{"id":20431,"date":"2020-10-19T17:05:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T00:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/?p=20431"},"modified":"2020-12-09T15:03:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T23:03:43","slug":"greasing-the-bench","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/greasing-the-bench\/","title":{"rendered":"Greasing the Bench"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Undue
Undue influence, Amy Coney Barrett, by Nancy Ohanian<\/span><\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Posted: Oct. 19, 2020<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

John Grisham, meister of legal thrillers, must look at the Dark Money flying about Supreme Court nominees and curse, “You stinking thieves, give me my book plots back!”<\/p>\n

In a logical world, in a sane US Senate resistant to corruption, Senators would give the bum’s rush to nominees to the Supreme Court who are being promoted with millions, tens of millions, in dark money. Dark money, funding not readily traced to the actual donors, slithering through a labyrinth of shell corporations, donor trusts and 501(c)(4) organizations. And slithering around Senators voting on judicial nominee confirmations, not just for the Supreme Court but all Federal judges, whispering rewards and threats when they\u2019re up for re-election. Dark Money groups like the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, flowing into groups like the Federalist Society, which Trump brags picks his judges, and the closely connected Judicial Crisis Network.<\/p>\n

During Neil Gorsuch\u2019s confirmation hearings for the Supremes, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), asked Gorsuch who his angels were who provided seven million dollars to first deny Obama nominee Merrick Garland and then later drop ten million promoting Gorsuch to the bench. Gorsuch\u2019s reply was that if Whitehouse wanted to know who they were, he should ask them. As if Gorsuch had no idea. And no idea of exactly what his hooded benefactors want from courts. In backing Brett Kavanaugh, one dark donation alone provided seventeen million. Many millions are now swirling to promote Amy Coney Barrett. Not to play down the importance of issues like reproductive rights, or the emphasis on preserving even the most meager opportunities for medical coverage, but it\u2019s not hot-button issues that attract the incognito Big Money to such legal eagles of the Ayn Rand brotherhood. It\u2019s their pro-corporate, anti-regulatory, anti-labor and anti-consumer histories. It\u2019s their willingness to pay close attention to the Amicus briefs from the Big Money\u2019s minions. It\u2019s about suppressing the vote, rigging democracy with gerrymandering, etc…. It\u2019s about insulating industries like fossil fuels, and their Wall Street investors, from accountability for the myriad pollution they knowingly cause. It\u2019s about protecting the interests of those at the top.<\/p>\n

And when the banks start making wholesale property grabs again, it\u2019ll be about ushering them along as they ride roughshod over people, as the floodgates open for those tumbling into a fractured, pro-creditor bankruptcy system, peppered with self-serving “trustees.” Wait and see.<\/p>\n

\"Redefining
Redefining the Supreme Court, by Nancy Ohanian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Tom Neuburger recently detailed,\u00a0Barrett has rung one alarm bell after another<\/a>\u00a0that she will be a grim reaper of the rights and protections of workers when they conflict with the Big Money, and injured consumers have little to rejoice about. In her brief time on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Barrett quickly joined the ilk of judges who are black-robed crowbars for prying wide the wealth gap via a\u00a0legal assembly line of pro-corporate decisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

David Sirota recently\u00a0revealed an important case<\/a> coming before the Supreme Court involving state and municipal government lawsuits against Shell Oil, for which Barrett\u2019s father was a lawyer for decades. Oil companies want the Court to require climate cases be heard in the more corporate-friendly federal courts. Asked about climate change during her hearings, Barrett\u2019s reply was that she does not have “firm views,” “…I\u2019m not really in a position to offer any kind of informed opinion on what I think causes global warming.” How convenient. Isn\u2019t that special? Cue the Church Lady.<\/p>\n