Law Day 2024

May 1, 2024: Happy Law Day. This day is celebrated around the world as Labor Day (or even Labour Day!), but in the USA we think that’s just for commies who don’t know Labor Day is in September, when last year’s cars go on sale and men burn meat over charcoal outdoors in gratitude.

The 34th president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, officially established May 1st as Law Day in 1958, and the 45th, former Republican president and felony defendent Donald J. Trump, is celebrating it in 2024 by spending the day in a New York courtroom. Citizen Trump is accused of disguising hush money payments to a porn star and to others through the National Enquirer as legal expenses when they were undeclared campaign expenses, designed to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. From what we know of the Trump Organization, maybe he claimed the adulterous payoffs as business expenses on his tax returns, too.

Donald Trump claims he is as innocent as Jesus Christ and Alphonse Capone, two of his idols.

More:

“Trump’s ‘Hush Money’ Payment Isn’t Illegal In Itself—Here’s Why He’s Actually On Trial,” Alison Durkee, Forbes

“How a hush money scandal turned into a criminal case: The whirlwind history of People v. Trump,” Erica Orden, Politico

Related:

“Trump’s Lawyer Claims the President Is Above the Law,” Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine

“Above the Law,” written by Betty Wright and Angelo Morris, recorded by The O’Jays, 2018.

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Alabama Supreme Court Affirms Fetal Personhood

On February 16th, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen human embryos are people, “extrauterine children,” so In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinics destroying unused frozen fertilized eggs are guilty of wrongful death of a minor under state law. The decision cites the Alabama State Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, Blackstone, Genesis, Jeremiah, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Petrus Van Mastricht, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. This ruling overturns those of two lower state courts. Alabama Supreme Court members are elected in statewide elections, and all are Republicans.

Technically, the biological items in the case are blastocysts, clusters of cells 1.0mm to 2.0mm (0.0394 inches to 0.079 inches) in size, produced about 5 days after fertilization. A successfully implanted blastocyst isn’t considered a fetus until after the 8th or 9th week of pregnancy.

IVF clinics are understandably freaking out, since they sort through patients’ blastocysts to find ones most likely to produce successful pregnancies and screen for genetic abnormalities. Surplus blastocysts are often discarded as medical waste or used for research or medical treatment. Keeping all such unused matter frozen in perpetuity would be impossible, unless the state’s Supreme Court wants to pay for it.

To put things in perspective, in unassisted natural reproduction, most eggs (70%) are not fertilized; of those that are and develop into blastocysts, half do not implant in the uterus. Many fetuses don’t come to term and get delivered as actual living, breathing human babies. But when fundamentalist judges practice medicine, life begins at conception.

The ruling is not just bad science, bad medicine and bad law, it’s bad politics. The U.S. fertility services market is $7.9 billion annually, and wields considerable influence. And while many abortion patients are low income, minority single mothers, 75% of IVF patients are well-off and white, with much more political clout. Take away their hope like this, and they’re bound to use it.

More:

“Alabama Supreme Court rules frozen embryos are children, cites the Bible in opinion,” Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter

“Alabama Supreme Court Ruling Compromises Access to IVF,” Veronica Salib, Life Sciences Intelligence

“Alabama patient says embryo ruling has ‘derailed a lot of hope’ as hospital halts IVF treatments,” Sara Moniuszko and Meg Oliver, CBS News

“’Extrauterine Children’ and Other Nonsense Wrought by the Fetal Personhood Movement,” Joanna L. Grossman and Sarah Corning, Verdict

“The Alabama Chief Justice Who Invoked God in Deciding the Embryo Case,” Rick Rojas, New York Times

“Alabama ushers in the theocracy,” Ruth Marcus, Washington Post

“Republicans Increasingly Reveal They Barely Know Where Babies Come From,” Nicole Lafond, TPM

Related:

“It is worth repeating: ‘life begins at conception’ is a religious, not scientific, concept,” Richard J. Paulson, MD, M.S, Fertility & Sterility Reports

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Clarence Thomas: Graft on Wheels?

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas claims that, when he’s not hobnobbimg with billionaires at Bohemian Grove or getting free cruises on mega-yachts, or vacationing at luxury resorts, he loves hanging out with the common folk:

“I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There’s something normal to me about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that—I prefer being around that.”

Of couse that quote is from a “documentary” funded by Thomas sugar daddy, billionaire Harlan Crow. So how does Mr. Thomas hang with the Hoi Polloi? In a Land Yacht of his own, a lightly-used $267,230 luxury motor coach, a 40-foot long Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon.  But as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas makes a measly $230,000 a year, so he got the RV with a little help from his friends. In this case the friend was a mere multi-millionaire, health insurance executive Anthony Welters.

So Mr. Welters financed the purchase of the huge motor home for Mr. Thomas. What were the terms? Was it paid in full? Was it forgiven, i.e. a gift? We don’t don’t know. That’s between friends.

