We knew that Trump-appointed judges could do great harm to the laws of the land. And Judge Doughty's ruIing is truly harmful. But you constantly note that we can be hopeful but not complacent. We can slowly and consistently chip away at the poor decisions/plans of the Republican minority. I appreciated your call to action on Independence Day, “What are we willing to do now?”. The simple answer for right now: engage with the Ohio August 8 election to GOTV. The Movement Voter Project (movement.vote) is directing people to https://votenoinaugust.org/, from ONE PERSON=ONE VOTE and posted information in a blog back in May - https://movement.vote/an-existential-moment-for-ohio/. It is critical to show Republican legislatures and judges that are playing fast and loose with the basic tenets of our democracy that We the People will defeat them.
So a rogue MAGA judge at least temporarily puts a stop to efforts of the State Department, DOJ, and Homeland Security to meet with leading social media companies to discuss countermeasures to prevent foreign interference in the 2024 elections.
Just remember the efforts of Senator McConnell to do exactly the same in 2016
Obviously there is a pattern there. They have no shame. Years ago some participants at MAGA events showed up in t-shirts sporting the slogan 'Better Russian than Democrat'. Seems like they meant it.
Robert, I wouldn't claim to understand the legalities of the rulings you reported on tonight. However, based on the wild and alarming pronouncements of a couple of misguided (at best) judges, I can only say that it's a good thing you took a few days off in the past week or so. I sense that you're going to need all your strength, energy and patience to continue the good fight to help defeat the measures you described in tonight's report. You will surely have the company of numerous scholars as allies.
I’ve got a couple of questions. First, how did Trump select people to appoint to the various courts? Second, how did Lori Smith, a person with no actual business and no actual gay potential clients come to file a suit? I suppose I’m asking has anyone followed the money to see who was bankrolling all of this and equally important, what are their motivations? These people are the true “deep state”, Trump, McConnell, et al, are the puppets. The folks behind the curtain need to be exposed and talked about every single day.
Judge Doughty and the majority of the Fifth Circuit are interesting (and horrifying) examples of how a little knowledge is a lot worse than a lot of knowledge if you're going to serve in the Judiciary. And it's proof positive, if anymore were needed, that Leonard Leo and Mitch McConnell had only their partisan interests at heart and were not deeply interested in intellect or qualifications. We're all worse off for that. -------> Proving, if anyone needed proof, that money has to be wrung out of our politics. Over-writing Citizens United would be a good first step.
As someone with a law degree, licensed to practice in two states even though not a practicing lawyer, I find it really hard to believe that these judges ever legitimately even passed the bar exam. It is really a shame the extent to which almost all of our true professions, like medicine, law, and accounting to name a few, have allowed themselves to sink to such lack of standards, self-regulation and self-policing.
The whole purpose of having professions and enabling them the right to set standards and to control licensure is that they are to enforce relatively high basic standards of knowledge, proficiency, and ethics. The failure of the professions to do this has meant that they have been essentially taken over by industries (like managed care in medicine and mega consulting firms in accounting), or they have been eclipsed in influence by private organizations (like the Federalist Society) and have ceased enforcement around all but the most egregious ethical and proficiency failures. It’s a shame and it’s another indication of the need for reassessment and revival of basic principles of personal and professional integrity and the idea of service in the public interest.
Jul 6, 2023·edited Jul 6, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
I really feel that the Law schools these justices attended should revoke their diplomas and the legal associations in charge of continuing accreditation of lawyers, should disbar them. That would immediately disqualify them from sitting on the bench. I also think that these corrupt justices are in many cases indicative of what is wrong with legacy admissions, as well as buying your way in. Coney Barrett is the only one on the current Supreme Court who went to Notre Dame instead of Harvard or Yale for law school. Their programs are all suspect to me. What were they teaching? How do they confer degrees on so many people who turn out to be crooks. Perhaps we should all be writing letters to the American and other Bar Associations and asking that they disbar these people. Judge Terry Dougherty went to Louisiana State Law School. They are missing an ethics course or two and a process for screening out men with neanderthal mentalities. Judge Reed O'Conner went to Southern Texas College of Law. Again these schools all need ethics courses.
Just when I am most tempted to put my head in the sand (i.e., this morning), your column strengthens my neck and allows me to begin my day with hope amid thoughtful people. As always, thank you.
Robert, your question about religious participation is interesting.
