Tag Archives: SCOTUS

legal news

SCOTUS needs ethics rules

The United States Supreme Court has existed since the founding of the Republic and it has functioned — more or less seamlessly — without needing a policy that lays down ethics requirements for the individuals who interpret the constitutionality of our federal laws.

It damn sure needs one. Justice Clarence Thomas clear and unequivocal conflict of interest involving his participation in decisions involving the 1/6 insurrection have demonstrated the need for the high court to set forth ethics boundaries that justices should never cross.

The Supreme Court is the only federal judicial panel that doesn’t have an ethics policy on the books.

Thomas’s wife, Virginia, is a right-wing political activist who reportedly lobbied the White House chief of staff to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Mrs. Thomas believes the election was “stolen” from Donald J. Trump and has made no effort to conceal her belief in the nut-job conspiracies that continue to thrash around over The Big Lie.

Justice Thomas, meanwhile, has continued to hear cases involving The Big Lie, refusing to recuse himself from any discussion, deliberation and decision-making involving 1/6.

The SCOTUS has no rule prohibiting the justice — the longest-serving member of the court — from taking part. Good grief, man! Is there no clearer demonstration of Justice Thomas’s bias on this matter? The court voted 8 to 1 to require The Donald to turn his presidential papers over to the 1/6 House committee; Justice Thomas cast the only vote in dissent.

Justice Thomas simply needs to resign. Short of a resignation, he needs to recuse himself from anything to do with the insurrection.

And the court should establish a hard-and-fast policy regarding ethical conduct. It can start by demanding that no justice can participate in decisions on cases involving their spouse!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Define a woman … doc

The dumbass who masquerades as a congressman from the Texas Panhandle believes that defining a woman is a prerequisite for serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.

So it was that Ronny Jackson, the Republican who lives in Amarillo, put a Twitter message out there that says “anyone cannot define a woman does not belong” on the nation’s highest court. He refers, naturally, to President Biden’s selection of Ketanji Brown Jackson to join the SCOTUS as soon as she is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The reality is that Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn asked the question of Judge Jackson during her Senate confirmation hearing and for my money engraved the question as the dumbest query ever posed to a nominee to any office.

My question for Rep. Jackson — the former Navy admiral and physician — is this: How would he define a woman? I am all ears as to how he would have answered that question given the context of its asking and the idiotic turn of the questioning from the GOP senators who are going to vote “no” on recommending her confirmation.

This clown just needs to shut his trap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

GOP senators show ugly side

Ketanji Brown Jackson is going to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and will take her seat soon on the U.S. Supreme Court. I feel comfortable making that presumption. However, I cannot let go of what we all witnessed from the Republican Party side of the dais at the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.

What did we see? We saw senators parse and nitpick their way through the judge’s stellar judicial record and question her on issues that have next to nothing to do with the cases that will come before the nation’s highest court.

Sens. Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and Marsha Blackburn were especially reprehensible in their conduct as they grilled President Biden’s nominee to the court, where she will succeed Justice Stephen Breyer at the end of the court’s current term.

What stood out to me first and foremost was the poise that Judge Jackson exhibited as these senators took turns interrupting her while she sought to answer the questions they threw at her. I sat in my North Texas home watching this spectacle unfold and I actually thought: How in the world would I handle this kind of hectoring, haranguing and harassment? My answer? I couldn’t! I would storm out of the hearing room!

Thus, I would hand Judge Jackson the highest praise I can muster for the way she exhibited the poise and grace that her questioners all lacked. Indeed, it was Sen. Graham who huffed and puffed his way out of the hearing twice after completing his interrogation of Judge Jackson, who remained seated for hours on end, answering ridiculous question after ridiculous question.

It is clear that the GOP Senate caucus was aiming at a constituency beyond the room, the QAnon-loving cabal of voters who embrace notions of child molestation and pornography among politicians. Hence, we saw senators asking Judge Jackson to speak to sentencing practices involving criminal defendants accused of child porn crimes, which the judge referred to as a “small subset” of her entire legal career.

The GOP caucus behaved disgracefully. The target of their vile behavior, though, will take her place among the ranks of justices who interpret the Constitution. She made history already by being the first Black woman ever nominated to ascend to this high court. I remain confident Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s history-making career only will glorify her … and the nation she serves.

I also am quite sure history will be unkind to those who sought to besmirch her.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Recusal or resignation?

Oh, how I wish U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas would just leave the nation’s highest court and let others on the panel with a semblance of ethics and an understanding of the law make these critical decisions.

He likely won’t, given that he is defiant in the extreme to concerns about whether he is guilty of grievous conflicts of interest. That leaves recusal. Justice Clarence Thomas needs to declare right now — at this very minute — that he will not take part in any deliberation or decision involving the 1/6 insurrection.

