This is my acronym for the Supreme Court of the United States
SCOTUS
SECRET CORRUPTION OKAYED THROUGH UNSUPERVISED SUPREMACY
As Americans we need to remember, United We All Stand, DIVIDED WE ALL WILL FALL!
How about this: let’s try to make America Good Again! It won’t be easy but We all need to weed out the Anti-Americans. Starting @ the top of the food chain. Vote Them Out
My frustration with the Dems is they are not calling out the Republicans for their hypocrisy at every opportunity. The repubs would cut benefits for millions of the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalized rather than raise taxes on the approximately 2.8 million who make $400,000 or more or corporations who are showing records profits contributing to inflation. The repubs claim to be the party of "law and order" and "family values" yet refuse to enact reasonable gun safety measures or provide universal health care including access to abortion and treatment for transgender individuals regardless of age, quality education and a reasonable social safety net without demonizing or penalizing the recipients. Dems start fighting back.
Robert you always make great points. However, the one thing that is always missing from almost all Democratic commentary like this, is the lack of calling ourselves to account to form a formidable enough force that mets out commensurate consequences for all their law breaking. I hesitate to say here what I really think it will take. But it will not stop until they face severe enough consequences. We should stop treating them like they are reasonable people. They are not. They hate everyone outside their delusional world, including everyone and everything they perceive to be left of center or rainbow colored, and they will not be bargained with. The only thing they will respect is the most severe consequences that they might face. We need to start treating them like the sociopaths they are, show them no respect whatsoever, and come up with the strongest possible focused consequences we can muster, and start barraging them with those consequences. Yes, everything may fall apart that way. But it's either that, or start having daily massive protest marches all over the nation. These people are traitors to the Constitution. Just start with that. Arrest them.
Many of their own -- Greene, Gaetz, Gosar, Gohmert, Graham, Boebert, Biggs, Brooks, Blackburn, Hawley, Cruz, Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, Scott Perry, Tuberville, McCarthy, Stefanik, Roy, Jordan, etc. -- were involved in planning, organizing, inciting, supporting and/or defending the attempted subversion of our election process & results in order to illegally keep Trump in power. Amendment 14, Section 3 of the Constitution compels the expulsion of these lawmakers turned lawbreakers for failure to uphold their oath of office. This, of course, follows a long series of Republicans in power not being held accountable for violations of the Constitution, many stemming from Presidents who got to power through treachery or fraud -- Nixon, Reagan/Bush, Bush/Cheney, Trump. Unless & until these criminals & traitors face real justice, we will continue to go downhill & slip into fascism, authoritarianism, civil war and/or self-destruction.
It's hard to figure out what morals the Republican Leaders have. It seems to be that power and money trump (pun intended) any morals that the great religions or great philosophers gave us to create a society that thrives. They don't care about the truth, they don't care about how many mass murders happen, they don't care about preserving peoples fundamental rights. By any measure, their actions are evil. And, their propaganda is influencing the hopeless masses who feel like they don't have anything left to lose. So, in their despair and not understanding who is causing their problems, they attack others like a cornered wild animal.
The unspoken and yet obvious reality of this situation is the motive behind Kevin’s looking away from Santos’s criminality and Chief Justice Robert’s failure to establish a Code of Conduct for our Supreme Court.
Lawyers call it “quid pro quo” from the Latin meaning "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar meanings include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "one hand washes the other".
So long as McCarthy needs Santos’s vote and so long as Santos votes as Kevin tells him to vote, the long arm of the Law will not drag him away from his post as a Representative.
So long as Supreme Court Justices interpret our Constitutional questions before the Court as they are told to do by their Party’s major donors, they remain unencumbered by even the same Code of Ethics lower court justices are held accountable that would call Justice Thomas’s behavior clearly unacceptable and even cause for his impeachment.
Our Supreme Court has been referred to as “politicians in robes”.
Both scenarios, Santos and Thomas, are examples of the overarching political reality of our democracy today. Ethical and legal guardrails are negotiated away by quid pro quo exchanges made in plain sight or quietly out of view of citizens. . . until later made known through investigative reporting.
Lincoln famously said of our nation in our Civil War, “A house divided cannot stand.”
He was talking about the ravages of war and the obvious threat the Civil War posed to the survival of our democracy as one nation.
When politics take precedence over ethics, the decline of our democracy is less obvious but no less damaging than Civil War to the foundation of our democracy. Instead of war, we have unethical termites eating away at our house until the damage they are doing to the integrity of our democracy is noticed and stopped.
The question about stopping quid pro quo termites eating away at the foundation of our democracy is “Can we stop them?” Do we have the will to stop them? And if we wish to stop the termites from destroying our democracy, is it already too late? How much damage to the structural integrity of our government has already been done?