"Is the phenomenon of increasing secularism—or decreasing participation in organized religion—a good thing or a bad thing for American culture?"
It would be a bad thing if churches and other places of worship represented what they were intended to represent. Things like the Golden Rule, offering shelter to the stranger, feeding the poor, helping a neighbor in need. For sure, there are a few religious organizations that actually do that stuff.
But what do Gen Y and Z see in terms of organized religion? A Catholic church rotting from within - failing to address their own abuse of children. A large part of the Protestant church that preaches hate and bigotry. A portion of the Jewish faith that treats Palestinians as subhuman. An Islam that bombs innocents.
Obviously, there are large numbers of folks who belong to the above faiths who try to live the way their founders had intended. But "organized religion" is now seen by many as the source of wars and horrific persecution. Based on that, I would ask: Is it any surprise that people are fleeing institutions that promote the very antithesis of their founding principles?
Leaving a club that teaches evil seems like a sensible idea to me. So my answer is that it is a very good thing that people are rejecting organizations that don't live out their own original teachings. Young people are liberating themselves. The question is what structure or philosophy or rule book do they adopt next? Personally, I am fine with values instilled in me by my parents. But for those who want or need an organization to help, Humanism can't be beat.
Robert Hubbell, your expertise in legal matters is of great benefit to readers/listeners.
Now that the current SCOTUS decisions have again hacked away at Constitutional freedoms, lived realities, and the will of the people, your newsletter is even more "required reading."
But PLEASE hurry back to your recorded reading. Your calm delivery and perspectives are needed.
When I read issues like these, judges blocking needed attention and action based on partisan activism from the bench, cherry-picked in certain locations (that somehow seem to end up in the South, no surprise) it raises my blood pressure in "hair on fire" alarm. Hearing your voice would help me listen not only to the particulars of what is occurring, but await your perspective on paths forward to remedy these situations.
The "fine people on both sides" claims and conservative grievances about being censored do not pass "the smell test." May the desertion from MAGA- NAZI extremism continue and the cult base shrink and be repudiated for what they truly represent. May the people continue to fight back against voter suppression and FOR state Constitutional amendments that prevent the power-grabbing minority rule that reduces women in particular to second-class personhood under the oppression of an American form of theocracy akin to the Taliban.
Here's to continuing and increasing education and facts, and less ignorance and subjugation.
Here's to the old-fashioned "boring" government that works on REAL NEEDS
(instead of the anger, fear and hatred being peddled by the insurrectionists.)
- My incomplete list includes:
*coordination with social media to identify and combat misinformation and national security threats,
*building the economy from the middle out and bottom up (instead of siphoning wealth upward to the 1%)
*reviving businesses and supply chains with a vision to future jobs and innovation
*handling crumbling infrastructure needs
*expanding broadband access to the Internet
and
*addressing public health needs
- that includes access, options, privacy, medications, reducing disparities, protecting from epidemics, addressing gun violence, addiction care instead of criminalization, identifying prevention measures & enacting a wellness rather than sickness model, and reforming costs so families do not go bankrupt when illness occurs.
Republican AGs file lawsuit to enable Facebook to spread COVID disinformation without any federal oversight. How many people have died from COVID in their states? When does politics overtake responsibility to voters? How does Facebook have so much influence with Republicans? Check this relationship map.
Jul 6, 2023·edited Jul 6, 2023Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Thanks for that great distinction between "case and controversy" and standing. I knew there was one, but couldn't drag my memories of Civ Pro out of the former millennium
I never thought I'd say this, but I rather hope that if a serious bout of misinformation comes winging towards the country, the government will just say "I bite my thumb at you, judge" and warn social media of what to look out for. How can there be a rule of law when judges ignore the rules?
It has occurred to me that 2nd Amendment fanaticism has tainted the conservative view of the First Amendment. The First has always been filled with well established exceptions and the courts take a balancing approach in knotty cases between the rights and the needs of the country to maintain order. The 2d has become, for so many conservatives, written in stone with diamond rigidity. I've never really figured out why the 2d is so sacrosanct,** though I suspect it is mostly a matter of NRA propaganda-money talks. And this attitude seems to be attacking the long standing reasonable approach to the First, such that Extremes might well decide it is OK to shout fire in a crowded theater so long as one person has decided that the movie playing is grooming someone.