Thomas’s wife, Ginni, is a right-wing political activist who reportedly lobbied the White House to do whatever it could to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Donald Trump lost to Joseph Biden. Justice Thomas has failed to recuse himself. He has failed to recognize the obvious conflict of interest in his participation in anything to do with the 1/6 insurrection, which involved his wife in a direct manner.

Justice Thomas already has revealed his bias by casting the lone vote to allow The Donald to block sending presidential papers to the 1/6 House committee.

I cannot think of a more obvious conflict of interest than what we are witnessing in real time with Justice and Mrs. Thomas.

If he won’t quit the court, then for God’s sake he needs to recuse himself from any deliberation involving the insurrection. Or … Chief Justice John Roberts needs to tell him, “Clarence, we have a serious problem … ” and then suggest to him that he recuse himself.

The Supreme Court is the only federal court that lacks a code of ethics. It is a self-policing body.

I still want Clarence Thomas to resign from the nation’s highest court. If he won’t, then by all means — if you “love the law” as you say you do — then just stay the hell away from these decisions involving the insurrection.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS fight could get more toxic

So, you might think the fight over whether to approve President Biden’s selection of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court is as toxic as it gets. Guess again.

You see, Jackson’s addition to the court doesn’t change the ideological balance on the body. It remains a 6-3 conservative majority court. Yet, Senate Republicans have chosen to demonize her in ways that I find repugnant.

The fecal matter will really hit the fan if this president gets to select a court nominee to replace one of the conservative justices serving on the nation’s highest court. Yes, I have Justice Clarence Thomas — one of the right wing’s favorite judges — in mind as I suggest that.

Just suppose Justice Thomas resigns as the heat comes to a full boil over his wife’s far-right-wing political activism. Suppose that Biden gets to select a nominee to succeed Thomas. Whoever the president chooses will be of a more liberal/progressive slant. Correct?

Senate Republicans will go ballistic, just as they did in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died and President Obama sought to replace him with a moderate judge named Merrick Garland.

All of this is my way of condemning the toxicity that infects every single decision these days in Washington, D.C., a place that once sought to pride itself on bipartisan collegiality.

It now relishes its new role as a snake pit. I am not predicting any of this will occur. I merely am preparing everyone for the bloodbath that could occur if it does.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Resign, Justice Thomas!

All right, enough is enough! I have seen and heard all I need to see and hear about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s obvious conflicts of interest involving Donald J. Trump, his own wife Ginni and The Big Lie that Trump has pitched contending there was “widespread voter fraud” during the 2020 presidential election.

Justice Thomas needs to resign from the Supreme Court if only to enable his wife to continue her political activism and to avoid further damaging the integrity of the court on which he has served for more than three decades.

Go home, Mr. Justice!

I say this without any reservation. It is clear to me that Ginni Thomas’s activism has compromised her husband’s role as a supposed “impartial” arbiter of cases that come before the court. Some of them have involved The Donald’s preposterous claims of executive privilege. Justice Thomas, I need to remind everyone, was the lone dissenting vote against The Donald’s claim of executive privilege as he sought to prevent the National Archives from handing over presidential documents to the House select committee examining the 1/6 insurrection/riot. Why is that significant? Because Ginni Thomas attended the damn rally on The Ellipse on that day, but left before it got totally out of hand.

Now we hear from credible media reports that Ginni Thomas pushed, prodded and pressured White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to do all he could to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which The Donald lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

She did all this and then went home at night to the same residence she shares with an associate Supreme Court justice. How in the name of juris prudence can this be dismissed? How is that not a direct conflict of interest? How does Justice Thomas explain his ghastly vote to grant executive privilege to Trump when every lower court has ruled against it — along with all eight of his SCOTUS colleagues?

I have had enough of this charade being perpetrated on Americans by the most senior member of the nation’s highest court.

Get the hell out of office, Justice Thomas!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Mitch says ‘no’ on KBJ

Let’s put Mitch McConnell’s announcement today that he would vote “no” on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court into some perspective. So, bear with me for a moment.

The Senate Republican leader can’t support Judge Jackson because she declined to say whether she supports progressives’ call to expand the high court from nine members to, say, 15. McConnell said Judge Jackson should have offered an opinion, even though the jurist erred on the side of remaining impartial or, shall we say, above the battle that surely would erupt if such a notion were to gather momentum.

Let’s examine briefly McConnell’s recent political history, too.

This man obstructed President Barack Obama’s effort to name a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly in early 2016. McConnell said that because a presidential election would occur 10 months later, we needed to wait to see which candidate would win and then allow that person to make the nomination. Obama selected Judge Merrick Garland, but Garland never got a hearing … thanks to McConnell’s obstruction and raw political power grab.

