judge not on the Supreme Court, suddenly and surprisingly quit the Chicago appeals court and retired in September at a still prolific 78. If he were around, the odds are that he would have voted with the dissenters, made it 4-4 and thus affirmed the earlier reversal of Dassey's conviction.

But no. Dassey will remain in prison, it would appear, until he dies. It might prompt you to download the Netflix series. And, as you watch, be reminded of the strengths of journalism — but how even the most meticulously detailed conclusions can lead ultimately to exasperation, not satisfaction, and precious little attention. 

So, an innocent life is extinguished, Dassey is gone, unless the United States Supreme Court accepts his case when it's appealed.

Exasperation, disgust, and revulsion are features thinking people note in examining the United States criminal justice system. These are not emotions in this context, they're a formless creature of malice and indifference that is the American criminal justice system that exudes what it inflicts.

Whether the victim is Penny Brummer, or Brendan Dassey, the perpetrators are cops and prosecutors, and we are mostly by-standers.

Mueller Team Investigating Trump-Campaign-Russia Has Fixable Problem

Updated - A Reuters report by Karen Freifeld this morning notes the prosecutorial experience of two members of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller's team: Andrew Weissmann and Kathryn Ruemmler, (New York Times).

Weissman and Ruemmler have garnered plaudits, yet, Weissman and Ruemmler share a troubled history as prosecutors. One wonders why this history does not inform national reporting as indictment Summer begins.

Freifeld's Reuters report notes of Andrew Weissman that he "headed the U.S. Justice Department's criminal fraud section before joining Mueller's team last month, is best known for two assignments - the investigation of now-defunct energy company Enron and organized crime cases in Brooklyn, New York - that depended heavily on gaining witness cooperation."

Omitted is Weissman's conduct on the Enron Task Force that to any fair observer is appalling. Ever hear of the proven innocent James Arthur Brown of Merrill Lynch? Likely not. Bill Fuhs?

Bill Fuhs was pursued by Weissman and colleagues under the ludicorus "honest services" provision of a federal wire fraud statute, (Powell, Enron Barge). Brown was later proven innocent, and on two counts was effectively relieved of the charge stacking-induced perjury and obstruction of justice criminal counts in 2015. [If you live in Wisconsin, mention of honest services may bring to mind the corrupt prosecution of the proven innocent Georgia Thompson in 2007, (U.S. v. Georgia L. Thompson, argued and decided on April 5, 2007))]

Bill Fuhs should never have been indicted, and the prosecutions are a stain on the United States Department of Justice and the American federal judiciary.

Consider as well Kathryn Ruemmler of the Mueller team.

As noted by one of the nation's foremost federal appellate attorneys, Sidney Powell, Ruemmler ignored the mandates of the Brady Rule to disclose exculpatory evidence in the same criminal persecution that her colleague, Andrew Weissmann pursued, in the Enron mania:

They, [Weissmann and Kathryn Ruemmler], not only hid the exculpatory evidence they had yellow-highlighted, [revealing intent of prosecutors to ignore clear evidence], but in defiance of a court order, they gave the defendants misleading summaries instead.

Even the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, whose record on the Enron Task Force’s trials was embarrassing at best with several Supreme Court reversals, held that Ruemmler and her team 'plainly suppressed' evidence favorable to the defense. That finding establishes a clear violation of ethical rule 3.8–not to mention the Supreme Court’s admonition that the United States Attorney 'seek justice.' This is NOT what we would call 'impeccable legal credentials' or 'impeccable judgment'–unless that kind of calculated dishonesty and win-at-any-cost mentality is exactly what you want. Indeed, why is she still practicing law?, (Seeking Justice).

Staffing up one of the most monumental investigative units in American history is not off to an even start.

Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to this republic.

So, why is Robert S. Mueller even considering Andrew Weissmann and Kathryn Ruemmler when their records reveal they pursued innocents, acted without regard to ethics, effectively betraying our country no less?

Trump's PR messages now is that Robert Mueller's investigative dream team is engaging in a withhunt.

With Weissmann and Ruemmleron on the team, the accusation has at least prior plausibility.

My god, Robert Mueller, please don't screw this up. Staff should be beyond reproach.

Consider that prosecutors who pursue innocents without regard to ethics and human decency do not pay a price in their careers at the United States Department of Justice, American law, or society broadly.

Prosecutors should pay a price.

The valuation of this price ought not lead to blotching the pursuit of justice of the most dangerous man on the planet, President Donald Trump, who after-all retains the rights of the innocent as he is being investigated by the United States Department of Justice under the color of law.
-- Both Bill Fuhs and James Brown were among those prosecuted by the Enron Task Force.

Justices' Remarks on Same-Sex Marriage Are Foolish and Ahistorical

American University students at Court, part
of #SCOTUSmarriage! (Freedom to Marry)

Update II: See Hiltzik, Same-sex marriage: Supreme Court Justices don't know much about history.