All through 2015 and 16 I was moaning "the court, the court." So few understood the danger. Now the theater actually is on fire, and no one seems to know how to man the hoses.
Because of all the discussion yesterday about the Rogue Six of our Supreme Court Justices, I came to what I think is a profound notion that I want to bounce off of you all. I may post again about it on Saturday, when life is more leisurely. But here goes. I have grown accustomed to realizing that it's what we can't see that is most likely to injure us, ala the movies Predator, The Thing, Blood Simple. In this case it's the Federalist Society, no doubt actively influential in the American Bar Association. Think about it: the Federalist Society is an organization of non-elected persons, undoubtedly backed by dark money, which influences political agendas. The Federalist Society got a huge boost when Trump was elected in 2016 and was undeniably instrumental in picking most of the Rogue Six, aided by the surprising and untimely passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Federalist Society stepped into a place of power and has exercised its influence to achieve the goals of dark money that works unseen to change the rule of law in this country. Expanding the SCOTUS could well be a useless act unless we fix the way our legal system operates because the ABA and other power sources have corrupted it, perhaps unwittingly, but it doesn't matter. I have been deeply studying the legal profession and the statistics of unwellness in the rank-and-file of practicing lawyers reflects a sick institution that I now see is responsible for the degradation of the principles that form the basis of the law that we learn in law school - a degradation that is being shaped by the hands of Justices (and, I am sure judges) selected by the Federalist Society. When did they get such power? We are f*cked unless we figure this out real quick. The camel got into the tent while we weren't looking.
"The phenomenon is yet another consequence of John Roberts exercising his leadership as Chief Justice of the United States of America. "
uh, when did he ever show one scintilla of leadership??
If we have any reason to be hopeful (but not complacent) it's that these outrages will finally wake up enough Americans to corral these rogues, throw out the crooks, and re-establish a functioning democracy. It's going to require everyone doing everything they can, no kid gloves, no time to waste.
We knew that Trump-appointed judges could do great harm to the laws of the land. And Judge Doughty's ruIing is truly harmful. But you constantly note that we can be hopeful but not complacent. We can slowly and consistently chip away at the poor decisions/plans of the Republican minority. I appreciated your call to action on Independence Day, “What are we willing to do now?”. The simple answer for right now: engage with the Ohio August 8 election to GOTV. The Movement Voter Project (movement.vote) is directing people to https://votenoinaugust.org/, from ONE PERSON=ONE VOTE and posted information in a blog back in May - https://movement.vote/an-existential-moment-for-ohio/. It is critical to show Republican legislatures and judges that are playing fast and loose with the basic tenets of our democracy that We the People will defeat them.
So a rogue MAGA judge at least temporarily puts a stop to efforts of the State Department, DOJ, and Homeland Security to meet with leading social media companies to discuss countermeasures to prevent foreign interference in the 2024 elections.
Just remember the efforts of Senator McConnell to do exactly the same in 2016
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/12/mitch-mcconnell-prevented-stronger-action-against-russian-election-meddling.html
and in 2019
https://www.vox.com/2019/5/21/18629428/election-security-mitch-mcconnell-donald-trump-russia
Obviously there is a pattern there. They have no shame. Years ago some participants at MAGA events showed up in t-shirts sporting the slogan 'Better Russian than Democrat'. Seems like they meant it.
Robert, I wouldn't claim to understand the legalities of the rulings you reported on tonight. However, based on the wild and alarming pronouncements of a couple of misguided (at best) judges, I can only say that it's a good thing you took a few days off in the past week or so. I sense that you're going to need all your strength, energy and patience to continue the good fight to help defeat the measures you described in tonight's report. You will surely have the company of numerous scholars as allies.
I’ve got a couple of questions. First, how did Trump select people to appoint to the various courts? Second, how did Lori Smith, a person with no actual business and no actual gay potential clients come to file a suit? I suppose I’m asking has anyone followed the money to see who was bankrolling all of this and equally important, what are their motivations? These people are the true “deep state”, Trump, McConnell, et al, are the puppets. The folks behind the curtain need to be exposed and talked about every single day.
Judge Doughty and the majority of the Fifth Circuit are interesting (and horrifying) examples of how a little knowledge is a lot worse than a lot of knowledge if you're going to serve in the Judiciary. And it's proof positive, if anymore were needed, that Leonard Leo and Mitch McConnell had only their partisan interests at heart and were not deeply interested in intellect or qualifications. We're all worse off for that. -------> Proving, if anyone needed proof, that money has to be wrung out of our politics. Over-writing Citizens United would be a good first step.
