The true role of the U.S. Supreme Court in the U.S. "democracy"
Why since February of 2016?
The U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died on or around Valentine's Day (the true date of death could not be determined because of the circumstances of his death).
Since that day, the American people had an opportunity to observe games played by both parties, Democratic and Republican, in the war as to who will replace the seat of the departed judge.
That happened with the death of Antonin Scalia.
That happened again with the retirement of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in July of 2018.
After the death of Antonin Scalia, the Republican majority of the Senate precluded the Democratic President Barack Obama from having the candidate he lawfully nominated during his presidency confirmed for the court.
The Democrats responded "in kind", trying to block two candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court nominated by the supposedly Republican President Donald Trump - Neil Gorsuch, in the place of the same deceased Antonin Scalia and instead of President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland, and Brett Kavanaugh.
While the attempt at mud-slinging at Judge Gorsuch were undertaken by Democrats, they were mild as compared to the smear campaign aimed at Brett Kavanaugh, an already-confirmed federal appellate judge with pristine reputation before he had the misfortune to be nominated by the "wrong" President.
What did the circus around nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court showed to the American people.
The importance of the identity of U.S. Supreme Court justices and who appoints them.
And why are those things so important?
Judges are supposed to be neutral and impartial, no matter to which party the President who nominated the particular judge belonged.
And judges are supposed to rule based on the written law - and not make law, this is (based on Article I of the U.S. Constitution) the exclusive right of the U.S. Congress - and not on their personal or political views or affiliations.
Well, that concept goes out the door given the open partisan fight over which party appoints a judge to the highest court in the country and when supporters and opponents of each party and each party's judicial nominee openly claim that one (1) person nominated by the "wrong" party and sitting for life will change the law of a supposedly democratic country with a 348 000 000 population for decades, for as long as that nominee sits on the country's highest court.
The reason is that, while U.S. legal scholars, professors, who are afraid for their law licenses and ability to teach at prestigious law schools controlled through accreditation by the American Bar Association, an Illinois non-profit corporation with secret, including foreign, membership, are afraid to call things like they are,
foreign legal scholars - I read law reviews article by English, Nigerian and Russian legal scholars - openly state that in the U.S. the highest court in the country MAKES LAW, and CHANGES THE CONSTITUITON through their interpretation, even though there is no such power in the U.S. Constitution given to the U.S. Supreme Court, moreover, even though the lawmaking power is given exclusively to the U.S. Congress (Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution) and even though the Law of the Land, contrary to the routinely expressed "beliefs" of American law professors, lawyers, judges and many non-lawyer members of the American public, does not include decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court interpreting federal and state laws and the U.S. Constitution. The Law of the Land includes exclusively 3 things, none of which are decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court:
- The text of the U.S. Constitution;
- The text of federal statutory laws made (by the U.S. Congress) in accordance with the U.S. Constitution; and
- International treaties ratified by the United States.
That's all.
In other words, legal scholars who are not afraid that their law licenses will be revoked and that they will be booted into the street from the ABA-controlled American law schools, plainly state that the U.S. Supreme Court usurped legislative powers from the U.S. Congress and acts as a super-legislative body, making its decisions "binding" on the country INSTEAD of the constitutional Law of the Land - and making itself a sort of a collective 9-people monarchy.
The circus around who is going to take the seat of a deceased or a retired U.S. Supreme Court justice only confirms that proposition.
The U.S. Constitution as a sacred text, the U.S. Supreme Court as the only oracle that can read and discern the meaning of that sacred text, the divine power of the U.S. Supreme Court judges (and other judges), the taboo to criticize that divine power and exceptions from that taboo
The circus about who will take the seat of a deceased or a retired U.S. Supreme Court judge was not the only show displaying for the American public the true colors of the American legal profession - which the American judiciary is regulating and is, at the same time, a part of (every American judge, including federal judges, is an attorney licensed by a state intermediate appellate (State of New York) or by the state highest (all other states) court).
Imagine a setup where you are appointed by the people to regulate a certain profession. Let's say, you are appointed to regulate plumbers.
How will you handle the regulation? Wouldn't you say that one of the main requirements to such regulation is that the regulator must be impartial, fair, regulate only for the purposes benefiting the people and not himself?
Now let's look at how the judiciary (part of the legal profession) regulates the legal profession.
