First, thinking outside the box: get over it; we were never a united country.
We have to accept that we were never united; we were divided at the signing of the Constitution, with seven northern states and five southern states that disagreed and did not trust each other. The billionaires would like you to believe otherwise, that we were a united, homogeneous group. We were not, and as we expanded to our present size, we became more diverse in the communities our immigrants established. Areas of our country are as diverse as Switzerland is from Germany, and our delusional belief that we can unite is wrong and has caused much fiction. Russia also tried to create an all-inclusive country, with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics trying to control and unite 15 republics until 1991, when it collapsed, and the 15 states became free again. The USSR lasted 70 years, from 1922 to 1991. I know we fought in the Second World War as the United States of America, and we are proud of that, but our troops were not integrated, and we still had massive segregation, and the returning soldiers were not treated the same. Our country is blessed with exceptional resources, and as a result, our country prospered. This everlasting issue of differences has always hampered our growth and services. We must be ready to address this dislike for each other by dividing the country by geography and inherent basic differences. Natural divides and groupings in our country cry for recognition: Texas, California, and the Northeast group of states.
Second, thinking outside the box: the Mondragon community.
Examples of new and different forms of government that have proven successful and effective, and that have limited capitalism and millionaires. The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. It was founded in 1956 in the town of Mondragón by Father José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical college he founded. It is the seventh-largest Spanish company by asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2016, it employed 74,117 people across 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail, and knowledge. In 2024, it generated 16 billion dollars in revenue. It is a workers' cooperative.
At Mondragon, agreed-upon wage ratios exist between executive work and field or factory work, with the latter earning a minimum wage. These ratios range from 3:1 to 9:1 across cooperatives and average 5:1. That is, the general manager of an average Mondragon cooperative earns no more than 5 times the theoretical minimum wage paid in their cooperative.
Cooperation Jackson:
Cooperation Jackson is a network of worker cooperatives in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It aims to develop a series of independent yet connected democratic institutions to empower workers and residents of Jackson, particularly to address the needs of poor, unemployed Black and Latino residents. Cooperation Jackson's development has been heavily inspired by the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, a federation of cooperatives, and by historical cooperative movements described in works by W. E. B. Du Bois and in the book Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.
Cooperation Jackson, founded in 2014, strives to realize a vision of a radically democratic city of interconnected cooperatives and supporting institutions. (Radical democracy is a form of democracy that advocates the radical extension of equality and liberty as core values, following the idea that democracy is an unfinished, inclusive, continuous, and reflexive process.) In the agonistic strand of radical democracy, this extension particularly emphasizes difference and plurality. (Pluralists believe that social heterogeneity prevents any single group from gaining dominance.)
Third, thinking outside the box
Wake up, my fellow Americans. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt raised the marginal rate to 94%; he started Social Security; he raised the estate tax to 60%; and he pushed legislation to close tax loopholes. Every Republican president other than Eisenhower lowered the tax rate to our current rate of 37%, and workers' wages decreased.
Why do you think this happened, or better, how did it happen? Please acknowledge that billionaires-controlled Congress with their money. This tax arrangement can be reversed, but not with our present Congress, which is brain-dead. It results from a make-believe mentality about the wonders of capitalism.
No description or discussion of "The Robert's Court" could possibly be complete while omitting Trump v. United States. You know, that trivial little immunity case.
"On the Left, calls for Court packing - the end of the Supreme Court as a defender of unpopular liberties - has gone mainstream." False parallel. To equate "Court packing" to "the end of...a defender of unpopular liberties" is to use a pejorative to describe an allowed process and define same in a limited, biased way.
The removal of constitutionally proper civil service protections is minimized to "when the Roberts’ Court allows the President to control the personnel that run the Executive Branch it is weakening Congress, presumably unconstitutionally." Gotta love the condescending "presumably." This is the tone of the objections from "the left."
The tone of objections from "the right" are positive: "The always interesting and insightful Professor Josh Blackman has the best take on this argument. He compares the outcomes of Trump v. Slaughter that overrode Humphrey’s Executor with Trump v. Cook that upheld the Constitutionality of insulating the Federal Reserve officers from firing except for cause." Never mind that only in regard to The Federal Reserve, civil service protections are exempted from annihilation.
"With all of this incoming fire, some of it from the President of the United States both in live television harangues after Learning Resources v. Trump (the tariff case) and endless “Truth Social” posts, it is no wonder that the Court is at one of its lowest levels of popularity. None of this is deserved." The Court is absolved of any and all criticism, because you see, "none of this is deserved." Here, criticism from "the Left" is obliquely lumped in with Trump's outrageous slop, and in another false equivalency is delegitimized but without specific mention.
"And that is what is going on here that is causing all the sturm und drang over the Supreme Court. A long term project to exercise anti-constitutional rulings of the progressive era, roughly from the late 1920’s to the 1980’s, is now bearing fruit." No support whatsoever for an assault on stare decisis or the ignorance of reliance interests, but instead it is reductively called "a long-term project." Kinda like finally getting that basement remodel finished. And as I read it, he meant "exorcised," not "exercised." You can't take rulings out for a walk even if you dismiss 60 years of precedent as "anti-constitutional."
