Public trust in the Supreme Court of the USA is at an all-time low and for good reason: corrupt and partisan judges have been rendering inexplicable decisions, demolishing decades of precedent, and legitimizing manifestly criminal misconduct.
Partisanship became rampant and unabashed: almost all the decisions were authored and promulgated by the Conservative, largely Trump-appointed majority with the Liberals in the Court dissenting haplessly time and again.
Here is a random tour of the wrecking ball tactics of the Court:
In Snyder vs. United States, the court ruled that “gratuities” paid or given to public officials by interested parties are legal. From now on, companies and individuals can openly bribe decision-makers provided the bribes are dispensed after the fact (in the wake of the favorable auction, procurement, ruling, or legislation).
Indeed, some of the high court Justices have been receiving such lavish emoluments from multi-billionaires for years on end and neglecting to report them.
The court reversed the precedent it set in Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Council. In Relentless vs. Department of Commerce and in Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo, the court ruled that judges (presumably, only Conservative ones) are better qualified than government agencies to render decisions even on highly complex and intricate professional and scientific issues.
Ironically, rejecting such an extreme form of judicial activism has been a rallying cry for the Conservative movement for decades now. But, it seems, that now, with a Conservative majority in the Court, it is back in favor.
This single decision against the “Administrative State” (the legalese equivalent of the conspiratorial “Deep State”) undermines well over 17,000 regulations in all fields of life, from food safety and public health to environmental protection. A protracted period of litigious chaos is bound to ensue, not to mention growing dangers to consumers and plain folk, not the darlings of Conservatives, admittedly.
In Fischer vs. the United States, the Court ruled counterfactually that the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6 were not engaged in an obstruction to an official proceeding (the counting of the electors in the Congress). It has thus undermined the case against 400 of them, possibly including Donald Trump himself.
The Court has also not rejected out of hand the surrealistic claim that Presidents are immune to criminal prosecution, never mind what heinous act they have committed, murder included. Incredibly, it is debating the issue.
This is a smattering of recent destabilizing and outlandish decisions, three of dozens (including the overturning of Roe vs. Wade). Should the USA devolve into civil war, as I have been predicting for decades now, the Supreme Court of the land will have a lot to answer for.
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