Here are the rules that the judiciary, the U.S. Supreme Court, to be more precise, followed by other courts, created for all American judges:
1. judges can violate their own Constitutional oath of office and people's constitutional (human) rights with impunity - the victims may not sue them and may not obtain any legal remedy, inside or outside the country, for the wrongs inflicted upon them by judicial corruption or misconduct. That "rule" was set by two "policies" of the U.S. Supreme Court, policies not only making law (which the judicial branch of the federal government does not have authority to do under Article III of the U.S. Constitution), but also changing the U.S. Constitution and rendering the judges' own oath to support, defend and maintain the U.S. Constitution into a cruel joke:
- absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts - "on the bench" (in office), but stretched by courts far outside acts by judges in their judicial capacity, see e.g. cases from New York federal courts
- Shtrauch v. Dowd, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, dismissed without review on the merits in 2015 on judicial immunity grounds, see also a New York Law journal article - without criticism of the judge - about that case, dismissal on judicial immunity grounds affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in 2016 (the judge ordered physical removal of a Jewish pro se litigant by a Nazi sympathizer armed court guard AFTER the judge recused and had no authority over the case, the removal was in retaliation for the motion to recuse);
- Pacherille v. Burns, filed in 2013, dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York (Judge Brian Burns "wisely" changed his attorney mid-litigation and hired a law firm where the presiding magistrate judge was a law partner and continued to maintain ties with the law firm), judicial immunity was granted for actions of Judge Burns in filing a fabricated criminal complaint AS A COMPLAINANT against the father of a teenager who Burns sent to jail in retaliation for the father's plea of mercy to Burns, in a letter, mentioning Burns himself being a father.
- judges refuse to recognize part of the "law of the land", international treaties ratified by the U.S. as "self-executing", directly applicable and binding upon American national courts - I have recently presented a law review article at a conference "Seeking Justice Beyond Our Shores: Americans and International Human Rights" on that subject, with a large bibliography listing cases decided by the U.S. Supreme court honoring international treaties where property rights were concerned and refusing to do that when individual liberties were concerned, and showing how the U.S. Congress took the hint from the U.S. Supreme Court and now ratifies all international treaties protecting human rights as "non-self-executing" for Americans, denying Americans out-of-the-country judicial review that citizens, residents and visitors of over 100 countries, including countries that the U.S. considers non-democratic, have.
2. judges may accept gifts - in money and in kind - from parties in litigation and attorneys appearing in front of them. Recall Justice Scalia hunting trips, where he was found dead, recall that the U.S. Supreme Court allows money gifts for judges, and that SCOTUS judges accept all-expenses-paid trips and speaking and lecture fees from law schools, bar associations and foreign governments.
3. despite giving themselves absolute immunity for corruption and engaging in corruption, accepting gifts, judges also declare that their honesty and integrity is presumed.
4. Moreover, as the chief ethicist (at this time) of the American Bar Association Margaret Tarkington announced recently in her book "The Voice of Justice", the judiciary, the regulator of the legal profession, use arguments of medieval English kings that king's (and the King's Court's) power is divine and that criticizing it in any way is treason - and created the ultimate taboo for the profession the judiciary regulate, attorneys, against speaking in the criticism of the judiciary.
So, we have:
1. the 1st Amendment prohibiting restriction of speech;
2. multiple precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court based on the 1st Amendment that the U.S. Supreme Court claims to be binding on all courts in the country - that prohibits regulation of speech based on its content, and especially when it is criticism of the government; but
3. that does not apply to attorney speech in criticism of their own regulator, the judiciary.
For attorneys criticizing judges is an ultimate taboo, and criticism of judges even with the most iron-clad proof inevitably leads to retaliatory suspension of the attorney's law license and to destruction of the attorney's livelihood.
Moreover, judges have invented theories of quid pro quo, that attorneys supposedly lay down their 1st Amendment rights in exchange of permission from the judiciary to earn a living by "practicing law".
And, the judiciary includes into rules of attorneys they regulate the requirement that the attorneys praise judges and judicial candidates to voters, "maintaining public trust" in the integrity of the judiciary, and not "spread false information" about judges AND judicial candidates during elections, while what is false is defined not in defamation lawsuits of judges and judicial candidates against lawyers, but in secret disciplinary proceedings without strict evidentiary rules and standards.
And, the judiciary, on top of everything else, never clearly defined what the "practice of law" is making the whole regulation illegal under the U.S. Supreme Court own precedents, but made it a crime to practice law without the judiciary's permission, and define what WAS the practice of law backwards, on a case by case basis, violating constitutional prohibitions on bills of attainder and ex post facto laws.
And, the judiciary defines as "practice of law" much more actions for people who have lost their law license than for the people who have never had it. As an example, anybody, with any level of education, can work as a secretary or assistant in a law office, but it is the crime of the "unauthorized practice of law" for a suspended or disbarred attorney.