When I first heard the title of this piece "What's the opposite of Republican law and order" my immediate thought was "freedom." I find the many anti-American actions Republicans are doing around the country right now, so anti-freedom it is frightening, just as Republicans want. They thrive on others' fear and use it to feed their power grabs, money-grubbing, law-breaking, and destruction of human norms. Prof. Reich mentioned just a few of the current law-breaking (or window-breaking) that Republicans are doing. Republican suppression of voting, disregard of what the voters want (Floridians wanted former prisoners to regain the right to vote but the state legislature said "we don't think so, we don't care what you say," and the Kansas legislature is trying hard to go against the will of the people who want safe legal abortion, with their proposed anti-abortion legislation), states stealing money meant for COVID relief and using it for their own (even personal purposes), and so much more is truly ghastly. In short, Republicans think they are the law and can do whatever they want. They have "rigged" things in so many places that it won't matter what the people want since Republicans are nearly guaranteed to get elected, and Republicans put into office the least competent, most compliant people they can find, like Little Kevvy McCarthy. Then there's the crime rates in "red" communities being higher than those in "blue" areas despite Republican claims that they are the "law and order" party. What they really mean is "we are the make up the LAWs we want, AND we'll ORDER everyone to obey on penalty of death if necessary" PARTY.
Bravo! This is an important matter because the Rule of Law is required for a civilized society. When the Rule of Law does not exist, the abuse of power abounds, crimes continue, and tyranny thrives.
My experience is that the Rule of Law does not apply to the super rich and powerful. They buy dirty investigators and corrupt police. Harvey Weinstein is a good example.
I cannot believe what is happening in the United States of America. Justice must be restored. The Justice Department needs a new Eliot Ness to fight racketeering. I pray AG Garland will address the crimes of the rich and powerful.
Perhaps we should start reform by changing the name of FBI building. Somehow, the FBI building is named after J. Edgar Hoover, a serial abuser of the law and power. IMO, the building should be renamed for a real Justice hero, Eliot Ness, who fought corrruption and restored the Rule of Law.
GOP is simply driven by blind anger and hatred ,against liberals, the Biden government, democracy and even non whites. Their ultimate objective is not even clear (to me at least) but they seem to be willing to destroy the US to reach whatever that objective is . In actual fact they are holding the American population to ransom ...............and amazingly, most Americans I meet (still) just shrug their shoulders. I am not an American and don't live in US so why would I care? I do care because I and my family, as much as any American family, will have to face whatever the Global fall out and damage of the American Democracy falling apart, turning into a fascist dictatorship will be. I am frustrated because I have zero electoral power to do anything about it other than voicing my concern. I can only hope that common sense, compassion and mutual respect will prevail in the US in the 2024 elections.
The slow moving Kristallnacht that is unfolding in America is sickening. The Sunshine of investigation and the consequences and deterrence of Justice are urgently needed remedies.
The Republicans want to regulate the lives of the people that work ( touch Labor) and exempt the better off persons with the power to oversee what the working poor are doing with there lives and time off from work.
The Republicans are Intrested what you do in bed , force us to have unplanned children ( anti-abortion ) what kind of sexual relations we have.
The reestablishment of The PLANTATION SYSTEM and the Further Financial enrichment of the owner class at the expense of poor.
Re-establish the Devine right of the rich.
Abraham Lincoln would have a mighty hard time identifying with current Republican Party .
Wrong assessment of the problem. This Republican outrage is not surprising nor is it a separate isolated event. Ditto Trump and his racist Fascist MAGA gang.
This was all planned and perpetrated long ago when SCOTUS incrementally gave to the organizations and corporations that represent the rich and powerful our inalienable rights and powers! SCOTUS gave our powers to those whom our Constitution was supposed to protect us from! In making bribes and corruption legal by saying that their unlimited money power in politics is their constitutionally protected free speech, they sealed our fate
SCOTUS rigged our system and made corruption the law of the land years ago. Our system has broken for a while, and it is rigged to keep getting worse because they created a power imbalance that favors the corrupted super rich and their corporations, at the expense of We the People.
Is there a solution? I suggest that you support Pramila Jayapal’s HJR54, the We the People Amendment! It reverses Citizens United and all other SCOTUS rulings that rigged our system. It restores our Constitution and inalienable rights and powers back to us alone, We the People. Demand that your Reps support this effort!!! Call them up today, and every week. And demand that every candidate for public office take the Pledge to Amend at movetoamend.org/pledge, and that all of your favorite justice organizations join the coalition of over 700 organizations at movetoamend.org/organizations
This is my acronym for the Supreme Court of the United States
SCOTUS
SECRET CORRUPTION OKAYED THROUGH UNSUPERVISED SUPREMACY
As Americans we need to remember, United We All Stand, DIVIDED WE ALL WILL FALL!
