By Renee Parsons
In case you may be vaguely aware about what is happening in the country, you need to recognize that there is an on-going threat to take down Article III of the US Constitution which established the country’s judicial system in 1795. Already struggling and hanging by a thread, substantial attempts to smear the Supreme Court and diminish its constitutional ability to function have reached an alarming threshold under the Uniparty’s totalitarian rule.
The Dem crusade, as a front for the Deep State or your choice of vernacular, is waging a concerted assault on multiple public institutions and especially focused on extinguishing what remains of the American experiment with the rule of law; to extinguish the country’s last vestige of judicial autonomy: an essential ingredient to the final abolition of a Constitutional republic – and the Dems know exactly what they are doing.
I’ve written previously about the stream of grossly unqualified judicial nominees that the Senate Judiciary Committee minority, which is one vote short of a majority, must consistently resist Biden Administration efforts to ‘pack’ the Federal Courts with unprofessional, incompetent candidates, as that minority acts with the mojo to galvanize a forceful push back against the tyrannical opposition.
As efforts to derail the Court have not yet achieved its goal, the latest initiative has been re-introduction of legislation purporting to introduce ethics into the Supreme Court’s agenda while true intent of the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act of 2023 is to denigrate the Court’s reputation and tarnish its Opinions while demeaning its Justices as if mere members of a jury and dismiss its Justices as unethical and racist. The Act was introduced in the House as HR 7647 with sixty six Democratic co-sponsors.
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Setting the stage in March, 2020, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer attended an anti abortion rally on the steps of the Supreme Court when he let loose with the overt threat:
“Republican legislatures are waging an attack on women, all women. I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Having no second thoughts the next day on the Senate floor, Schumer further warned “There would be political consequences for Trump and Senate Republicans if newly confirmed Justices strip away a woman’s right to choose.” If Schumer ever recognized the power of his thoughtless words, he never attempted to make amends for his reckless language as the sidewalk protests escalated.
It can only be surmised that many abortionistas have no awareness that a heartbeat exists at six weeks with all organs formed at ten weeks.
In May, 2022, the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Health Clinic, written by Justice Alito, was leaked to Politico, a liberal news outlet which then released it to the public; thereby initiating raucous protests on the sidewalks in front of the Justices’ homes in violation of Federal law. The draft, which was a full completed version, confirmed that Roe v. Wade was unconstitutional and would authorize each individual state to decide its own legal status of abortion.
Then veteran Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters who had been menacing Trump supporters since 2018 further threatened ‘the hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy the court. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
… as Democrats began to reveal their true nature not as civil libertarians they once portrayed. Days later, a California man, armed with assorted weapons for the purpose of assassinating Justice Kavanaugh, was arrested outside Kavanaugh’s home. Was he the “whirlwind’ Schumer had promised?
By June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court released its final Dobbs Opinion which accelerated the illegal sidewalk protests as the Department of Justice refused to administer justice. It was later confirmed by a whistleblower to Sen. Katie Britt that the US Marshals had been given a ‘stand down’ order to allow raucous protests at the homes of Supreme Court Justices to continue, indicative of what was to come from the DOJ.
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As the Committee majority were not satisfied with their intrusion into the Constitutional separation of powers guarantee, fifteen Democratic Senators signed a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair on March 31, 2023 urging the 2024 Appropriations bill to include:
“Of these funds, $10 million cannot be obligated unless the Chief Justice notifies the Committee on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress that the Supreme Court has put into effect a public code of ethics for justices of the Court, including…..et al”
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On April 10, 2023, all Democratic members of the Committee signed an audacious letter to Chief Justice John Roberts citing the discredited allegations against Justice Thomas, urging an investigation and necessary steps to prevent future misconduct although, determined upon scrutiny, there was nothing inappropriate in Thomas’ friendship with Harlan Crow. That was, of course, before Justice Ginzberg’s history and Justice Sotomayor’s successful book selling efforts came to light.
Meanwhile, Committee Chair Richard Durbin’s April 20th invitation to Chief Justice Roberts to appear before the Committee regarding “ethical rules that govern the Justices” and that ‘the status quo is no longer tenable” were easily seen as a cover for discussing the need to reprimand Justice Thomas. Further citing a ‘crisis of public confidence,’ a sly talking point promulgated by the Democrats and its media shills, Roberts wisely denied the invitation.