Let's go back to our hypothetical appointment of a regulator of plumbers.
Imagine that you, as a regulator, issue rules that:
1. you define what plumbing is, and define it in arrears, backwards;
2. you say that unauthorized practice of plumbing is a crime;
3. you say that, if a person lost your permit for plumbing, and then helps a plumber, he is guilty of a crime - while a person who had never had your permit for plumbing, can do the same, and it will not be a crime for him;
4. you give yourself immunity in your actions in regulating plumbers, for corruption and misconduct;
5. you allow yourself to accept gifts from plumbers for whom you issue permits to work and can revoke them at your whim;
6. you impose a code of silence, a taboo, as to criticism of yourself by people whose livelihood you control, the plumbers;
7. morever, you demand plumbers who are forced into silence about your shortcomings and misconduct to praise to the public your honesty and integrity, allowing to perpetuate your power as a regulator and be re-appointed (re-elected).
That is what the judiciary is doing.
And the taboo to criticize it for attorneys is so strong that criticizing a judge, for any reason, is normally considered - as Professor Tarkington acknowledged - a professional suicide for an attorney.
The American legal profession tried to spread that taboo, now "applicable" only to attorneys, to Donald Trump when he was still running for President and when nobody really believed that he will become President. When he criticized a judge for bias and appearance of impropriety, there was a lot of mud-slinging aimed against Trump claiming that it was improper for him to exercise his 1st Amendment rights in criticizing a judge.
Yet, when Trump became President and nominated first one, then another judge to the U.S. Supreme Court, the rules of engagement for the legal profession have changed.
Suddenly, the taboo on criticism by attorneys, law students and law professors of the judiciary have lifted and the legal profession engaged in a collective, organized, mud-slinging against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
Yet, if you think for one second that, because of Judge Kavanaugh's case, the taboo for attorneys to criticize judges, was lifted forever, think again.
THE TABOO ON CRITICISM OF JUDGES BY ATTORNEYS REMAIN IN PLACE AND WAS REINFORCED TO HELP JUDICIAL CANDIDATES DUPE THEIR VOTERS
You know for what?
For the attorney's written pleadings in 2005 (!), 13 years ago, and in 2008, 10 years ago, criticizing two judges for their apparent incompetence and dishonesty in deciding cases.
One of the two judges, Thomas Whelan, has a wife who is also a judge, Teresa Whelan, and who, "coincidentally", is running a re-election campaign at this very time.
Note that the article names Teresa Whelan's mother as a prominent figure in the local government, specifically she played a big role in choosing who is and who is not going to be elected in Suffolk County:
"Whelan is the scion of a prominent Democratic family — her mother, Joan Bryant, is a former deputy Suffolk elections commissioner and was a major party fundraiser for the late party chair Dominic Baranello."
And, both the daughter, and the son-in-law, of the "former deputy Suffolk elections commissioner" and of the "major party fundraiser for the late party chair Dominic Baranello" "coincidentally" became judges in that same county.
Nothing too crooked.
And, the daughter of that "major fundraiser" "coincidentally" became also a president of the Suffolk County Women's Bar Association.
And, "coincidentally", an attorney was suspended for criticism of one of the Whelan judges - for criticism that occurred 13 years ago - during the re-election campaign of the other Whelan judge, as a point of intimidation to that attorney and to all other attorneys.
And suspended for three months - until December 25, 2018, and "until further order of the court", as a warning - peep a word of criticism during the re-election campaign, and your law license will not be reinstated.
Not too crooked either.
And you know what pro-democratic legal blogs are doing? Are they adamant that the attorney's suspension for criticism of judges, and for well-deserved criticism, too, was unconstitutional?
Far from it.
Same as the mud-slinging of Judge Kavanaugh, for which the ABA has lifted the strict taboo of criticism on the judiciary, kicking attorneys who have violated that taboo by criticizing judges supported by "party fundraiser" connections is also allowed by the regulators.
So, to hell with the Gino Giorgini's 1st Amendment right to say what he said in his 13-year-old and 10-year-old criticisms of judges.
To hell as to the fact that "Above the Law" does not even know which cases attorney Giorgini was punished for - because the disciplinary court, and the court system of the State of New York and of the Suffolk county HID those cases, misidentifying them, and hiding their index numbers from the disciplinary case, and from the e-docket of the New York State Supreme Court.
To hell that the whole disciplinary proceeding was jurisdictionally defective, because it was started in the 2nd Department, while one of the judges of the court that filed the charges was the object of attorney Giorgini's criticism.