More:

“Clarence Thomas’s $267,230 R.V. and the Friend Who Financed It,” Jo Becker and Julie Tate, New York Times

Related:

“List of Free Stuff Clarence Thomas Has Gotten Gets Even Longer,” Corbin Bolies, Daily Beast

“A Quick Guide to Justice Clarence Thomas’s Ethics Scandals,” Chas Danner, New York Magazine

“Where Clarence Thomas Entered an Elite Circle and Opened a Door to the Court,” Abbie VanSickle and Steve Eder, New York Times

“Alito and Thomas Write Opinion Declaring That Yachts Are People,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

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When DC Restaurants Served Jim Crow

President John F. Kennedy once called Washington DC  “a city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency.” In the late 19th and early 2oth centuries, it was certainly Southern in segregating its restaurants. A driving force in changing that was classicist, author, educator, sufferagist, and civil rights campaigner Mary Church Terrell.

While the DC government had outlawed racial discrimination in restaurants in the 1870s, the laws were omitted from the Jim Crow city code by 1901. Attorney Pauli Murray discovered that these “Lost Laws” were never actually repealed. On January 27, 1950, genteel 86-year-old Mary Church Terrell and three friends, members of the Coordinating Committee for the Enforcement of D.C.’s Anti-Discrimination Laws, walked into “Whites only” Thompson’s Restaurant on 14th Street, NW. The restaurant had a strict “whites only” policy and the group was turned away. They sued, represented by attorney Annie Stein. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the “Lost Laws” were still valid and segregation in D.C. restaurants was not.

A “Boundary Stones” video from WETA-TV.

More:

“How One Elderly Woman Took on Jim Crow in Washington—And Won,” Joan Quigley, Time

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Clarence Thomas Family Value$

As an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas makes a measly $230,000 a year, so naturally he needs all the financial help he can get. And he gets lots of it, chiefly from his billionaire pal Harlan Crow, friend of the Court and renowned collector of Nazi memorabilia. A true believer in family values, Mr. Crow:

Paid the $120,000 salary of Mrs. Ginni Thomas and propped up her far-right Liberty Central lobby;

Paid Justice Thomas for his elderly mother’s house, fixed it up, and allowed her to live there rent-free; and

Paid the private school tuition of Mr. Thomas’s legal ward, his grandnephew Mark Martin.

Justice Thomas didn’t disclose any of this to the Court in his required annual financial disclosure reports. He also didn’t reveal his trips on Harlan Crow’s private jet or megayacht or their luxury vacation excursions.

Most of these issues were uncovered bythe non-profit ProPublica newsroom and the New York Times.

More:

“A brief timeline of Clarence Thomas, Harlan Crow and ethics questions,” Aaron Blake, Washington Post

“Billionaire Offered Tuition to Send Ginni Thomas to Law School for Second Time,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

Related:

“Clarence Thomas has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm,” Shawn Boburg and Emma Brown, Washington Post

“More ethics questions rise for Supreme Court justices,” Sareen Habeshian, Axios

“Judicial activist directed fees to Clarence Thomas’s wife, urged ‘no mention of Ginni,’” Emma Brown, Shawn Boburg and Jonathan O’Connell, Washington Post

The real reason for the Supreme Court’s corruption crisis,” Ian Millhiser, Vox

Updates:

“CREW files civil and criminal complaint against Clarence Thomas,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) [Read the complaint]

“Clarence Thomas Promises To Adopt Code Of Ethics For The Right Price,” The Onion

“Thomas’ Monsanto years offer window into justice’s enviro roots,” Pamela King, E&E News

“The strange story of Clarence and Ginni Thomas,” Lauren Mechling, The Guardian

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Trump Locks Up the 2024 Campaign

Celebrity golf cheat, insurrection organizer, and twice-impeached former US President Donald Trump is due to be arraigned today in New York City on multiple business fraud counts weirdly related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Naturally, in today’s MAGA-Republican party, this makes him the front-runner in the GOP 2024 presidential campaign, earning him millions in campaign contributions.

The New York case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is much, um, sexier than other Trump investigations, which merely involve stealing government documents, plotting a coup, and attempting to steal a presidential election. While the Big Apple case may seem more of a long shot, it’s the first indictment of a former US president, so indictments in other cases won’t be precedent breakers, reducing the heat on prosecutors.

More:

“New York, city of Trump’s dreams, delivers his comeuppance,” Matt Sedensky, Associated Press

“Trump Says He Can’t Be Bought–Then Begs For Campaign Money,” Matt Young, Daily Beast

“Melania Trump Seen Wearing “I Don’t Care” Jacket,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

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Supreme Court May Dunk on NCAA

The Supreme Court will begin hearing cases again on October 4th, the first Monday in October, while 2021 NCAA fall sports seasons are well under way. A spring SCOTUS opinion by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh suggests the court and the “amateur sports” monopoly may have a showdown before June.

“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law.”

