The headline is Guardian's subhead on an Oct. 2 item Sirota wrote. In part:
Amy Coney Barrett’s US supreme court nomination must be understood as the culmination of cynical tactics that Republicans have perfected over the last two decades. The strategy is straightforward: they nominate plutocrat-compliant judges knowing that the corporate-owned media and political system will make sure confirmation battles focus on partisan wrangling and high-profile social issues – but not also on the economic issues that justices often decide.
In other words: Republican politicians rely on conflagrations over political process and social issues to mobilize their religious base in service of Republican donors’ real objective – smuggling corporate cronies on to the highest court in the land. And if Barrett is confirmed, those Republican donors will not just get another business-friendly judge – in advance of the 2020 election, they will also get a third justice who worked directly on the legal team that convinced the US supreme court to hand Republicans the presidency in 2000.
And the Dems had the sorry judgment in 2016 to nominate a loser who was part of a team that led the party away from being something real, to Republican lite.
They, not the Repubicans, had the candidate most loved by Goldman Sachs, then and they have the same thing now, in 2020.
The item continues:
[... Social] issues, however, are almost certainly not what is motivating big donors to funnel millions of dollars into groups like the Judicial Crisis Network, the oil magnate Charles Koch’s network and the US Chamber of Commerce in support of Barrett’s nomination. Those groups’ ads and lobbying campaigns may try to focus the public debate on religion and court precedent, but such enormous sums of cash flood into judicial campaigns with one underlying goal: enriching the corporations and plutocrats that are making the donations.
These organizations know the supreme court is the place to do exactly that – and they have been wildly successful in stacking the court since 2005.
That was the year that business interests engineered John Roberts’ ascension to supreme court chief justice. Back then, corporate groups launched what was their first sophisticated public campaign to install a new jurist on the court – and Roberts was the perfect pick. He had advised the Bush 2000 legal team, he represented corporate clients in private practice and he was considered “the go-to lawyer for the business community”.
Roberts’ business fealty was not the focus of his court confirmation hearings – and that omission is now standard practice. Indeed, other than the brief controversy over Neil Gorsuch’s ruling in a workers’ rights case, recent confirmation battles have rarely ever homed in on nominees’ views on corporate power.
And, Joe Biden? If you think you get CHANGE or HOPE from Joe, then you likely believe you got those things from Obama. And you did not, you got more of the same. One last excerpt:
According to the Constitutional Accountability Center, 70% of the Roberts court’s rulings in business cases have sided with the US Chamber – the pre-eminent business lobby group in Washington. That is the highest rate of corporate loyalty of any supreme court in 40 years, [...]
And, Joe Biden? Yes, my vote for him over Trump. Expectations? Yes, one, continued mediocrity. No others. The man can surprise me.
Things likely will get no better in the remainder of my lifetime. Most disturbing in the lead up primaries for the 2020 Dem nomination - young people not tuning out. Not bothering. They are the ones set up for the brunt of the giant screwing the system's preparing, and they had the opportunity to vote for Bernie, or Warren. While neither Bernie nor Warren was a magic solution to a long festering problem, the fact is these most at risk citizens did not even try to better their chances.
The nation is going to hell and Joe Biden is the lesser evil of the devil's two options.
What probably will happen in the remainder of my lifetime is the Chinese eating our collective lunches while the politicians continue falling over one another to serve corrupt wealth. It is depressing.