How about this: let’s try to make America Good Again! It won’t be easy but We all need to weed out the Anti-Americans. Starting @ the top of the food chain. Vote Them Out
My frustration with the Dems is they are not calling out the Republicans for their hypocrisy at every opportunity. The repubs would cut benefits for millions of the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalized rather than raise taxes on the approximately 2.8 million who make $400,000 or more or corporations who are showing records profits contributing to inflation. The repubs claim to be the party of "law and order" and "family values" yet refuse to enact reasonable gun safety measures or provide universal health care including access to abortion and treatment for transgender individuals regardless of age, quality education and a reasonable social safety net without demonizing or penalizing the recipients. Dems start fighting back.
Robert you always make great points. However, the one thing that is always missing from almost all Democratic commentary like this, is the lack of calling ourselves to account to form a formidable enough force that mets out commensurate consequences for all their law breaking. I hesitate to say here what I really think it will take. But it will not stop until they face severe enough consequences. We should stop treating them like they are reasonable people. They are not. They hate everyone outside their delusional world, including everyone and everything they perceive to be left of center or rainbow colored, and they will not be bargained with. The only thing they will respect is the most severe consequences that they might face. We need to start treating them like the sociopaths they are, show them no respect whatsoever, and come up with the strongest possible focused consequences we can muster, and start barraging them with those consequences. Yes, everything may fall apart that way. But it's either that, or start having daily massive protest marches all over the nation. These people are traitors to the Constitution. Just start with that. Arrest them.
BRAVO! Reich at your best.
Many of their own -- Greene, Gaetz, Gosar, Gohmert, Graham, Boebert, Biggs, Brooks, Blackburn, Hawley, Cruz, Rick Scott, Ron Johnson, Scott Perry, Tuberville, McCarthy, Stefanik, Roy, Jordan, etc. -- were involved in planning, organizing, inciting, supporting and/or defending the attempted subversion of our election process & results in order to illegally keep Trump in power. Amendment 14, Section 3 of the Constitution compels the expulsion of these lawmakers turned lawbreakers for failure to uphold their oath of office. This, of course, follows a long series of Republicans in power not being held accountable for violations of the Constitution, many stemming from Presidents who got to power through treachery or fraud -- Nixon, Reagan/Bush, Bush/Cheney, Trump. Unless & until these criminals & traitors face real justice, we will continue to go downhill & slip into fascism, authoritarianism, civil war and/or self-destruction.
It's hard to figure out what morals the Republican Leaders have. It seems to be that power and money trump (pun intended) any morals that the great religions or great philosophers gave us to create a society that thrives. They don't care about the truth, they don't care about how many mass murders happen, they don't care about preserving peoples fundamental rights. By any measure, their actions are evil. And, their propaganda is influencing the hopeless masses who feel like they don't have anything left to lose. So, in their despair and not understanding who is causing their problems, they attack others like a cornered wild animal.
Another especially insightful article, Prof Reich. Thank you.
An excellent summary.
The unspoken and yet obvious reality of this situation is the motive behind Kevin’s looking away from Santos’s criminality and Chief Justice Robert’s failure to establish a Code of Conduct for our Supreme Court.
Lawyers call it “quid pro quo” from the Latin meaning "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar meanings include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours", and "one hand washes the other".
So long as McCarthy needs Santos’s vote and so long as Santos votes as Kevin tells him to vote, the long arm of the Law will not drag him away from his post as a Representative.
So long as Supreme Court Justices interpret our Constitutional questions before the Court as they are told to do by their Party’s major donors, they remain unencumbered by even the same Code of Ethics lower court justices are held accountable that would call Justice Thomas’s behavior clearly unacceptable and even cause for his impeachment.
Our Supreme Court has been referred to as “politicians in robes”.
Both scenarios, Santos and Thomas, are examples of the overarching political reality of our democracy today. Ethical and legal guardrails are negotiated away by quid pro quo exchanges made in plain sight or quietly out of view of citizens. . . until later made known through investigative reporting.
Lincoln famously said of our nation in our Civil War, “A house divided cannot stand.”
He was talking about the ravages of war and the obvious threat the Civil War posed to the survival of our democracy as one nation.
When politics take precedence over ethics, the decline of our democracy is less obvious but no less damaging than Civil War to the foundation of our democracy. Instead of war, we have unethical termites eating away at our house until the damage they are doing to the integrity of our democracy is noticed and stopped.
The question about stopping quid pro quo termites eating away at the foundation of our democracy is “Can we stop them?” Do we have the will to stop them? And if we wish to stop the termites from destroying our democracy, is it already too late? How much damage to the structural integrity of our government has already been done?
