The GOP Supreme Court Coup Is the 
Carbon Monoxide Asphyxiating 
Democracy
       
By Mark Karlon, Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout

The Republicans long ago figured out that the way to have legislative control over the United States is to pack the federal courts.

Yeah, that’s it! Pack the federal courts...quick! Write that down. Those Pubs! They’re ever so clever, aren’t they?

This is a theme that BuzzFlash at Truthout has harped upon since the site began in May of 2000.

Oh, BuzzFlash...you big Oaf! What do you know about these things?

Recently, we noted how Antonin Scalia's withering disdain for Congress erupted into open contempt and dismissal of the legislative branch in oral arguments over the Voting Rights Act.

Oh dear! We mustn’t upset Antony...you know how he gets if we cause him to get agita. Can you say cranky? 

As we noted then:

During oral arguments yesterday about whether or not the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is constitutional, partisan judicial thug Antonin Scalia revealed a new facet of his personality; he is a clairvoyant!

Congressional support for reauthorizing the VRA was overwhelming, even in 2006 when the vote was taken during Bush's second term: the Senate reauthorized it by a vote of 98 to 0.

In the House, the vote was 390 to 33.

But Scalia, who has made his trademark being a self-proclaimed "strict constitutional constructionist"...yeah! Strict!... who scorns liberal judges who allegedly legislate from the bench, came out of the closet in heaping contempt and derision on Congress for passing the VRA. 

Although Scalia has long been perhaps the stellar example of a judge who legislates from the bench (on behalf of the right wing), he's usually coded his usurpation of congressional and other legislative powers in legal mumbo jumbo.

Yesterday, however, the Washington Post editorial board chastised Scalia for openly claiming:

"THIS IS NOT the kind of a question [the VRA, particularly Section 5] you can leave to Congress,” Justice Antonin Scalia pronounced during a Supreme Court argument Wednesday….

OMFG! Who let the Mafia Judge loose?

We also noted a short time back how the Republicans control the DC Court of Appeals and have now since the Reagan administration.

We don’t have them to worry about.

Because the DC Court of Appeals hears many of the most important federal cases, it has made a very large number of benchmark decisions that have been essentially legislating from the bench and creating an imbalance of power between the three branches of government (something the majority of 5 on the Rehnquist and Roberts Supreme Courts have excelled at).

Wow! They’re good.

In that BuzzFlash at Truthout commentary, we focused on DC Court of Appeals Judge David Sentelle, as we have often done over the years: "Republican Federal Judge David Sentelle: [An Example of] How the GOP Has packed the courts with partisan hacks."

All’s fair in love and politics.

Currently the DC Court of Appeals is short four judges because the Republicans won't allow most of Obama's appointments through (holding up some lower court appointments for literally years).

Why, the fux! 

Then they pack the federal benches when there is a Republican president, and the Democrats only rarely block GOP appointments.

Maybe they should start? Or, is that Politix 201? 

So the Dems, you would think, might get some backbone when for more than two decades they have allowed the Republicans to legislate from the federal bench--including big pieces of court legislation such as Bush being anointed, the Citizens United decision, and a big gun control ruling that favored the NRA, among others.

Doesn’t this sound like the big, mean kid at school who keeps stealing your lunch money?

That is why this month a relatively unnoticed action by the GOP senate regarding an Obama nominee for the DC Court of Appeals is another fire alarm.

Fire? Fire? Where?

Essentially, the Democrats in the Senate have enabled a coup of the federal judicial branch of government.

It's silent like carbon monoxide, but deadly to democracy and the Constitution.

As reported in the New York Times on March 6, "Republicans Block Judicial Nominee’s Confirmation for a Second Time": 

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the confirmation of Caitlin J. Halligan, a prominent New York lawyer, to become a federal appeals court judge in the District of Columbia, the second time in two years Republicans have filibustered her nomination.

The Senate, in a 51-to-41 vote, fell well short of the 60-vote threshold needed to cut off debate and bring Ms. Halligan’s nomination to a vote.

The largely party-line vote, with only Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, joining with Democrats in favor of ending debate, was reminiscent of the previous filibuster of Ms. Halligan—another largely party line vote of 54 to 45.