In response, however, all nine Justices of the Court signed an April 25, 2023 letter to declaring ‘foundational principles’ to provide clarity and ‘dispel common misconceptions’ with their own voluntary “Statement on Ethics, Principles and Practices.” Signed by the Chief Justice, the letter again cited Constitutional requirement for separation of powers, the Court’s history via legislative efforts and the need for judicial independence in offering a thorough explanation of the Court’s “approach to ethical matters” that even recalcitrant members of Committee would understand.
In addition to an Appendix of Judicial Ethic Authorities; the Statement outlined the Court’s view regarding the role of the Judicial Conference of the United States since 1922 which provides Code of Conduct guidance to the entire Federal judicial system as well as detailed references to financial disclosure requirements, extrajudicial activities and especially the Justices’ recusal standard since the Act would ‘liberalize’ any public demand to recuse any Justice for any reason as it would allow any Justice to be subpoenaed. The Court responded:
“The Supreme Court consists of nine Members who always sit together. Thus, Justices have a duty to sit that precludes withdrawal from a case as a matter of convenience or simply to avoid controversy.”
In other words: period, end of story. However, that is not the end when two days later on April 27th, the Committee’s Dem majority which, even in the face of the Chief Justice’s explicit explanation representing the entire Court, refused to accept that a Constitutionally mandated institution is not subject to the Committee’s petty grievance. The Committee responded with a series of presumptuous questions as if the country’s Founders had provided the Committee (est. in 1813) with lawful authority to question and require the Court’s compliance to the Committee’s ideological disposition as it continues to proselytize the Court as unethical and overtly partisan.
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Accordingly, the Democratic majority on the Committee are unanimously disgruntled with the current Court’s decisions on diverse topics such affirmative action, EPA regulations, separation of church and state and gun safety are giving the legislative route a try in its campaign to erode public confidence and delegitimize Article III.
The truth is it has been fifty years for a conservative Supreme Court to emerge as today’s Dems are genetically unable to share power and totally unaccustomed to deal with a principled opposition who push back. Once in complete control of the Judicial and legislative branches, the Democrats are exasperated to no longer dictate the rules of the game or control the agenda except for those RINO holdouts who reject the Republican’s historic traditional conservative values in favor of the Uniparty globalist structure.
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Fortunately, the Senate Judiciary Committee is also populated by Senators who understand the Dems true agenda as recent committee debate on HR 7647 centered predominately on Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court’s longest serving Justice with thirty one years on the bench. Since 1991, Thomas has evolved into an intellectual powerhouse as a prolific conservative Jurist creating what some have come to think of as the Thomas Court. Unproven charges of ethics violations have encouraged Democrats to publicly harangue and destabilize the Court’s existence and question its judicial Opinions.
Former Committee Chair Chuck Grassley unleashed an impassioned opposition to the Act as an “unprecedented partisan assault, harassing and intimidating the Court in a deliberate attempt to increase pressure on the Justice to influence their Opinions. Unhappy with conservative majority, the Dems must now cast doubt on the legitimacy of institution, and manufacture claims of conflict of interest with no such claims against O’Connor or Ginzberg. This is part of Democrats plan made at steps of Supreme Court to unleash the whirlwind.”
Sen John Kennedy (La.) offered an amendment to condemn racist comments that had been directed at Thomas, citing Minnesota AG Keith Ellison’s “house slave” comment as identified in the “Jango Unchanged” movie with Rep. Benny Thompson, Chair of the J6 Committee who suggested “Uncle Tom” and a Georgia State Senator who referred to Thomas as an “Uncle Tom figure.”
Kennedy pointed out that no other Justice has received the level of venom as Thomas and that no Democrat on the committee had denounced any of the racist comments and that it is Democrats who are the first to decry use of racist language except when it suits their ideological partisan purposes.
All Committee Dems were disinclined to support Kennedy’s amendment with opposition leader against the Court, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse urging a No vote. To their credit, Kennedy and his cohorts refused to accept defeat and confronted the majority with Dems on the defensive until Chair Durbin interceded to provide an acceptable compromise.
As the Act was approved by the slim 11 – 10 majority, it is possible that the bill may never make it to the Senate floor since it would require a sixty vote majority and can expect to be filibustered into oblivion.
Even if the Act is not adopted in this Session, it can be expected that Committee Democrats will continue to generate opposition to soften resistance with hit pieces from all the usual media suspects whose real purpose is to disempower the Court in the guise of protecting the public from unethical, corrupt conservative judges whose Opinions challenge the totalitarian strategy.
Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors (2013-2016) and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.