When I first heard the title of this piece "What's the opposite of Republican law and order" my immediate thought was "freedom." I find the many anti-American actions Republicans are doing around the country right now, so anti-freedom it is frightening, just as Republicans want. They thrive on others' fear and use it to feed their power grabs, money-grubbing, law-breaking, and destruction of human norms. Prof. Reich mentioned just a few of the current law-breaking (or window-breaking) that Republicans are doing. Republican suppression of voting, disregard of what the voters want (Floridians wanted former prisoners to regain the right to vote but the state legislature said "we don't think so, we don't care what you say," and the Kansas legislature is trying hard to go against the will of the people who want safe legal abortion, with their proposed anti-abortion legislation), states stealing money meant for COVID relief and using it for their own (even personal purposes), and so much more is truly ghastly. In short, Republicans think they are the law and can do whatever they want. They have "rigged" things in so many places that it won't matter what the people want since Republicans are nearly guaranteed to get elected, and Republicans put into office the least competent, most compliant people they can find, like Little Kevvy McCarthy. Then there's the crime rates in "red" communities being higher than those in "blue" areas despite Republican claims that they are the "law and order" party. What they really mean is "we are the make up the LAWs we want, AND we'll ORDER everyone to obey on penalty of death if necessary" PARTY.
Bravo! This is an important matter because the Rule of Law is required for a civilized society. When the Rule of Law does not exist, the abuse of power abounds, crimes continue, and tyranny thrives.
My experience is that the Rule of Law does not apply to the super rich and powerful. They buy dirty investigators and corrupt police. Harvey Weinstein is a good example.
I cannot believe what is happening in the United States of America. Justice must be restored. The Justice Department needs a new Eliot Ness to fight racketeering. I pray AG Garland will address the crimes of the rich and powerful.
Perhaps we should start reform by changing the name of FBI building. Somehow, the FBI building is named after J. Edgar Hoover, a serial abuser of the law and power. IMO, the building should be renamed for a real Justice hero, Eliot Ness, who fought corrruption and restored the Rule of Law.
GOP is simply driven by blind anger and hatred ,against liberals, the Biden government, democracy and even non whites. Their ultimate objective is not even clear (to me at least) but they seem to be willing to destroy the US to reach whatever that objective is . In actual fact they are holding the American population to ransom ...............and amazingly, most Americans I meet (still) just shrug their shoulders. I am not an American and don't live in US so why would I care? I do care because I and my family, as much as any American family, will have to face whatever the Global fall out and damage of the American Democracy falling apart, turning into a fascist dictatorship will be. I am frustrated because I have zero electoral power to do anything about it other than voicing my concern. I can only hope that common sense, compassion and mutual respect will prevail in the US in the 2024 elections.
Isn't "Republican Law & Order" an oxymoron? (Emphasis on the "moron".)
The slow moving Kristallnacht that is unfolding in America is sickening. The Sunshine of investigation and the consequences and deterrence of Justice are urgently needed remedies.
The Republicans want to regulate the lives of the people that work ( touch Labor) and exempt the better off persons with the power to oversee what the working poor are doing with there lives and time off from work.
The Republicans are Intrested what you do in bed , force us to have unplanned children ( anti-abortion ) what kind of sexual relations we have.
The reestablishment of The PLANTATION SYSTEM and the Further Financial enrichment of the owner class at the expense of poor.
Re-establish the Devine right of the rich.
Abraham Lincoln would have a mighty hard time identifying with current Republican Party .
J
An Occam’s Razor Award to Dr. Reich. So much sense conveyed with so few words displayed.
Wrong assessment of the problem. This Republican outrage is not surprising nor is it a separate isolated event. Ditto Trump and his racist Fascist MAGA gang.
This was all planned and perpetrated long ago when SCOTUS incrementally gave to the organizations and corporations that represent the rich and powerful our inalienable rights and powers! SCOTUS gave our powers to those whom our Constitution was supposed to protect us from! In making bribes and corruption legal by saying that their unlimited money power in politics is their constitutionally protected free speech, they sealed our fate
SCOTUS rigged our system and made corruption the law of the land years ago. Our system has broken for a while, and it is rigged to keep getting worse because they created a power imbalance that favors the corrupted super rich and their corporations, at the expense of We the People.
Is there a solution? I suggest that you support Pramila Jayapal’s HJR54, the We the People Amendment! It reverses Citizens United and all other SCOTUS rulings that rigged our system. It restores our Constitution and inalienable rights and powers back to us alone, We the People. Demand that your Reps support this effort!!! Call them up today, and every week. And demand that every candidate for public office take the Pledge to Amend at movetoamend.org/pledge, and that all of your favorite justice organizations join the coalition of over 700 organizations at movetoamend.org/organizations
Together, si se puede!!! We can!