News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Sept. 21, 2018: SPECIAL NOTE … this is the most important episode EVER – so far.
By any standard of logic when something is not working it needs to be fixed.
The more important and long lasting the issue that much more urgently.
Yes, I know things often don’t get fixed and we suffer the results all the time.
Here is the ONLY reference in the U.S. Constitution to federal courts. Everything else concerning the federal judiciary since 1789 is interpretation; call it binding opinion if you like by both Congress and the judiciary itself.
“The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”
That is it!
That is all there is in the Constitution about Federal Courts except that by definition their purpose is ultimately to interpret the Constitution and all the laws that have been based on it since 1789.
The current controversy this week involving Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Professor Christine Blasey Ford and which is telling truth is specifically important most of all whether or not Kavanaugh has been a sex offender.
The reason this is the national issue it is, not one of the countless such matters from the past and the present, is obviously because one of them is nominated to the Supreme Court and should not serve if they are a sex offender.
Why that matters so much everyone knows as well as I do is because the Supreme Court has become the most powerful branch of federal government. The most significant and long-lasting reason each of the Supreme Court Judges is individually so important is that they serve for life.
Smart Presidents which for this purpose is every President are increasingly appointing Supreme Court Justices who are in their 40s or early 50s because that means they may be on the Supreme Court for 30 or more years.
They will be making pivotal judicial decisions pleasing to the President and Senate that approved them long after those ELECTED officials are long gone and no matter how much the political climate in the nation changes.
Supreme Court appointees just keep giving and giving and giving some more.
The most obvious reason this is so important is because the Supreme Court no longer is if it ever was the OBJECTIVE body it was meant to be. First of all, objectivity in matters of legal interpretation is always somewhat subjective. But increasingly it is very, very clear Justices are making obvious POLITICAL not objective decisions as Supreme Court Justices.
What that means is that we have ALL three branches of the federal government are POLITICAL organizations. The fatal difference in the Supreme Court most of all is that these 9 Judges are in fact a PERMANENT government NOT subject to the fundamental essential checks and balances for Congress and President which are elections as imperfect as they may be.
Allow me to make this point graphically to motivate change.
If Congress and the President were to decide they no longer want to have elections and make their positions PERMANENT to serve for life that would make the United Stars a dictatorship and all of them traitors and there would be a revolution in America more violent than the first or the Civil War.
Well since we have 9 POLITICIANS on the Supreme Court …..
Why do I legitimately refer to them as POLITICIANS? Because they are appointed by Presidents for one key reason their POLITICAL views ….
… who then make their decisions based on their political views – which they deny – and they serve for life so we are on our way to turning the United States “effectively” into a Dictatorship of the Supreme Court.
There are lots of other reasons why democracy in America is increasingly endangered too but this one is very, very clear.
If that does not scare you it sure should.
We have two choice accept this illogical ABSURDITY or not.
First of all there is no perfect solution. There never are. But there are better or worse options or doing nothing at all.
The easy answer repeated often is that there is no solution meaning it would take a Constitutional Amendment to change the Supreme Court and that is not going to happen ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys.
No good reason to waste words or time on that non-solution.
So, what is left. Here why you are blessed reading my episodes.
What is left is THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX.
It is the way things most often get done in substantial ways.
So, let me repeat all the little the Constitution says about Federal Courts.
“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”
Again, that is all there is!
Thinking OUTSIDE the box this problem is the SOLUTION!
If it were easy to be a genius everyone would be!
I am going to keep this simple because it is but first note it will take an ENLIGHTENED Democratic Party President and Congress to do this don’t expect the Republicans or the tired old Democrats of right now to do it.
Here we go …
I am going to give this solution a name in honor of the great legal scholar and my and many others hero THE HAMILTON SOLUTION logically so since Alexander Hamilton was an idealistic pragmatist as I am today.
1) There is no definition of what the Supreme Court is or what inferior courts are or how many of each of them. They are whatever Congress and the President creates of them based in very slim guidelines in the Constitution.
So here is the solution to STOP the Supreme Court being a PERMANENT political branch of government in violation of the Constitution.
2) Congress has the power to declare ALL Federal Judges Supreme Court Judges. That is right nothing in the Constitution prevents it. Congress by majority vote of both chambers can pass a bill and the President sign into law making all existing and future Federal Judges Supreme Court Judges.
That in itself is not the solution but a very necessary part of it. Next …
Congress concurrently passes, and the President signs a law to reorganize the Federal Judiciary in just one simple way …
3) There shall be a Superior Court of the Supreme Court which will be the ultimate appeal court in the Federal Judiciary to review all other decisions of the Federal Judiciary as they decide, 9 or more Justices nominated by the President who will serve one 5-10-year term on the Superior Supreme Court.
That is it folks! It is that simple and it is Constitutional.
Is it a perfect solution it is if we admit the Supreme Court will always be political in that Presidents will always nominate Judges who agree with their own politics. That there is no such thing as pure objectivity or just one way to interpret the various clauses of the U.S. Constitution. That is fantasy!
What this concept does is STOP any President from imposing their politics on the nation for 30 or more years as is the case for the most recent appointees.
Can future Congresses and Presidents undue these changes? Sure, but why would they other than ensure their defeat at the next election, especially as this NEW Court will be so much more popular with the American people.
What’s that you discovered a FATAL flaw in my plan?????
You think the current Supreme Court will declare it’s UN-constitutional since a majority can declare anything they want UN-constitutional?
Let them try it. If it must come down to a decision by we the People as to whether we will allow the Supreme Court to be a DICTATORSHIP …..
BRING it on 5 of 9 Judges vs. the will of the American people.
It is time for that battle if it is necessary.
Any doubt who will win that battle! You should not. I don’t.
SAVE this episode it is the most important ever so far!
(This entire series is dedicated in honor of the late Liu Xiaobo)