And to hell with the fact that criticism by attorney Giorgini of Judge Whelan - at least, judging by other publications in the mainstream press - was RICHLY deserved, and was baby talk as compared to what kind of criticism Judge Thomas Whelan should have been subjected to.
See what Judge Whelan did reported and acknowledged here, by the top judge of the State of New York, and here, and here, where the top state court reversed Judge Whelan's decision appointing his friends and political allies to control (and drain) lucrative foreclosed properties.
Judging by the listing of what Judge Whelan did - the listing by courts and by the press - Judge Whelan should have been taken off the bench, disbarred and criminally prosecuted.
Instead, his critic is wrongfully suspended - and the legal profession is vulgarly and with vile, celebrates it, by kicking their colleague who was WRONGFULLY suspended - which only adds to the "honorable" portray of the American legal profession that obediently kicks or supports who it is told by the government to kick or support, while the government holds the legal profession hostage through controlling attorneys' law licenses.
Remember, attorneys is YOUR tool of access to justice, and if that tool is in the iron grasp of the government and prohibited to give you TRUE information about who you are voting for, your hopes of access to true and fair remedies are … well, they are pooped.
And, judges are also your tools of obtaining effective remedies for your legal wrong, members of the public, and when judges get elected and re-elected through fraud, through intimidation of attorneys, the best and most expert witnesses as to judicial misconduct and unfitness, you are even more pooped.
It is interesting to mention that the New York State Commission for Judicial Conduct, where Judge Thomas Whelan was turned in for cronyism, refused to prosecute him claiming, despite obvious evidence of his misconduct, acknowledged by higher courts - you know what?
Which was a screamingly false ground for dismissal, since there were rules in place for centuries that a judge should avoid impropriety and even an appearance of impropriety which is embedded in the New York Judicial Code of Conduct for a very long time.
As well as the rule that a judge must recuse from the case when a reasonable person would believe that the judge cannot be impartial in the case - and appointing personal friends and political contributors to lucrative fiduciary positions does just that.
So, most likely, the impolite language of the attorney's pleadings was just the top of the iceberg when the attorney simply lost it and could not be civil any longer when dealing with rampant judicial corruption affecting his clients.
The only thing he was "guilty" of was incivility, but not the essence of his accusations against Judge Whelan.
As to accusations against other judges, the disciplinary decision makes it impossible to verify whether attorney Giorgini's accusations were true or not, since the decision purged the index No. of the case and the name of the Appellate judge involved in the second group of charges, hiding from the public the true reason for the punishment and making it impossible to verify whether the discipline imposed was fair or not.
But why, at the same time, such a delay and such a hurry in punishing an attorney?
Why punish an attorney for something he wrote 13 and 10 years ago, respectively, drag the case for years and finalize it at the height of a judicial election campaign?
The answer is very clear - the disciplinary decision is to be used to intimidate other attorneys and deter them from criticizing judges, any judges, especially "the other Whelan judge", Teresa Whelan, and to block the flow of truthful information to the voters about dishonesty and unfitness of judicial candidates.
While professional regulation of attorneys was introduced not to maintain the "divine power" of judges, and not to prevent attorneys from ever gaining for their clients the clients' constitutional right to impartial judicial review.
On the very opposite.
The regulation of attorneys was introduced under a pretext of protecting the public from dishonest and incompetent lawyers.
There is not a word in the decision suspending the law license of attorney Gino Giorgini about his dishonesty or incompetence.
There is not a word in that decision that the two judges he criticized filed and won a defamation lawsuit against him, proving to a jury in their respective defamation cases that attorney Giorgini falsely criticized and defamed them.
No, the disciplinary proceedings were a backroom deal continuing the unconstitutional taboo that exists only to continue to dupe the voters by gagging attorneys and preventing them, by the rule of fear, the fear to lose their livelihood and to starve, from giving the voters truthful information about who they vote for in judicial elections.
Consider that when going to the polls come November.
Consider that the supposedly "honorable" legal profession that "screens" candidates for judicial office "for you" is a paid PR-firm of the judicial candidates.
Consider that licensed attorneys are paid by the judiciary through "permission" to earn a living with a law license and held hostage by the same judiciary if they give voters true information about unfitness or dishonesty of their regulator, the judiciary, including candidates for judicial office.
Read financial disclosure reports about your judicial candidates on the site of the New York State Board of Elections.
Run the background of donors, including on the New York State Attorney directory, see if any donors are attorneys or large corporations.
Inform yourself as to how justice is bought in the State of New York and in the U.S. in general.
Do not allow yourself to be duped.
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