Supreme Court

Donald Trump And The Law: No Courts Or Judges, Ending Checks And Balances, Separation Of Powers, And The Constitution

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Donald Trump is rapidly moving further “out of the loop”, now calling for no courts or judges to deal with children and parents at the US-Mexican border of the United States.

What he is calling for is the end of checks and balances, separation of powers, and the Constitution itself, which has lasted for nearly 230 years of our history.

If this is allowed to occur, then the rule of law is gone, and we are ever closer to an authoritarian, Fascist dictatorship, and this cannot be allowed to occur!

There will be marches and demonstrations in Washington, DC and all over the country this coming Saturday, June 30, against the Trump policy of separating parents and children coming to the border, trying to escape from bloodshed and violence in Central America, and the shipping of children as young as infants far away from their parents, and without adequate monitoring of how to bring children and parents together in the future.

Also, it is against the law for parents and children to be kept in detention, effectively in prisons, for more than 20 days, with that deadline coming on Tuesday, July 10.

A confrontation is coming if the Trump Administration refuses to follow court rulings on this matter in the next 15 days, and it is time for the Supreme Court to intervene, even if their session ends this week, to deal with this dangerous assertion of absolute authority over the law and courts by an out of control executive branch!

25 Years Of “RBG”, Ruth Bader Ginsburg In August, 85 Years Old And No Intention Of Retiring Before 2021 At Earliest!

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Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bless her heart, is finishing 25 years on the Court, and 38 years in total in the federal court system, having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and then elevated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

She has become a “rock star”, often called “the notorious RBG” in recent years, after the publication of a biography by a scholar in 2015.

She has survived bouts with colon cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009. and the death of her husband in 2010, days after their 56th wedding anniversary.

Through it all, she has stood up for the rights of minorities, women, gays and lesbians, the disabled, workers, consumers, environmentalists, and all other causes that fight against the enemies of civil rights, civil liberties, and social justice.

At age 85, she has had a stent put in her right coronary artery, and she has had a strict regimen of exercise for many years.

The question is whether Ginsburg can hang on and stay in office until 2021, when she would be 88 years old, and hopefully, a Democratic President could replace her after 28 years on the Court.

Ginsburg herself has said she plans to stay to the age of 90, the age that former Justice John Paul Stevens, now 98 and thriving, was when he left the Court in 2010.

Fifty Years Since Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination: What Could Have Been

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Impossible to believe, but it has been a half century since Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, right after winning the California primary in the 1968 Democratic Presidential race.

The course of history changed dramatically with that horrendous event.

It led to the Presidency of Richard Nixon.

It led to the rise of the Right in American politics, begun under Nixon, greatly expanding under Ronald Reagan, and reaching its most destructive stage under Donald Trump.

It seems highly likely that Robert F. Kennedy would have been elected President, and would have transformed the future of America in a very different direction than it took at the time.

The war in Vietnam would have ended sooner, and saved many lives on both sides of the war.

The Supreme Court would have been dramatically different if RFK had had four appointments, instead of Richard Nixon.

The reforms of his brother, John F. Kennedy, and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, would have continued, and led to a more equitable, fair minded government.

Instead of taking steps backward, civil rights and civil liberties would have been greatly enhanced.

No one is saying that Robert F. Kennedy would have been a perfect President, and he had his own demons, including his association with Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, and his often secretive and narrow minded views and personality shortcomings that every human being has.

But it can be believed that Robert F. Kennedy would have made America a greater nation than it turned out to be in the past half century!

This is the time for my readers and supporters to read Chapter 10 of my book, ASSASSINATIONS, THREATS, AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY: FROM ANDREW JACKSON TO BARACK OBAMA (Rowman Littlefield Publishers, 2015, Paperback 2017), available from the publisher, and from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books A Million.

Trump Has Choice: Testify On Mueller Questions With Counsel, OR Be Subpoenaed To Testify Before Grand Jury Without Counsel, And Supreme Court Orders He Testify!