Update: See Judge Richard Posner's opinion: on "Mindless Tradition," and "Bigotry" that struck down Wisconsin and Indiana's same sex marriage bans.
 ---
"This definition [of traditional marriage] has been with us for millennia," [Justice Anthony Kennedy] said. "And it’s very difficult for the court to say, 'Oh, well, we know better.'" (Barnes, Barbash, Washington Post) (Baker, New York Times)

The NYT's Baker notes that several justices echoed Kennedy's expressed concerns in oral argument of Obergefell v. Hodge (Question 1, Oral transcript).

What is troubling is that none of the four statist justices—Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts—expected to rule in favor of states' power to discriminate against individuals' right to simple equality in marriage have a subtle understanding of history on the matter. Thomas was silent during orals, but has demonstrated his abiding hostility towards minorities.

Marriage has changed through history, and across societies. Eighteen counties today have approved the freedom of individuals to marry. (Freedom to Marry) Criminalization of gay marriage "includes most Muslim-majority countries and much of sub-Saharan Africa," (Fisher, Washington Post) and is a mark of authoritarian and totalitarian states.

In the United States "Marriage today is not what it was under the common law tradition, under the civil law tradition. Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female. That ended as a result of this Court's decision in 1982 when Louisiana's Head and Master Rule was struck down. And no State was allowed to have such a -- such a marriage anymore.  Would that be a choice that a State should be allowed to have?" chided Justice Ginsburg. (pp. 70,71)

In the Dark Ages and Nazi Germany the state sought to abolish gays, citing the unclean nature of gays and lack of usefulness to the state:

"On April 4, 1938, the Gestapo issued a directive indicating that men convicted of homosexuality could be incarcerated in concentration camps. Between 1933 and 1945 the police arrested an estimated 100,000 men as homosexuals. Most of the 50,000 men sentenced by the courts spent time in regular prisons, and between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps. ... The Nazis interned some homosexuals in concentration camps immediately after the seizure of power in January 1933. Those interned came from all areas of German society, and often had only the cause of their imprisonment in common. Some homosexuals were interned under other categories by mistake, and the Nazis purposefully miscategorized some political prisoners as homosexuals. Prisoners marked by pink triangles to signify homosexuality were treated harshly in the camps. According to many survivor accounts, homosexuals were among the most abused groups in the camps." (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

As the Dark Ages and Nazi Germany present extreme examples of animus and ignorance, one wonders if those justices foolishly using the universe of all societies through millennia as a justification for not protecting the rights of minorities mean to exclude these nonsensical and obscene states. How about Russia today?

Norman Cohn wrote of the totalitarian phenomenon as "the urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil."

When Kennedy asked, "well, we know better," the answer is clear: 'Yes, we do.' Well, most of us do.

Kennedy's confusion is apparent as he is expected to rule in June for the right of Americans to marry because there is no rational basis for the state to deprive Americans from marrying another of the same sex. (Denniston, SCOTUSBlog)

There is only nonsensical hostility and injurious treatment.

Why Kennedy finds this difficult for the Court to state is mystifying.

Scalia Around the Bend in ObamaCare Law Case

Updated - "To reject the government’s defense of the law, the justices would have to suspend their own settled approach to statutory interpretation as well as their often-stated view of how Congress should act toward the states."

I have no doubt that the justices who cast the necessary votes to add King v. Burwell to the court’s docket were happy to help themselves to a second chance to do what they couldn’t quite pull off three years ago. To those justices, I offer the same advice I give my despairing friends: Read the briefs. If you do, and you proceed to destroy the Affordable Care Act nonetheless, you will have a great deal of explaining to do — not to me, but to history. (Greenhouse, NYT) (See also Moncrieff, The New Republic; and Lithwick, Slate)
 ---
Justice Antonin Scalia may be playing devil's advocate or he may just be playing, not taking too seriously the lives and health of Americans.

In Oral arguments in King v. Burwell, Scalia is enjoying himself contemplating millions of Americans losing their health insurance because of a four-word phrase that comports less-than-perfectly with a nearly 1,000-page law, the Affordable Care Act, but fits well to sensible, fair-minded jurists. (Barnes, Washington Post)

It's a game for Scalia and his brand of jurisprudence, an incoherent game with no rules but a game nevertheless.

Scalia's intellectual legal nemesis, Richard Posner, in his book Reflections on Judging (Harvard University Press. 2013) notes Scalia's appetite for "'gotcha' jurisprudence" (p.182).

Scalia is a goof. But he may have to go along with his betters this time.

From SCOTUSBlog:

After the Solicitor General briefly discussed the standing issue, he outlined the government’s two broad arguments on the merits. The first is that the government’s interpretation of the statute, which makes subsidies available on exchanges created by both the states and HHS, is the best way to give meaning to all the words of the statute. The second point is that the government’s reading “is compelled by” the structure and design of the statute–specifically that it was designed to ensure state flexibility in setting up exchanges, to avert death spirals, and to provide affordable care for all. He argued that in light of these goals, Congress simply could not have intended for the statute to function as intended.

