DRANT #296: SERVANTS OF THE LEECHOPOLY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just take a minute to think about this.
We expect our Congressmembers and governmental representatives to be on the take. Natch.
We barely grunt when a scummy pimp like Senator Richard Shelby is up to his corrupt cojones in real estate financed with Federal Loans, then acts to destroy legislation that might save the homes of millions of people, but might conceivably scratch the fenders on his limousine of rapacious accumulation.
But this time- its the goddam SUPREMEs that are the goddam BRIBEES.
So many of them are in bed with fleas, they can't walk the dog. And not the first time neither.
These people are supposed to be, are constitutionally required to be- unimpeachable.
That's the job description. These ain't the cops who take a twenny and forget the ticket.
JUDGES.
Supreme Court.
Yah know what I mean ?
Conflict of interest ?
Yeah, between what they own and what the law says.
Between what's good for their IRAs and what serves Justice.
Between what is right and what makes them a buck or two.
Victims of Apartheid get no Justice because the Judges' brokers called ?
What this does is pull back the covers on what really goes on in ALL the Courts, including the Supreme one.
Just remember this when you go to court or expect We (The Group formerly known as) The People, to be EQUAL UNDER THE LAW-
They ALL have untold huge personal vested interests in the capitalist wall street hedgefundfuckem war profiteering subprimesucking Leechopoly.
Diogenes my ass.
We need a goddam mile long roto rooter, and NO lube.
These people must be Impeached immediately.
But of course, that would require Democrats to get vertebrae implants, and we know whassup with that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Supreme Court Conflicts Stop Apartheid Case
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/washington/13scotus.html?_r=1&hp&oref

The New York Times
May 13, 2008
Justices’ Conflicts Halt Apartheid Appeal
By LINDA GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON — Financial and personal conflicts of interest affecting four Supreme Court justices left the court without a quorum last week and unable to decide whether to hear an appeal brought by more than 50 companies that did business in apartheid-era South Africa.
As a result, the Supreme Court announced on Monday that a lower court’s judgment allowing the high-profile lawsuit against the companies to move forward was automatically affirmed.

A quorum of six of the nine justices is necessary for the court to conduct business. While the recusal of four justices is unusual, so was the case that provoked it, a consolidation of 10 lawsuits filed in the name of everyone who lived in South Africa from 1948 to 1994 and who was injured by the official system of racial separation. The dozens of corporate defendants represented a who’s who of American business.
The outcome calls attention to the occasionally uncomfortable consequences of the justices’ ownership of stock in individual companies. With solitary recusals being much more frequent, a 4-to-4 deadlock is a more common outcome than an inability to proceed with the case at all.

That happened on March 3, when nonparticipation by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. resulted in a 4-to-4 tie in a case on the permissibility of damage suits against the makers of federally approved pharmaceuticals. According to his most recent financial disclosure form, the chief justice owns stock in Pfizer Inc., the corporate parent of the defendant in that case, Warner-Lambert Company v. Kent, No. 06-1498.

It remains to be seen whether the absence of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. from the Exxon Valdez punitive damages case, argued on Feb. 27, will result in a tie vote. His ownership of Exxon Mobil stock led to his recusal from that case, Exxon Shipping Company v. Baker, No. 07-219. In a tie vote, the lower court’s decision is upheld but it has no effect as precedent in other cases.

Federal law makes it mandatory for judges to remove themselves from cases if they own even a single share of stock in a company that is a party in a case. Judges, unlike some executive branch officials, are not required to divest themselves of their stock holdings. Nonetheless, Congress acted in 2006 to deal with the recusal problem by making divestiture more appealing. It extended to the federal judiciary the relief from capital gains tax liability that it had already granted to executive branch officials who sell individual stocks and reinvest the proceeds in government securities or approved mutual funds.

Whether the apartheid case, which seeks $400 billion in damages from the corporate defendants, ever gets to trial remains highly uncertain, despite the Supreme Court’s inability to act on the companies’ request to dismiss it. The government of South Africa strongly opposes the litigation, and the Bush administration supported the companies’ appeal on the ground that the case “is causing present injury to important interests of the United States and the Republic of South Africa.”

The Supreme Court’s order in the case, American Isuzu Motors, Inc. v. Ntsebeza, No. 07-919, listed Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito along with Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer as having taken “no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.”

“Since a majority of the qualified justices are of the opinion that the case cannot be heard and determined at the next term of the court, the judgment is affirmed,” the order said.

The outcome has the same effect as a tie vote — it makes no law and does not set any precedent. As is usual, the court did not give reasons for the justices’ recusals. Exxon Mobil is a defendant, as is another company in which Justice Alito owns stock, Bristol-Myers Squibb. Justice Breyer owns stock in several of the companies. Chief Justice Roberts owns the stock of another defendant, Hewlett-Packard. Justice Kennedy’s reason for recusal does not appear to be stock, but rather a son’s employment with another defendant, Credit Suisse, a situation that has previously led the justice to disqualify himself.

The plaintiffs have invoked one of the oldest federal laws, the Alien Tort Statute, which was enacted as part of the Judiciary Act of 1789. It is a jurisdictional statute that does not by itself convey any substantive rights. Rather, it authorizes the federal courts to decide “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.”

The Alien Tort Statute, sometimes called the Alien Tort Claims Act, lay dormant for most of two centuries until it was rediscovered as a way to seek redress in United States courts for human rights violations committed overseas.

The Supreme Court, while not foreclosing the use of the statute for that purpose, has been notably skeptical. A footnote in a 2004 Supreme Court decision on an unrelated Alien Tort Statute case referred specifically to the South African lawsuit, noting that there was “a strong argument that federal courts should give serious weight to the executive branch’s view of the case’s impact on foreign policy.”

In its ruling last October allowing the case to proceed, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ordered the district court to consider defenses it had not previously addressed. These include whether the suit presents a “political question” that is beyond the institutional capacity of a federal court to resolve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~