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With Special Counsel Robert Mueller having prepared 49 questions for Donald Trump to answer, the confrontation between Donald Trump and the investigation into Russian Collusion, Obstruction of Justice, and other accusations against Trump has ratcheted up to a new level.

What it comes down to is this: Either Trump agrees to meet with Mueller and his staff and answer the questions with counsel allowed to be there with Trump, OR he refuses to do so, and Mueller subpoenas Trump to testify before the grand jury without counsel in the room.

If Trump rejects both alternatives, then the situation is appealed to the Supreme Court, which based on history, is highly likely to force the President to testify before the grand jury.

Trump could then plead the 5th Amendment, and refuse to answer the questions, but to do that would be unprecedented, and a case for impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial before the Senate!

This situation could drag out 9 to 18 months, and could run into the Presidential campaign of 2020, as Trump does much more damage domestically, and undermines our foreign policy.

Whether this scenario would convince Republicans to abandon Trump is questionable, so even if an impeachment occurred, the odds of a conviction with two thirds of the Senate in support, is clearly a difficult barrier to overcome.

But if Trump family members are indicted, that could change the whole equation dramatically, as the thought is that Trump would wish to save his family, but who really knows whether that is true, or whether, in reality, Trump is willing to throw everyone “under the bus”, and let his own narcissism rule the day!

Meanwhile, the nation remains bitterly divided and is in a state of crisis unmatched since Richard Nixon, but in many ways, far worse than in 1973-1974!

Cabinet Officers And The Presidency

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Continuing our examination of the background of America’s Presidents, we will now look at the Presidency in relation to those who have held Cabinet positions under other Presidents.

So far, we have seen that there were 19 Presidents who served in the House of Representatives, 17 who served as Governors of their states, and 16 who served in the US Senate.

In regards to Cabinet officers a total of 8 Presidents served in a total of three different Cabinet positions.

Six of the 8 served as Secretary of State, including:

Thomas Jefferson under George Washington
James Madison under Thomas Jefferson
James Monroe under James Madison twice with a break of about a year when he served also as Secretary of War during the War of 1812, but then returned to the State Department.
John Quincy Adams under James Monroe
Martin Van Buren under Andrew Jackson
James Buchanan under James K. Polk

James Monroe served for about a year as Secretary of War under James Madison, as stated above, and William Howard Taft served in that position under Theodore Roosevelt..

Finally, Herbert Hoover served as Secretary of Commerce under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge before running for President in 1928. Arguably, Hoover proved to be one of the best Cabinet officers in all of American history, and added great distinction to a Cabinet agency not much thought of as a major position otherwise.

Additionally, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt served as sub cabinet members under William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson respectively, both as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Also, William Howard Taft served as Solicitor General of the United States, the government’s lawyer before the Supreme Court, under President Benjamin Harrison.

Gerrymandering, Creating Barriers In Many States To Vote, And Changing Census By Adding Citizenship Question, All Designed To Help Republicans Overcome Future Diversity Of American Population!

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The Republican Party has dedicated itself to using every possible method, no matter how unethical it is, to keep themselves in power, by curbing voting by racial minorities the poor, and college students, knowing they would be unlikely to gain the support of such groups in the voting booths.

So they have utilized gerrymandering to create districts that will always favor the white majority in as many congressional districts and state legislative districts as possible, although some such gerrymandering schemes have started to be repudiated by state and federal courts recently.

They have created as many barriers as possible to different groups being able to vote, as a result of the backtracking of the Supreme Court in 2013, on the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

And now, they are trying to mandate a 2020 Census question on citizenship, designed to insure that undocumented immigrants will not fill out the census forms, out of fear of deportation.

All this, being challenged, will lead to the downfall of a party that has lost all morality and ethics, and many decent Republicans and conservatives outside of government positions have already done so.

The future diversity of the American population toward a non white majority within about 25 years is certain, and the Republican Party is fighting a losing battle in that regard!