McConnell also blamed Donald J. Trump for the insurrection that erupted on 1/6. He said in a Senate speech that The Donald was “singularly” responsible for “provoking” the riot that sought to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost! Then he voted against convicting The Donald on the impeachment article that came from the House as a direct result of the riot that McConnell said Trump instigated. Go figure.

So, for this obstructionist and coward to offer a negative critique of a stellar jurist such as Ketanji Brown Jackson is simply, to be candid, not credible.

He sickens me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news

Elections do matter

You have heard it said that “elections have consequences.” I have stated as much many times on this blog platform and I still believe it to be so very true.

We are seeing how those consequences are playing out in President Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Biden won the 2020 presidential election and, thus, has been granted the opportunity to find a qualified jurist to take her seat on the nation’s highest court.

This process plays into the notion of “presidential prerogative,” meaning that presidents earn the right to select whomever they desire simply by winning the most recent election.

What you might not remember, though, is that I have carried my belief in presidential prerogative across party lines. I am a dedicated supporter of Democratic Party ideals, but I also recognize that elections that produce Republican presidents also have consequences equal to those that produce Democratic presidents. Accordingly, I recognize that Donald Trump’s election in 2016 entitled him to select the three individuals who currently serve on the SCOTUS.

When President George H.W. Bush selected Clarence Thomas in 1991 to succeed Thurgood Marshall on the high court, I said the same thing. Same with President George W. Bush, when he chose John Roberts to become chief justice and Samuel Alito to an associate justice position.

All of these individuals are technically qualified to serve and the presidents who nominated them were entitled under the Constitution to select them.

I want to revisit this notion because of the hassles that President Biden is getting over his choice of Judge Jackson to join the court. Senate Republicans are digging in for a fight. They belong to a government branch that is entitled under the Constitution to reject or approve any nomination that comes before them. They are fighting Judge Jackson for reasons that escape me.

Joe Biden’s standing as president allows him to find a qualified candidate for a lifetime appointment. He has done so and therefore he deserves to have the individual he has chosen approved by the Senate and then be allowed to take her place on the Supreme Court.

One of the harshest challenges to this prerogative occurred in 2016 when Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly. President Obama selected Judge Merrick Garland to succeed Scalia. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell then decided to play political hardball by denying Garland any confirmation hearing, saying that because it was an election year that the winner of the next election deserved to select the individual he or she wanted for the court.

The winner turned out to be Trump. McConnell’s strong-arming of the constitutional process was a hideous display of politicking and I am one American who never will forgive him for denying a sitting president the chance to seat a qualified jurist on the Supreme Court.

Juxtapose that with the speedy confirmation process that McConnell allowed when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died just weeks before the 2020 election; Amy Coney Barrett received Senate confirmation in a record-setting fashion. Any sign of hypocrisy there? Oh, yes! Absolutely!

Elections always have consequences, indeed … and they should.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

She’s become ‘KBJ’!

2 Comments

This is excellent news! I just read — or maybe I heard it in the background noise of the TV set — that someone has referred to Ketanji Brown Jackson, the next justice to be seated on the Supreme Court, as “KBJ.”

Why is that cool? It’s because the media along with the public usually reserve those identifications by name initials to those who are held in generally high esteem.

You know: JFK, LBJ, RFK, MLK Jr., FDR. I have taken to referring to other more contemporary individuals as well by their initials: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC is one and, yes, I have referred to the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene as MTG and Donald Trump as DJT.

It is a strange phenomenon that not all public figures get that designation as a matter of regular practice. BHO is one of those who’s been left out of the initial-ID name club. George W. Bush is known as just plain W., or Dubya.

So … welcome to the newly formed Club of Iconic Figures, Judge Jack … er, KBJ.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Enter the Three Stooges

It is tempting, I suppose, to attach some sort of label to three U.S. senators who “distinguished” themselves with their pitiful performances at the Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, selected by President Biden to join the Supreme Court.

Three Amigos? Nah! Three Musketeers? Nope.

How about … Three Stooges? Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Sens. Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley all were disgraceful in their own respective ways as they sought to tear down a distinguished jurist’s record by ascribing all sorts of phony nefarious motives to decisions she made from the bench and in practice as a public defender.

They all sickened me. Yes, I am on record as wanting Judge Jackson to take her place on the nation’s highest court. I also am on record as loathing the way Republican senators reacted initially to President Biden’s selection of Judge Jackson and then to the way they behaved during the confirmation hearing.

I will hold out a sliver of hope that some GOP senators — maybe two of ’em — will see fit to confirm her when the full Senate casts its vote.

As for the Three Stooges — two of whom (Hawley and Cruz) apparently want to run for POTUS in 2024 — I just will be content to scoff at their antics and to hope eventually they all get booted out of the Senate. I don’t want any of them voting on laws that affect my family and me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com