"What Roberts has been aiming at over his entire career is a Constitution where the President controls the executive branch and Congress controls law and policy. But he does want to do things all at once." Another typo: "But he does want..." should read "But he does not want." And again, this over-simplification is convenient but invalid. What Robert's HAS DONE is create a President and a presidency that can IGNORE Congress' control of law and policy by fiat.
"This is why in both Loper Bright v. Raimondo and in Trump v. Slaughter he waited until the doctrines to be overruled had been so eviscerated that it was difficult for practitioners and district courts to know what was left of them." Here, contradictory rulings from the shadow docket are dismissed in the passive voice, saying "doctrines had been so eviscerated" as if it were not the Court that had done the eviscerating, and characterized the shadowy unexplained murmurings in rulings that upended established legal understanding on issues of national import as an example of "where the President controls the executive branch and Congress controls law and policy." It's just that simple, get it? It's a long-term project, we wiped out 60 years incrementally, and the fact that nobody could make sense of the many violative rulings as a whole was all part of the grand plan.
"It has been a champion of free speech, much of it unpopular, in the face of powerful political forces. Religious minorities with now unpopular views on marriage, contraception and sex altering technology have repeatedly found a refuge in the Roberts’ Court." This is said as if it is a good thing: Religious minorities finally found a refuge, and minority rule is glorified, nay deified, by expanding the description of free speech to include limits on actual behavior to suit these supposedly maligned religious minorities. We are being told to hail the "champions." Free speech is voicing opposition, and free speech is not forcing your view onto the allowed behavior of others.
Slipshod writing with typos and replete with fallacy is not persuasive, it is self-massage.
Reductive dismissal of real-life consequences in service of poorly constructed ideological blather is an EXERCISE in cognitive malpractice. Reprints available on request.
Presumably it was also the end of the Court as a defender of liberty when it was expanded to 9. And when Republicans shrunk it to 8 because Obama couldn't be allowed a nomination, then expanded it to 9.
If the Court wants to hide behind originalism and textualism, it should point to the text that says the President is above the law. If it wants to maintain its impartial apartisanship, it should stop suddenly noticing unconstitutional restraints on executive power that it was unaware of during the Obama and Biden administrations.
Thinking outside the box
First, thinking outside the box: get over it; we were never a united country.
We have to accept that we were never united; we were divided at the signing of the Constitution, with seven northern states and five southern states that disagreed and did not trust each other. The billionaires would like you to believe otherwise, that we were a united, homogeneous group. We were not, and as we expanded to our present size, we became more diverse in the communities our immigrants established. Areas of our country are as diverse as Switzerland is from Germany, and our delusional belief that we can unite is wrong and has caused much fiction. Russia also tried to create an all-inclusive country, with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics trying to control and unite 15 republics until 1991, when it collapsed, and the 15 states became free again. The USSR lasted 70 years, from 1922 to 1991. I know we fought in the Second World War as the United States of America, and we are proud of that, but our troops were not integrated, and we still had massive segregation, and the returning soldiers were not treated the same. Our country is blessed with exceptional resources, and as a result, our country prospered. This everlasting issue of differences has always hampered our growth and services. We must be ready to address this dislike for each other by dividing the country by geography and inherent basic differences. Natural divides and groupings in our country cry for recognition: Texas, California, and the Northeast group of states.
Second, thinking outside the box: the Mondragon community.
Examples of new and different forms of government that have proven successful and effective, and that have limited capitalism and millionaires. The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. It was founded in 1956 in the town of Mondragón by Father José María Arizmendiarrieta and a group of his students at a technical college he founded. It is the seventh-largest Spanish company by asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2016, it employed 74,117 people across 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail, and knowledge. In 2024, it generated 16 billion dollars in revenue. It is a workers' cooperative.
At Mondragon, agreed-upon wage ratios exist between executive work and field or factory work, with the latter earning a minimum wage. These ratios range from 3:1 to 9:1 across cooperatives and average 5:1. That is, the general manager of an average Mondragon cooperative earns no more than 5 times the theoretical minimum wage paid in their cooperative.
Cooperation Jackson:
Cooperation Jackson is a network of worker cooperatives in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It aims to develop a series of independent yet connected democratic institutions to empower workers and residents of Jackson, particularly to address the needs of poor, unemployed Black and Latino residents. Cooperation Jackson's development has been heavily inspired by the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, a federation of cooperatives, and by historical cooperative movements described in works by W. E. B. Du Bois and in the book Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.
Cooperation Jackson, founded in 2014, strives to realize a vision of a radically democratic city of interconnected cooperatives and supporting institutions. (Radical democracy is a form of democracy that advocates the radical extension of equality and liberty as core values, following the idea that democracy is an unfinished, inclusive, continuous, and reflexive process.) In the agonistic strand of radical democracy, this extension particularly emphasizes difference and plurality. (Pluralists believe that social heterogeneity prevents any single group from gaining dominance.)