Law Professors, Lawyers, And Donald Trump: A Time For Patriotism Over Sycophancy

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In the midst of the national and international crisis of Donald Trump’s “love affair” with Vladimir Putin, we are seeing law professors and lawyers who are acting like sycophants, and in the process harming their reputations, at a time when patriotism should win out over sycophancy.

Law Professors, including Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley are finding ways to justify Trump’s illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional behavior, while Laurence Tribe is adding to his reputation as a respectable and legitimate scholar.

Meanwhile, well known attorney Joseph diGenova is promoting conspiracy theories about the “Deep State” and is undermining the FBI and the intelligence agencies, while Theodore Olson is showing how dignified, decent and credible he has always been.

And these are just the best known law professors and attorneys, splitting and dividing, as we learn who the legitimate law professors and lawyers really are, in this greatest of all constitutional crises.

Dershowitz, a former professor at Harvard Law School, and a renowned attorney in the O J Simpson case and many others, has said that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should never have been appointed, and that a “witch hunt” is being conducted against Donald Trump, using the exact language of the President. Dershowitz sees no evidence of any crimes by Trump, but also does not see it as likely that Trump would fire Mueller, although last June, Trump came close to firing Mueller, a month into the investigation. This is crazy legal judgment, and makes one wonder what Dershowitz’s whole purpose is.

Turley is a professor of law at George Washington University, claims there is no evidence of collusion by Trump with Russia, and he agreees with the idea of a second Special Counsel to investigate the FBI, a mind boggling example of sycophancy by Turley, undermining the ability to investigate the illegal actions by Trump. Turley has become a favorite to be on Fox News Channel, and it undermines his whole career as a law professor.

Tribe, a renowned professor at Harvard Law School, has been a strong critic of Donald Trump, and has advocated his impeachment, and is publishing a new book on that topic, out in May, but already number one on the Amazon list of best selling books. Tribe has been a credit to his profession and to the law school community for decades, and is not selling his soul to the Right Wing which has no problem with the disgraceful Presidency of Donald Trump.

diGenova has long been seen as an attorney who relies on conspiracy theories and undermining of respect for the law, so it is not surprising that he has now joined the Trump legal team, out to destroy the FBI and the intelligence community, and overlook the facts on the case against Trump.

And Olson is a well respected attorney, who defended George W. Bush in the 2000 Presidential election controversy; then lost his wife Barbara in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001; followed by joining fellow attorney David Boies, his rival in the 2000 election controversy in fighting the case for gay marriage in court, leading to the Supreme Court decisoin in 2015. Olson has rejected the idea of joining the Trump defense team, and adds to his stature by doing so.

This is a time for patriotism and justice over sycophancy and demagoguery, so Tribe and Olson are to be commended, while Dershowitz, Turley, and diGenova are to be condemned!

Former Living Vice Presidents To Be Proud Of: Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Joe Biden

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Today, January 5, marks the 90th Birthday of former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Two days ago, when Vice President Mike Pence swore in Doug Jones and Tina Smith as new Senators from Alabama and Minnesota, we had Mondale join Joe Biden, and we had a rare scene of three Vice Presidents together.

Biden came to DC to be there for his good friend, Doug Jones, and Mondale was in DC to support a new Minnesota Senator, Tina Smith.

It brought back memories of when Mondale was Vice President under Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981, and when Joe Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama from 2009-2017.

Both Vice Presidents were extremely close to their Presidents, and both played a major role in adding to the stature and influence of the Vice Presidency.

Also, with Mondale reaching the age of 90, it marks the second President and Vice President who reached the age of 90, after Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

It will be 37 years out of office for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale on January 20, an all time record out of office for any President and Vice President.

Also, Mondale became today the sixth Vice President to reach the age of 90, along with three Presidents who served as Vice President–John Adams, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush–and two Vice Presidents who lived longer than any of the others—John Nance Garner under Franklin D. Roosevelt, living to age 98, and Levi Morton under Benjamin Harrison, living to age 96.