Many Republicans said they oppose Ms. Halligan’s nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit because of what they say is her history of legal activism; most specifically, they say that as the solicitor general of New York State, she worked to advance the “dubious legal theory,” in the words of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, that gun manufacturers could be held legally responsible for criminal acts committed with their guns.

“In short, Ms. Halligan’s record of advocacy and her activist view of the judiciary lead me to conclude that she would bring that activism to the court,” Mr. McConnell, the Republican leader, said on the Senate floor. “Because of her record of activism, giving Ms. Halligan a lifetime appointment on the D.C. Circuit is a bridge too far.”

The Karl Rove doctrine is to project on an opponent what he is guilty of.  That is what McConnell is up to; it would be a hypocritical farce if the stakes for democracy were not so frightful. 

The harm to the Constitution that has been done by the GOP strategic brilliance in manipulating the federal bench is incalculable.

But the Democrats in the White House and in Congress continue to fail to defend the federal bench by taking on the GOP opposition to appointments when there is a Democratic president and swift passage of appointments when there is a Republican president.

We concluded one recent commentary on this dilemma with, "The impact of a stacked Republican judiciary continues to be a blight upon the Constitution and an ongoing assault upon an independent federal bench. 

Given Harry Reid's cave on filibuster reform, relief does not appear to be on the way--for either judiciary or regulatory appointments."

Even if the Democrats proceeded with serious filibuster reform (an up or down vote as the Republicans used to demand), it would literally take decades for the federal bench to be restored to a stance of equilibrium. 

That is because the Republican planted judges are so entrenched – with appointments for life--that their investment will pay off for them for years to come.

Should one of the infamous partisan five on the Supreme Court step down, will the Dems in the Senate let the Republicans have veto power over the "fifth vote"?

If the past is prelude, the answer is yes.

Essentially, the Democrats in the Senate have enabled a coup of the federal judicial branch of government.

It's silent like carbon monoxide, but deadly to democracy and the Constitution.

***************************************
                       "It's clearly a budget.
                  It's got a lot of numbers in it."
                                                           --George W. Bush
 ***************************************

Deficit projected to shrink considerably

By Steve Benen
 
February 5, 2013--The CBO also projects the deficit will shrink again next year to $430 billion.

Why is this politically significant?

For one thing, congressional Republicans said raising taxes on the wealthy would not improve the nation's finances, and it appears we now have even more evidence to the contrary.

They also seem to enjoy complaining about "trillion-dollar deficits every year," and will have to drop the line from their repertoire.

What's more, it appears the deficit will have been cut nearly in half--both in real terms and as a percentage of GDP--since President Obama inherited a massive budget shortfall from the Bush/Cheney administration.

Of course, there's also the matter of the fiscal debate--as GOP lawmakers continue to insist Washington take the deficit seriously, and adopt austerity measures intended to close the budget shortfall in a hurry, we're reminded today that the deficit is already shrinking.

For the record, I still think it's a mistake to assume that shrinking deficits are good news.

There's a competing school of thought--which I'm sympathetic to--that suggests the deficit is currently too small, and that given economic conditions, interest rates, and the current yield of Treasuries, we should be borrowing far more and investing that money in job creation.

But at least as far as the establishment conversation goes, we should at least have a fiscal debate based on facts--and the facts are that the deficit is shrinking in a hurry.

Jack Lew, Citigroup and the
Ugland Truth

By Michael Winship

March 9, 2013--Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, testified before the House Budget Committee on the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 15, 2011.

So as we traveled across the Caribbean this week—including a stretch paralleling the south coast of Cuba past Guantanamo Bay and the Sierra Maestra mountains, where Castro and his revolutionaries once hid out—we made a stop in George Town on Grand Cayman Island. A short walk along the shore took us to 335 South Church Street, a location made famous by Barack Obama a few years ago and more recently, Jack Lew, during his confirmation hearings to become Secretary of the Treasury.

Ugland House, a five-story office building that, according to a 2008 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), houses 18,857 corporations, about half of which have billing addresses back in the States.

It’s the business world equivalent of one of those circus cars that’s packed with more clowns than you thought possible.

In 2009, Obama said of Ugland House, “either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world.”

In Foreign Policy magazine in January 2012, Joshua Keating wrote that in reality Ugland is neither but, “… the building makes a mockery of the U.S. tax system.”

