Tag: Attorney General

It is unfortunate that we as a country have such a weak and inept attorney general in Merrick Garland. President Biden made a big mistake with this appointment given Garland’s poor track record of protecting judicial malfeasance. Biden should have seen the red flag since Garland’s protectionism of an accused Texas judge, Edith Jones of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals with ethics violation, was publicly reported. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/time-merrick-garland-was-accused-protecting-fellow-judge-charged-ethics-violations/. Judge Edith Jones was accused of making public derogatory comments against Blacks and Hispanics including suggesting that Blacks and Hispanics are “predisposed to crime” and “prone” to violence at a 2013 speech at a Federalist Society sponsored event at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Several groups filed an ethical complaint against Jones for her derogatory public comments. The matter ended up before Garland who then appointed a special committee that included himself to handle the complaint. According to the Mother Jones article, in 2015 there were 1,214 complaints filed against federal judges, and not a single one of them resulted in remedial action against the judge. Only two people were allowed to testify before Garland’s committee during the Jones investigation: Jones… Read More

In the oral argument on December 1, 2021, on the issue of the 2018 Mississippi abortion law, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts? I don’t see how it is possible.” This made me think about the “stench” that is currently taking place in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago under the questionable leadership of Chief Judge Diane S. Sykes, who is currently involved in protecting a judge, Michael S. Kanne, from verifiable allegations of case fixing activity, which Sykes is attempting to sweep under the rug. The “stench” is very strong. As I took in Justice Sotomayor’s comment about the “stench” of the Supreme Court, I couldn’t help but think about Amy Coney Barrett’s contribution to that stench, since she apparently isn’t so much of a committed “originalist” that she claims to be, and she apparently doesn’t really believe in precedent and in the doctrine of Stare Decisis, which is a principle that courts should follow precedent by previously decided cases with similar… Read More