As someone with a law degree, licensed to practice in two states even though not a practicing lawyer, I find it really hard to believe that these judges ever legitimately even passed the bar exam. It is really a shame the extent to which almost all of our true professions, like medicine, law, and accounting to name a few, have allowed themselves to sink to such lack of standards, self-regulation and self-policing.
The whole purpose of having professions and enabling them the right to set standards and to control licensure is that they are to enforce relatively high basic standards of knowledge, proficiency, and ethics. The failure of the professions to do this has meant that they have been essentially taken over by industries (like managed care in medicine and mega consulting firms in accounting), or they have been eclipsed in influence by private organizations (like the Federalist Society) and have ceased enforcement around all but the most egregious ethical and proficiency failures. It’s a shame and it’s another indication of the need for reassessment and revival of basic principles of personal and professional integrity and the idea of service in the public interest.
I really feel that the Law schools these justices attended should revoke their diplomas and the legal associations in charge of continuing accreditation of lawyers, should disbar them. That would immediately disqualify them from sitting on the bench. I also think that these corrupt justices are in many cases indicative of what is wrong with legacy admissions, as well as buying your way in. Coney Barrett is the only one on the current Supreme Court who went to Notre Dame instead of Harvard or Yale for law school. Their programs are all suspect to me. What were they teaching? How do they confer degrees on so many people who turn out to be crooks. Perhaps we should all be writing letters to the American and other Bar Associations and asking that they disbar these people. Judge Terry Dougherty went to Louisiana State Law School. They are missing an ethics course or two and a process for screening out men with neanderthal mentalities. Judge Reed O'Conner went to Southern Texas College of Law. Again these schools all need ethics courses.
Dear Robert,
Just when I am most tempted to put my head in the sand (i.e., this morning), your column strengthens my neck and allows me to begin my day with hope amid thoughtful people. As always, thank you.
Robert, your question about religious participation is interesting.
"Is the phenomenon of increasing secularism—or decreasing participation in organized religion—a good thing or a bad thing for American culture?"
It would be a bad thing if churches and other places of worship represented what they were intended to represent. Things like the Golden Rule, offering shelter to the stranger, feeding the poor, helping a neighbor in need. For sure, there are a few religious organizations that actually do that stuff.
But what do Gen Y and Z see in terms of organized religion? A Catholic church rotting from within - failing to address their own abuse of children. A large part of the Protestant church that preaches hate and bigotry. A portion of the Jewish faith that treats Palestinians as subhuman. An Islam that bombs innocents.
Obviously, there are large numbers of folks who belong to the above faiths who try to live the way their founders had intended. But "organized religion" is now seen by many as the source of wars and horrific persecution. Based on that, I would ask: Is it any surprise that people are fleeing institutions that promote the very antithesis of their founding principles?
Leaving a club that teaches evil seems like a sensible idea to me. So my answer is that it is a very good thing that people are rejecting organizations that don't live out their own original teachings. Young people are liberating themselves. The question is what structure or philosophy or rule book do they adopt next? Personally, I am fine with values instilled in me by my parents. But for those who want or need an organization to help, Humanism can't be beat.
I needed every letter of your hopeful message today. Corruption in the courts is most dispiriting of all traces of the authoritarian GOP regime.
Robert Hubbell, your expertise in legal matters is of great benefit to readers/listeners.
Now that the current SCOTUS decisions have again hacked away at Constitutional freedoms, lived realities, and the will of the people, your newsletter is even more "required reading."
But PLEASE hurry back to your recorded reading. Your calm delivery and perspectives are needed.
When I read issues like these, judges blocking needed attention and action based on partisan activism from the bench, cherry-picked in certain locations (that somehow seem to end up in the South, no surprise) it raises my blood pressure in "hair on fire" alarm. Hearing your voice would help me listen not only to the particulars of what is occurring, but await your perspective on paths forward to remedy these situations.
The "fine people on both sides" claims and conservative grievances about being censored do not pass "the smell test." May the desertion from MAGA- NAZI extremism continue and the cult base shrink and be repudiated for what they truly represent. May the people continue to fight back against voter suppression and FOR state Constitutional amendments that prevent the power-grabbing minority rule that reduces women in particular to second-class personhood under the oppression of an American form of theocracy akin to the Taliban.