Keating noted that the Caymans have no direct taxes, it only costs some $600 to set up a company address there--while the company does business around the world--and that “the Caymans also allow U.S. non-profit entities like pension funds and university endowments to invest in hedge funds without paying the ‘unrelated business income tax,’ which could be as high as 35 percent if those funds were based in the United States.”

He also cited “concerns that the complexity and lack of transparency in Cayman Islands transactions can make tax evasion and money laundering easier, though,”Lew adds, “… the vast majority of Cayman Islands transactions are entirely legal.”

This is what the Internal Revenue Service euphemistically described to the GAO as “the Cayman Islands’ reputation for regulatory sophistication.”

Ugland House offers one-stop shopping—it’s also headquarters for the international law firm Maples and Calder, experts at greasing the wheels for corporations wishing to do business via the Caymans.

Recently, for example, it was announced that Maples and Calder is serving as Cayman Islands legal advisor to Seven Days Inn, a budget hotel chain in China.

In a deal worth an estimated $688 million, Seven Days is being taken private by a consortium, the members of which include the Carlyle Group, the asset management company--third largest private equity firm in the world—whose past advisors and board members have included George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of State James Baker, former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci and former British Prime Minister John Major.

The consortium has lawyers in the Cayman Islands, too.

Wheels within wheels.

One of the thousands of entities registered at Ugland House is Citigroup Venture Capital International, a private equity fund in which our new Treasury Secretary Jack Lew invested $56,000 while he was an executive at Citigroup.

He sold the investment, at a loss, for $54,118 in 2009 when he joined the Obama administration.

Asked at his Senate confirmation hearing whether he knew that Citigroup had a presence in the Caymans--121 subsidiaries, in fact, including the fund in which he had invested—Lew professed, “I do not recall being aware of any particular Citigroup subsidiaries located in the Cayman Islands.”

That may seem odd, given that, as Bloomberg News and others noted, Lew was managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Global Wealth Management, then moved in 2008 to Citi Alternative Investments, “which managed billions of dollars in private-equity and hedge-fund investments”—the kinds of deals that are as common in the Cayman Islands as piña coladas.

Granted, Lew has said on several occasions that he wasn’t responsible for Citigroup’s investment decisions.

And true, $56,000 to many is minuscule compared to the aforementioned $688 million Chinese hotel deal, and may seem even less when stacked up against an estimated up to $11.5 trillion in offshore assets held worldwide.

But as Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley pointed out to Lew at the Senate confirmation hearings, with his toe dipping into Cayman Islands-based funds, “You invested more money there than the average American makes in a year.”

And that’s the problem. Jack Lew is, by all accounts, a decent guy and dedicated public servant, but like so many of our recent treasury secretaries--Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner--so deeply immersed in the old boy nexus of Wall Street and government as to have little comprehension of how, in the midst of a soaring Dow Jones, so many millions struggle to make ends meet.

Nor, we fear, much willingness to resist when the next fiscal meltdown hits and the banks once more demand taxpayer billions to be taken off the hook they baited themselves.

In the weeks leading up to his swearing-in at Treasury, we learned how New York University, a non-profit, gave Jack Lew more than a million dollars in mortgage loans when he became executive vice president of operations there and a $685,000 severance when he left the university to join Citigroup--all at a time when student tuition fees were going through the roof (and NYU was receiving a kickback: .25 percent of net student loans from the bank it was pushing to students as a “preferred lender”—Citigroup).

And we learned that Lew’s multimillion-dollar Citigroup contract included a $944,518 bonus if he moved on to a “full time high level position with the U.S. government or regulatory body.” (Remember, too, that in the years while Lew happened to be there, Citigroup’s stock lost 85 percent of shareholder value as it received $45 billion in taxpayer bailout cash.)

Jack Lew and his employers have provided seemingly logical explanations for all of these—Kevin Drum at Mother Jones magazine was told that Lew’s Citigroup bonus for moving to a government job, negotiated up front before said job happened, “avoids the problem of voluntarily either paying or not paying a big bonus to someone who will exercise power over it in the future.”

So keep your eye on Jack Lew’s stewardship of the nation’s bankbooks. You may know him by the company he keeps.

As the poet wrote, no man is an island—Cayman or otherwise.

Oh, I get it...Heads we’re screwed.!Tails we’re screwed! As Bush would say, “Any way you look at it, you’re screwed!!”