Rage Over Kavanaugh Largely About Trump Bashing
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
In today’s disturbing political climate, a GOP or undemocratic Dem president would nominate a conservative or right-wing judicial figure to fill Supreme Court vacancies when they occur. If not Kavanaugh, then someone similar.
Like or dislike him, things in Washington most often aren’t as they seem on the surface. Undemocratic Dems hope his controversial Supreme Court nomination and confirmation help them regain House and/or Senate control.
Along with most major media, they’re unforgiving about Trump’s triumph over Hillary, along with wanting improved relations with Russia, the latter essential to avoid possible nuclear war by pushing hostility against the Kremlin too far.
The anti-Trump crowd bashes him relentlessly for the wrong reasons, ignoring the most important legitimate ones.
They include high crimes of war and against humanity, breaking every populist promise made, stacking his regime with right-wing extremists, showing contempt for ordinary people everywhere, inflicting enormous harm to countless millions at home and abroad, and much more.
His one-sided support for Israel, ignoring its apartheid rule and contempt for Palestinian rights, gets virtually no attention. Nor is he criticized for currying favor with the Saudis, Egypt, and other despotic regimes – while waging war on sovereign independent ones threatening no one.
Like his predecessors, he’s waging war OF terrorism, not on it, along with class war on ordinary Americans, vulnerable ones harmed most of all.
Republicans and undemocratic Dems shun appointing Supreme Court and other federal judges supportive of peace, equity and justice.
If not Kavanaugh, someone as hardline or worse would be nominated and confirmed. He’s the sixth Supreme Court right-wing Federalist Society member – along with Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
The organization supports rolling back civil liberties, imperial wars, free-wheeling laissez-faire capitalism and corporatism, along with ending New Deal/Great Society social programs.
It’s against reproductive choice, government regulations, labor rights, environmental protections, justice for unwanted aliens, and equal justice under law for everyone.
The Supremes upheld Trump’s deplorable travel ban, largely affecting majority Muslim nations.
America has been hugely racist from inception, state-sponsored war waged on people of color at the federal, state and local levels.
Conditions for Black Americans went from chattel to wage slavery, Jim Crow to its modern-day version, freedom to mass incarceration.
More Black men and youths are in prison, on probation, or parole than were enslaved pre-Civil War.
Racist drug laws largely affect poor communities of color most of all. In US inner-cities, most Black youths can expect criminal injustice prosecutions one or more times in their lifetime.
Over 60% of Black men born in 1965 or later without high school degrees (following passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act banning discrimination) have prison records.
They’re marked for life, targeted by militarized cops, leaving them vulnerable to re-arrest and imprisonment or death.
America is more police state than democracy, its inner-city streets battlegrounds, Blacks and other people of color terrorized – unfairness against them enforced judicially, including by the nation’s highest court.
It’s the wrong time to be Muslim in America. Under Republicans and undemocratic Dems, they’re hugely discriminated against for their faith and ethnicity. The Supremes upholding Trump’s unacceptable travel ban is one of numerous examples.
Throughout US history, they largely support privilege over beneficial social change.
Their Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) ruling, granting corporations personhood under the 14th Amendment with all rights and privileges but no obligations, was perhaps their most egregious one ever.
In Bush v. Gore (2000), majority right-wing justices overruled the popular vote, halted the Florida recount on spurious grounds, installing GW Bush as president – the first time in history that the High Court reversed the outcome of a presidential election.
Gore won the electoral college and popular vote. Bush served two terms as president, the 2004 election as tainted as 2000. Kerry won. Bush stayed in office.
With rare exceptions throughout US history, the High Court has been supremely pro-business, most often supporting corporate interests over equal justice under law.
In Exxon Shipping v. Baker, the Court reduced an original $5 billion in punitive damages for the hugely destructive Exxon Valdez oil spill to $500 million, ending 19 years of litigation.
It was precedent-setting, showing up in subsequent rulings, business consistently benefitted at the expense or ordinary people and ecosanity.
Corporations have latitude to be reckless, exploitive, and unlawful in their actions, knowing most often they only face slap-on-the-wrist judgments against them, including in Supreme Court rulings.
Obama appointee Elena Kagan bragged about loving the Federalist Society. As Harvard Law School dean, she hired Bush’s outgoing Office of Legal Counsel director, Jack Goldsmith. Francis Boyle called him a war criminal.
Democracy in America is pure illusion under one-party rule with two extremist right wings.
Republicans and undemocratic Dems are indistinguishable on major issues, notably supporting endless wars of aggression, corporate empowerment, and harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers.
Political and judicial profiles in courage are virtually nonexistent in America – things worsening each electoral cycle, Republicans and Dems equally abhorrent.
Supreme Court justices reflect political, not public, sentiment no matter which party selects them.
America’s deplorable state keeps worsening. One-party rule with two right wings is too debauched to fix.
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