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| Climate Action Reserve: Environmental Cartoons by Joel Pett |
This post appears on President's Day. I started it last Wednesday. I say this to respect the family of Justice Antonin Scalia in their time of loss.
We have three co-equal branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. It is the "check-and-balance," purposely designed to be slow and plodding; arduous to not make changes quickly as would a despot subjecting a population to h/er will.
It is the judiciary - the Supreme Court - that blocked the Clean Power Plan.
"The Clean Power Plan is based on a strong legal and technical foundation, gives states the time and flexibility they need to develop tailored, cost-effective plans to reduce their emissions, and will deliver better air quality, improved public health, clean energy investment and jobs across the country, and major progress in our efforts to confront the risks posed by climate change," Earnest said. "We remain confident that we will prevail on the merits." *
As I said in Umbilical Cord, old money is inexorably addicted to making its wealth the way it wants to. Mayan pyramids aren't even safe. That means broadcasting counter propaganda that casts doubt (as they did for the cigarette industry); purchasing politicians both locally and nationally; influencing presidential elections because presidents appoint supreme court justices.
Clarence Thomas was appointed in 1991 by George Herbert Walker Bush, post the infamous Willie Horton adds in 1988. During his contentious confirmation hearings, accusations of sexual harassment came in sworn testimony by his former employee Anita Hill. His artful dodge and use of the term "high-tech lynching," made his enemies back off and cleared his confirmation to the Supreme Court. He's apparently been quiet as a church mouse ever since. His first major decision was finalized December 12, 2000, deciding the Florida "hanging chads" fiasco by a 5-4 vote:
- The same 5-4 vote that decided the Hobby Lobby decision;
- The same 5-4 vote that gutted the Voting Rights Act;
- The same 5-4 vote that gave us Citizens United.
- The same 5-4 vote that gave us Citizens United.
Horror vacui: "nature abhors a vacuum" and so does politics in this post "Citizens United" and McCutcheon oxymoronic era.
He has so far served six times the president that appointed him: 1991 - 2016 is 25 years, a generation. He may be silent, but he's darkly effective in forwarding a regressive, authoritarian agenda that will outlive him.
Do not fall in love with the person on the top of presidential tickets. I cannot get emotional about people I'll likely never meet. Don't get excited for the top ticket major elections and neglect the midterms. It is a failure to teach Civics that we have citizens so caught up in the hype of inflated campaigns that we forget we're not electing "kings": we're electing representatives of our will ["We The People"], not the moneyed few; the function and genius of a democratic republic.
However, what lives beyond any administration is who is appointed to the court and if fairly young, how LONG they serve.
A generation is an incredibly long time...to do lasting damage. The damage in this case can be the environment for generations the families of the justices are also subject to:
“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”
Cree Indian Prophecy, GoodReads
* CNN: Supreme Court blocks Obama climate change rules
Ariane de Vogue, Dan Berman and Kevin Liptak
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