That provoked an immediate and sharp response from Justice Scalia, who said that “of course” Congress could have enacted a statute that functions the way petitioners describe. Justice Scalia then engaged the Solicitor General in a back and forth about whether statutes can ever be written in less-than-optimal ways, and about whether they can ever be nonsensical. The argument implicit in the questioning was that even if Congress wanted to enact a law that works, it doesn’t mean that it actually did so. In that sense, Justice Scalia seemed to be drawing an even harder line than the petitioners.

... Justice Scalia’s questions are very interesting in light of recent statements he’s made reiterating that statutes should be read as a whole. Of course, the government urges such a reading in this case, arguing that a holistic reading supports its view of the subsidy provisions, but the petitioners make whole-statute arguments as well even as they emphasize the particular words in Section 36B that support their argument most clearly.

Book Review: The Federal Prosecutor, An American Horror Story

Licensed to Lie by former Assistant
United States Attorney and Chief of
of the Appellate Section for the
Western and Northern Districts of Texas,
U.S. Department of Justice

At no time in modern American legal history has this book been needed as urgently.

"Overcriminalization is a dangerous trend that should alarm everyone. With over 4,450 crimes scattered throughout the federal code, and hundreds of thousands more hidden in federal regulations, “doing the right thing” just isn’t enough to keep you on the right side of the law. Every day people can become overcriminalization victims in a heartbeat and the consequences can be devastating," notes the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

In Sidney Powell's Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (Brown Books Publishing Group, 2014) the villain is the United States Department of Justice and a host of federal judges.

In tales rivaling legal thrillers by John Grisham, Ms. Powell cogently lays out stories of death, and corruption plaguing the DoJ in this non-fiction account of the betrayal of America.

The stories are familiar to us as recent history—the Enron collapse and the wrongful prosecution of a beloved U.S. Senator—but what we think we know is turned on its head.

With this work, the former federal prosecutor and appellate attorney Ms. Powell stands among the great whistleblowers in modern American history as she exposes the injustices and inhumanities perpetrated by the self-aggrandizing members of two federal DoJ Task Forces, who had a license to lie and destroy innocent lives.

Many jurists already know of Sidney Powell's brilliance and dedication, and Licensed to Lie should be required reading for every high school political science class, every undergraduate college constitutional law class and is a must-read for any American with a passing interest in freedom.

No one reading this work—with a jaw-dropping foreword written by Judge Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—can do so without being appalled.

Ms. Powell working in various capacities in defense of the innocent faced down prosecutors acting as a veritable Star Chamber in some instances, aided by an oppressive judiciary, unyielding and obtuse.

Powell names the names, and tells the facts, and nothing in the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) ought to be the same after this story is told of criminal justice as an American horror story.

Lawful duties of federal prosecutors such as the disclosure of exculpatory information to the defense (the Brady Rule), were abandoned in the quest to secure criminal convictions of innocent people.

In roughly the same timeframe as the Enron Task Force, DoJ prosecutors from the Public Integrity Section (PIN) of Main Justice targeted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska; 1968-2009) in a prosecution so contrived, the presiding federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, ordered a special prosecutor empaneled to investigate the prosecution.

The DoJ PIN in this period operated an ongoing investigation into alleged public corruption in Alaska, nicknamed Polar PEN, begun in 2004.

Sidney Powell chronicles the criminal prosecutions and miscarriage of justice committed by Polar PEN, resulting in at least one suicide, the unlawful and wrongful 2008 conviction (later set aside at the request of Attorney General Eric Holder in 2009) of World War II hero and Senator Ted Stevens in a repulsive tableau of prosecutorial misconduct.

"I wondered how much the Enron Task Force had collaborated with the Polar Pen prosecutors and  who had concocted all of these overly creative cases without crimes as bogus 'honest services' allegations. The prosecutors had obviously cross-pollinated to produce baseless crimes and tortured law in both major investigations. The Enron Task Force cabal had about a two-year head start on Polar PEN, but the investigators and prosecutions overlapped for several years," writes Powell. (pp. 238-239)

Similar cases of prosecutorial torture of federal statute occurred in the contemporaneous U.S. Attorneys scandal as the creative employment of the Honest Services statute was used by unscrupulous U.S. attorneys such as Steven Biskupic.

Honest services. This is an ironic statute used by prosecutors who have no conception of honesty and even less regard for public service.

We can be grateful to Judge Richard Posner, of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, for writing an important opinion this last January (Fields v. Wharrie, 2014) establishing the right of the wrongfully convicted to sue corrupt prosecutors, who in Posner's opinion, no longer enjoy the absolute immunity used by prosecutors as a license to lie.

Every prosecutor who withheld exculpatory evidence, as demonstrated by Powell, should face a civil action.

Powell's appellate brief on Honest Services devastated the DoJ's use of its myriad honest services prosecutions, but Powell’s work is about the innocent and the prosecutors, guilty of betrayal.

Someone should write about Sidney Powell, the advocate from the south who just blew the lid off the hidden history of the judiciary and the American prosecutor.

(A longer version of this review appeared here in April 2014.)