Third, thinking outside the box
Wake up, my fellow Americans. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt raised the marginal rate to 94%; he started Social Security; he raised the estate tax to 60%; and he pushed legislation to close tax loopholes. Every Republican president other than Eisenhower lowered the tax rate to our current rate of 37%, and workers' wages decreased.
Why do you think this happened, or better, how did it happen? Please acknowledge that billionaires-controlled Congress with their money. This tax arrangement can be reversed, but not with our present Congress, which is brain-dead. It results from a make-believe mentality about the wonders of capitalism.
Roberts is a fascist blemish on the US judiciary; his impeachment is vital to maintaining democracy and integrity
The world will benefit from his impeachment and conviction for treason
No description or discussion of "The Robert's Court" could possibly be complete while omitting Trump v. United States. You know, that trivial little immunity case.
"On the Left, calls for Court packing - the end of the Supreme Court as a defender of unpopular liberties - has gone mainstream." False parallel. To equate "Court packing" to "the end of...a defender of unpopular liberties" is to use a pejorative to describe an allowed process and define same in a limited, biased way.
The removal of constitutionally proper civil service protections is minimized to "when the Roberts’ Court allows the President to control the personnel that run the Executive Branch it is weakening Congress, presumably unconstitutionally." Gotta love the condescending "presumably." This is the tone of the objections from "the left."
The tone of objections from "the right" are positive: "The always interesting and insightful Professor Josh Blackman has the best take on this argument. He compares the outcomes of Trump v. Slaughter that overrode Humphrey’s Executor with Trump v. Cook that upheld the Constitutionality of insulating the Federal Reserve officers from firing except for cause." Never mind that only in regard to The Federal Reserve, civil service protections are exempted from annihilation.
"With all of this incoming fire, some of it from the President of the United States both in live television harangues after Learning Resources v. Trump (the tariff case) and endless “Truth Social” posts, it is no wonder that the Court is at one of its lowest levels of popularity. None of this is deserved." The Court is absolved of any and all criticism, because you see, "none of this is deserved." Here, criticism from "the Left" is obliquely lumped in with Trump's outrageous slop, and in another false equivalency is delegitimized but without specific mention.
"And that is what is going on here that is causing all the sturm und drang over the Supreme Court. A long term project to exercise anti-constitutional rulings of the progressive era, roughly from the late 1920’s to the 1980’s, is now bearing fruit." No support whatsoever for an assault on stare decisis or the ignorance of reliance interests, but instead it is reductively called "a long-term project." Kinda like finally getting that basement remodel finished. And as I read it, he meant "exorcised," not "exercised." You can't take rulings out for a walk even if you dismiss 60 years of precedent as "anti-constitutional."
"What Roberts has been aiming at over his entire career is a Constitution where the President controls the executive branch and Congress controls law and policy. But he does want to do things all at once." Another typo: "But he does want..." should read "But he does not want." And again, this over-simplification is convenient but invalid. What Robert's HAS DONE is create a President and a presidency that can IGNORE Congress' control of law and policy by fiat.
"This is why in both Loper Bright v. Raimondo and in Trump v. Slaughter he waited until the doctrines to be overruled had been so eviscerated that it was difficult for practitioners and district courts to know what was left of them." Here, contradictory rulings from the shadow docket are dismissed in the passive voice, saying "doctrines had been so eviscerated" as if it were not the Court that had done the eviscerating, and characterized the shadowy unexplained murmurings in rulings that upended established legal understanding on issues of national import as an example of "where the President controls the executive branch and Congress controls law and policy." It's just that simple, get it? It's a long-term project, we wiped out 60 years incrementally, and the fact that nobody could make sense of the many violative rulings as a whole was all part of the grand plan.
"It has been a champion of free speech, much of it unpopular, in the face of powerful political forces. Religious minorities with now unpopular views on marriage, contraception and sex altering technology have repeatedly found a refuge in the Roberts’ Court." This is said as if it is a good thing: Religious minorities finally found a refuge, and minority rule is glorified, nay deified, by expanding the description of free speech to include limits on actual behavior to suit these supposedly maligned religious minorities. We are being told to hail the "champions." Free speech is voicing opposition, and free speech is not forcing your view onto the allowed behavior of others.
Slipshod writing with typos and replete with fallacy is not persuasive, it is self-massage.
Reductive dismissal of real-life consequences in service of poorly constructed ideological blather is an EXERCISE in cognitive malpractice. Reprints available on request.
Presumably it was also the end of the Court as a defender of liberty when it was expanded to 9. And when Republicans shrunk it to 8 because Obama couldn't be allowed a nomination, then expanded it to 9.
If the Court wants to hide behind originalism and textualism, it should point to the text that says the President is above the law. If it wants to maintain its impartial apartisanship, it should stop suddenly noticing unconstitutional restraints on executive power that it was unaware of during the Obama and Biden administrations.