Here's to continuing and increasing education and facts, and less ignorance and subjugation.
Here's to the old-fashioned "boring" government that works on REAL NEEDS
(instead of the anger, fear and hatred being peddled by the insurrectionists.)
- My incomplete list includes:
*coordination with social media to identify and combat misinformation and national security threats,
*building the economy from the middle out and bottom up (instead of siphoning wealth upward to the 1%)
*reviving businesses and supply chains with a vision to future jobs and innovation
*handling crumbling infrastructure needs
*expanding broadband access to the Internet
and
*addressing public health needs
- that includes access, options, privacy, medications, reducing disparities, protecting from epidemics, addressing gun violence, addiction care instead of criminalization, identifying prevention measures & enacting a wellness rather than sickness model, and reforming costs so families do not go bankrupt when illness occurs.
If we lose standing, we are well and truly fucked Doughty (and other judges) 'oughty' be impeached immediately.
Republican AGs file lawsuit to enable Facebook to spread COVID disinformation without any federal oversight. How many people have died from COVID in their states? When does politics overtake responsibility to voters? How does Facebook have so much influence with Republicans? Check this relationship map.
https://thedemlabs.org/2023/07/05/judge-limits-biden-administration-facebook-contact-to-curb-covid-disinfo/
Thanks for that great distinction between "case and controversy" and standing. I knew there was one, but couldn't drag my memories of Civ Pro out of the former millennium
I never thought I'd say this, but I rather hope that if a serious bout of misinformation comes winging towards the country, the government will just say "I bite my thumb at you, judge" and warn social media of what to look out for. How can there be a rule of law when judges ignore the rules?
It has occurred to me that 2nd Amendment fanaticism has tainted the conservative view of the First Amendment. The First has always been filled with well established exceptions and the courts take a balancing approach in knotty cases between the rights and the needs of the country to maintain order. The 2d has become, for so many conservatives, written in stone with diamond rigidity. I've never really figured out why the 2d is so sacrosanct,** though I suspect it is mostly a matter of NRA propaganda-money talks. And this attitude seems to be attacking the long standing reasonable approach to the First, such that Extremes might well decide it is OK to shout fire in a crowded theater so long as one person has decided that the movie playing is grooming someone.
All through 2015 and 16 I was moaning "the court, the court." So few understood the danger. Now the theater actually is on fire, and no one seems to know how to man the hoses.
__________________________________________________________
**apart, of course, from Scalia deciding that the opening clause didn't apply.
Because of all the discussion yesterday about the Rogue Six of our Supreme Court Justices, I came to what I think is a profound notion that I want to bounce off of you all. I may post again about it on Saturday, when life is more leisurely. But here goes. I have grown accustomed to realizing that it's what we can't see that is most likely to injure us, ala the movies Predator, The Thing, Blood Simple. In this case it's the Federalist Society, no doubt actively influential in the American Bar Association. Think about it: the Federalist Society is an organization of non-elected persons, undoubtedly backed by dark money, which influences political agendas. The Federalist Society got a huge boost when Trump was elected in 2016 and was undeniably instrumental in picking most of the Rogue Six, aided by the surprising and untimely passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Federalist Society stepped into a place of power and has exercised its influence to achieve the goals of dark money that works unseen to change the rule of law in this country. Expanding the SCOTUS could well be a useless act unless we fix the way our legal system operates because the ABA and other power sources have corrupted it, perhaps unwittingly, but it doesn't matter. I have been deeply studying the legal profession and the statistics of unwellness in the rank-and-file of practicing lawyers reflects a sick institution that I now see is responsible for the degradation of the principles that form the basis of the law that we learn in law school - a degradation that is being shaped by the hands of Justices (and, I am sure judges) selected by the Federalist Society. When did they get such power? We are f*cked unless we figure this out real quick. The camel got into the tent while we weren't looking.
"The phenomenon is yet another consequence of John Roberts exercising his leadership as Chief Justice of the United States of America. "
uh, when did he ever show one scintilla of leadership??
If we have any reason to be hopeful (but not complacent) it's that these outrages will finally wake up enough Americans to corral these rogues, throw out the crooks, and re-establish a functioning democracy. It's going to require everyone doing everything they can, no kid gloves, no time to waste.