The scene of three Vice Presidents together also brought back the tragic result of the Presidential Election of 2000, when Vice President Al Gore under Bill Clinton from 1993-2001, won the national popular vote by 540,000, and yet lost the Electoral College 271-266, when the Republican majority Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush, awarding Florida to Bush by 537 votes out of a total of 6 million.

One has to wonder how Al Gore would have been as President, with the assurance that he would have done better than Bush.

The scene of Mike Pence posing with Mondale and Biden also sobers us that he is likely to become the 46th President this year, unless he is shown to have collaborated on the Russian collusion, and if so, could be the second Vice President to resign due to scandal, after Spiro Agnew in 1973.

The Never Ending Nightmare Of Donald Trump, Who Has Disgraced, Undermined, Tarnished, Stained, And Harmed The Reputation Of The Presidency!

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As we see the end of the first year of the Donald Trump Presidency, it is clear that it is a never ending nightmare visited on the American people.

Donald Trump has disgraced the office of the Presidency.

Donald Trump has undermined trust and faith in the law, the Constitution, and American democracy, and demonstrated lack of respect for freedom of the press.

Donald Trump has tarnished the reputation of America as the leader of the world.

Donald Trump has stained the concept of decency, dignity, and concern of the leader of the nation for those less fortunate, or facing historic discrimination.

Donald Trump has harmed the reputation of the Presidency as an office which promotes basic moral and ethical values.

Donald Trump has affected the relationships between men and women, boys and girls, in a deleterious manner, which will harm the nation long term.

Donald Trump has manufactured and promoted more lies than any American politician in American history, and undermines the ability of Americans to respect the office and the person who holds that position.

Donald Trump has damaged America long term in just one year, as with the long term effects of his lower court appointments, and his selection of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, who seems short term to be further to the right politically than Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, and maybe even the man he replaced, Justice Antonin Scalia.

Donald Trump has left a legacy of environmental damage that will not be easily reversed, and of harm to labor and consumers that will set back the dwindling middle class and the working class for decades.

Donald Trump has also given us the worst set of cabinet members ever, far worse already than Richard Nixon, Warren G. Harding, or Ulysses S. Grant.

Donald Trump has left already an indelible mark on America, and is on the way to the worst four year term in history, bar none, and with the danger of two wars being started, if he lasts into the end of the second year–against North Korea and Iran.

We should all hope that Donald Trump is forced out of office soon, although the prospect of President Mike Pence is a ghastly thought at this point.

What the Russians did has succeeded, destroying our presidential election, and giving us horrifying alternatives in Pence, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch, when clearly, Hillary Clinton won an election that was stolen from her!

Mitch McConnell Defies Decency: Merrick Garland, And Now Doug Jones

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is once again engaged in outrageous and despicable behavior.

In 2009, he declared that the Republican Party would do everything to block all legislation and other actions by Barack Obama, so he would be a one term President.

That move failed, but McConnell and his Republican Party did everything possible to block circuit and district court nominations by Obama, and now they are rushing through incompetent appointments by Donald Trump, people who have no or horrible credentials to have lifetime jobs on the circuit and district courts.

McConnell also would not allow Obama’s Supreme Court appointment of Merrick Garland to have a hearing, let alone a vote in 2016, because Obama was in his last year in the White House, even though historically, there have been a number of appointments in the last year of a Presidential term or a Presidency.

So we ended up with right winger Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, who was overruled by the rest of the Supreme Court on a case when he still was a Circuit Court judge.

And now, with Doug Jones having won the Alabama Senate race, and ready to be sworn in, McConnell will not allow that to happen before the vote on the tax legislation which will redistribute the wealth to the wealthy and corporations, at the expense of the middle class, struggling working class, and the poor, elderly, and disabled. So instead, defeated Senator Luther Strange will be able to cast his vote, when he should no longer have that right.

There is a special place in hell for people like Mitch McConnell!