As President Trump struggles to “make America great again” the “draining of the swamp” has been self-effectuating. We just saw how some of that muck surfacing from the bottom, could possibly have put themselves in control of national security. There is a larger lesson here to be learned from the dog and pony show that three judges put on for the country.
JUST A SYMPTOM OF A HIDDEN PROBLEM
As they say, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The legal challenges to President Trump’s immigration ban has coincidentally uncovered a black hole containing the fuel behind the moral collapse of our government. This attempt to overpower Presidential authority, is a symptom of a much larger national crisis, that has destroyed many of the “forgotten men.” If they can publicly ignore the law in such a high profile case, imagine what they have been doing to the rest of Americans and their families?
Federal Ninth Circuit Appellate Judges Clifton, Canby and Friedland, were appointed, not elected, to lifetime taxpayer funded positions. They “abused their discretion” which is subject to judicial disciplinary action as a violation of their oaths of office, in their ruling on the Presidential executive order that temporarily banned travel from terrorist-producing nations. Any citizen could file a complaint against them for putting our safety at risk. They used their own machinated “precedent” to do this, when clearly our Constitution states only Congress can override the President.
On January 3, 2017, CNN reported that President-elect Trump strong-armed Republicans after they conspired to delete an independent ethics watchdog committee from a bill, scheduled to be voted on by the House of Representatives. In what was an undermining of his vow to “drain the swamp,” Trump made clear his anger at the move in his usual manner – via Twitter. This prompted GOP lawmakers to hurriedly change these plans of this covert attempt to take over their own policing. Various political pundits expressed their outrage at such a concept- “self-policing?” they cried! Yet for decades that is exactly the privilege that the Judicial Branch has gifted itself.
HAVE YOU OR YOUR FAMILY BEEN A VICTIM?
Unless you have been swept into its maelstrom, it is difficult to comprehend the magnitude of how far the Judicial members have removed themselves from scrutiny. They declared their immunity from law suits and prosecution for crimes they commit under color of law, and formed a secretive disciplinary board populated by their associates. The Judiciary has also exempted themselves from the Freedom of Information Act, and rule on their own conflicts of interest (self-recusal). For many years, all attempts by Congress to create an independent Office of Inspector General within the Judicial Branch has been blocked, lead by Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court, even though OIGs exist in every other agency of the government.
These same conditions exist in state courts – it is one close-knit club. Because of this, there are incomprehensible numbers of victims being rendered homeless by engineered foreclosures and the extortion of assets by family courts, with only the federal judges to turn to as a remedy for state court civil rights violations. It is only in recent years that thousands of innocent people were released from incarceration thanks to DNA technology–a testament to how seriously out of control these civil servants are.
In addition to being the only autonomous sector of our government, the Judiciary has completely usurped the authority of the U.S. Constitution using court procedural rules, and blocked the Attorney Generals from reviewing them for constitutionality. Over the course of decades, judges have instituted increasingly self-serving bench decisions, using this backdoor of case law or “precedent” to obstruct the right to jury trial which is supposedly guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment. They now overturn jury trial verdicts using procedural rules, even though that is also a direct violation of the Constitution.
It is not unusual for civil litigation to last five years, and often ten or more years, because it has one purpose- the generation of revenue. With unregulated hourly attorney fees, and the unbridled ability to rig cases now devoid of juries, unless you have lots of funds for the most politically-connected lawyers and purchase a cooperative judge, you’re case will be dismissed. Barely a shred of integrity remains, having been replaced by a seditious legal industry, that occupies every corner of the grandiose court houses where justice is supposed to be served.
THIS HAS TO STOP
For all their claims that the sequestration from oversight by other branches of government is “necessary for judicial independence,” judges continue to espouse that accepting campaign contributions or appointments to the federal bench as political favors, does not affect their impartiality. In reality, it does not matter whether the judge is elected or appointed, they will invariably have either a vested interest in, or an obligation to the legal industry, which is a primary source of election campaign funding. Defeated candidate Hillary Clinton received approximately $21 million from the legal industry for her campaign, as opposed to the reported less than $200,000 to President Trump. We have seen just how that has effected influence over him, as he was freely able to question the integrity of the judge that granted a stay on his immigration ban, that was intended to block terrorism.
The big question remains of how do you undo this “catch 22” when the branch of government that has the last say- known as “judicial review,” (something Thomas Jefferson vehemently opposed) has created arbitrary rules in order to justify and conceal their own abuse of power. Congress has refused citizen requests for investigations either out of fear of retaliation or just plain collusion, because the majority of them are lawyers invested in the legal industry. That fact has effectively defeated the separation of powers.
This all this leads to a few conclusions. One is that capitalism does not mix with justice. If you want to get rich, then you had best invent the ipod or sell designer shoes- wealth and unchecked power should not be a by-product of delivering justice. Another is that because of the human condition, if you give most people an inch, they will take a mile – or as Jefferson phrased it: “Judges are as honest as other people and not more so..” in his opposition to lifetime judicial appointments.
Jefferson was never at a loss of criticism nor was he ever wrong regarding the Judiciary. On August 18, 1821- He predicted this conundrum would eventually come about- when he wrote in a letter to a Mr. Hammonde “The germ of the dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body…working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction.. it will render powerless the checks provided of one [branch of] government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”
And here we are…a nation in turmoil, possibly on the brink of collapse because of a branch of government cloaked in secrecy, that fancies itself above the law and that has no semblance whatsoever to a democratic system of justice.
