Now you’re getting at the nut of what’s at stake, putting the notion of “coequal branches” where it belongs, in the bin of romantic and self-serving notions that fail upon closer scrutiny.
You are correct in Congress being paramount, as it has power to remove members of the others while they have none over Congress. But the Executive does have many enumerated powers, as does Congress, so it is by design an independent power center, even though Congress itself is clearly superior.
Congress and the Executive draw their authority directly from the People, via elections. You could say the Executive originally drew its power from the states, but it didn’t take long before the states chose to simply act as conduits of the Peoples’ voting power. You could also say the Senate was also originally intended to be creature of the states, but that was also abandoned with Amendment XVII.
The thing that most distinguishes the Article III courts is the lack of a “creation story”; Articles I and II both begin with descriptions of how these branches come to be, but Art. III doesn’t even refer to the process of making the Supreme Court and other inferior Art. III courts, all of that info being contained in Arts. I and II. Article III courts are therefore the children of the other branches, with I believe an inferior status by design, the word “Supreme” not withstanding. They have no relationship to and derive no authority from the electorate, as the other branches do, they have no independent funding source, and Mr. Alito insists on not reading the Article under which he serves, for it clearly places nearly unlimited authority over Art. III courts in the hands of Congress.
To insist the Art. III courts are a coequal branch is farce.
You know, for all their smarts, too bad the Founders didn’t have a way to check or balance the judicial branch of government like they did the other two.
That conduct seems indisputably to violate the Code of Conduct for United States Federal Judges.
All but nine judges in the federal court system are subject to this code. Where I disagree with Whitehouse’ wording is indisputably. No need to qualify. It does. Moreover, even where is a colorable argument that to justify behavior that looks inappropriate, the judge should refrain from such behavior as it lowers the credibility of the court in the eyes of the public and damages the institution. The United States has greatly benefitted from the 100-fold increase in its population since its founding, as well as a couple centuries of the Industrial Revolution. That time is over, however, so the idea of maintaining the old economic sureties is absurd.
Indeed, not adjusting the institution for a different paradigm is THE recipe for chaos. We see this today in China, an ostensibly Communist country with a command economy, nevertheless went through a four-decade transformation that made it the second or first largest economy on earth depending on whether you adjust for purchasing power. Although party officials may not have understood Marx, they knew that supporting exports and capital investment pretty much guaranteed their careers. Now with “decoupling” they face, dut-dut-duh, “uncertainty”. Markets also hate uncertainty, but as long as they can trust information, they adjust accordingly. What is scary about SCOTUS is that the deliberate policy of not being transparent and only explaining when caught out is that it makes everybody else uncertain. Do I have the provide Clarence Thomas with an emolument or advantage? And if I do, what happens if somebody else provides a better emolument or advantage? Roberts needs to get ahead of this as he’s the top judge-person for a $25 trillion economy.
Ummm. I don’t think I ever suggested “benevolent”, but… sure, although, I’m pretty sure there will be a variety of opinions on that particular point. I mean, the wicked are going to yell, briefly, that I’m not benevolent, but they’ll settle down, eventually.
This is a personality type. Don’t know what percentage of our population they represent, but I’ve run into them as colleagues. Fortunately, they weren’t SC justices or persons who could do the harm of an Alito. I personally regard them as intellectual and religious freaks.
The Supreme Court Inc has become a Republican Grifting Organization. It’s not surprising since the billionaire elites also control the media and our elections. Why not the Supreme Court Inc.? It’s Democracy For Sale. Highest bidder wins the Court Case.
PS: Climate Chaos is roaring down on us. Prepare!
Doctrinal? You’re assuming that some doctrine has value and some does not. No doctrine has value. The very idea that a bunch of human beings invented doctrine and laws over millennia and then forced that onto people is simply demented, and a crime against humanity that has gone unpunished for two thousand years. The entire structure of the church from its beginnings were built on control, they waged a quiet war, destroying uncountable millions, perhaps billions of lives with their lies, putting a foul rot at the heart of humanity to which you can trace every single evil across all of Europe and much of the world - from slavery to witch trials to the slaughter of the Crusades to the nodding acceptance of the Holocaust. The Catholic Church is the black heart of humanity and has been since the year 300 or so when it was first invented.
The late Chris Hitchens book “God is not Great” will be in print for a long, long time.
Excellent book, especially for those students who are politically precocious.
Hitchens goes chapter and verse about the horrors created by organized religions.
Never mind the rightwing propaganda crap. Do what is necessary to restore some credibility to the SCOTUS, and that is removing several Justices who have demonstrated that they do not have either the moral/ethical chops, or the intellect to be there.
Isn’t it obvious that they have found the way? These greed monsters are ruling this country. They own the entire Republican Party and quite a few Democrats. Owning the SCOTUS is just icing on their cake.
The world’s largest and most successful pedophile protection racket, the Catholic Church. You like fucking little boys? Fuck 'em with us for FREE and for as long as you want. When you’re done, we’ll just move you to a new, completely unplowed field filled with fresh victims.