More:

How US college sport became an $8bn inequity racket. And why it may fall,” Bryan Armen Graham, The Guardian

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Trump’s Legal Team Blusters and Blunders On

From his executive command center at Virginia’s Trump National Golf Club, the lame-duck president continues to fight for a job he’s had no interest in performing, deploying a team of cracked crack-smoking crack lawyers under a hair-dye-sweating Rudy Giuliani to courts across the nation in an attempt to invalidate the will of the people. Recent highlights:

Attempting to earn his $20K-a-day rate, Mr. Giuliani appeared in a federal courtroom for the first time in 30 years. The Republican judge reproved him for ignorance of basic legal terms, likened his claims to “Frankenstein’s Monster … haphazardly stitched together,” and laughed them out of court, writing “This is simply not how the Constitution works.”

In Wisconsin, Trump campaign lawyer Jim Troupis wants the court to invalidate his own vote. He wants to throw out all the early voting ballots, and that’s how he and his wife voted. We don’t don’t know what Mr. Troupis is being paid for this, but the campaign paid $3 million for the two-county recount effort.

On Saturday, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell claimed the presidential election was rigged by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, claimed a voting machine company bribed Georgia’s Republican officials to throw the electon to Biden, and proposed a “Biblical lawsuit” on behalf of Donald Trump in the Peach State. Even Chris “Bridgegate” Christie was embarrassed. Ms. Powell was booted from the Trump legal team — not for being nuts, but for undermining Georgia GOP officials before the state’s crucial senate runoff elections.

And, ultimately, it may be Republican anxiety over those Georgia senate runoffs, which threaten the GOP stranglehold on congress, that will force Mr. Trump to accept his defeat. Big party donors are telling the Republican leadship they won’t contribute a dime to the Georgia campaigns if the president doesn’t concede, and spend even more time on his golf courses.

Updates:

“Trump’s Pennsylvania Appeal Rejected in Scathing Decision by His Own Appointee,” Tracy Connor, Daily Beast

“Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit against mail ballots with prejudice in another defeat for Trump,” Elise Viebeck, Washington Post

Related:

“Donor sues pro-Trump group over failure to prove voter fraud: ‘Empty promises,'” Jordan Williams, The Hill

“Joe Biden gains votes in Wisconsin county after Trump-ordered recount,” The Guardian

“20 days of fantasy and failure: Inside Trump’s quest to overturn the election,” Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner, Washington Post

More Updates:

“How Is Trump’s Lawyer Jenna Ellis ‘Elite Strike Force’ Material?” Jeremy W. Peters and Alan Feuer, New York Times

“Pro-Trump legal crusade peppered with bizarre blunders,” Zach Montellaro and Kyle Cheney, Politico

“Delusional Trump Says He’ll Waste 125 Of His Energy Into Already Low Energy Election Lawsuits,” Summer Concepcion, Talking Points Memo

“Judges turn back claims by Trump and his allies in six states as the president’s legal effort founders,” Elise Viebeck, Emma Brown and Rosalind S. Helderman, Washington Post

“Trump thought courts were key to winning. Judges disagreed.” Colleen Long and Ed White, Associated Press

“Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Seeking to Subvert Election,” Adam Liptak, New York Times

“Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices Tell Trump Lawyer His Election Suit ‘Smacks of Racism,’” Adam Klasfeld, Law & Crime

“‘The last wall’: How dozens of judges across the political spectrum rejected Trump’s efforts to overturn the election,” Rosalind S. Helderman and Elise Viebeck, Washington Post

“Trump’s Legal Arguments Are Getting More Delusional. Support From Republicans Just Keeps Growing,” Paul McLeod, BuzzFeed News

“Trump Orders Space Force to Discover Other Planets with Courts,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

Even More Updates:

“Trump Lost 59 Election Cases Before Electoral College Vote (and Counting),” Zoe Tillman, BuzzFeed News

“Kilmeade Asks Stephen Miller If Trump’s Failing Lawsuits Mean He Has ‘Worst Legal Team,’” Summer Concepcion, TalkingPointsMemo

“Judge Briskly Tosses Out GOP Georgia Ballot Challenge Hours After It Was Lodged,” Kate Riga, TalkingPointsMemo

“Conspiracy-theorist lawyer Sidney Powell spotted again at White House,” Martin Pengelly, The Guardian

“Trump wants Supreme Court to overturn Pa. election results,” Jill Colvin and Marc Levy, Associated Press

Wait! Wait! Additional Updates:

“Sidney Powell’s Hidden ‘Kraken’ Witness Is a Pro-Trump Podcaster Once Sued for Fraud,” Blake Montgomery, Daily Beast

“Federal court rejects Trump’s Wisconsin election challenge,” Daniel Uria, UPI

“Dominion Voting Systems Employee Sues Trump Campaign And Allies, Alleging Defamation,” Bente Birkeland, Colorado Public Radio

Even More Horrible Updates:

“Rep. Gohmert Calls for Street Violence as Another Legal Loss Sends MAGA World Spiraling,” Justin Rohrlich, Daily Beast

“Louie Gohmert Suggests People ‘Go to the Streets’ and Be ‘Violent’ After Judge Throws Out Baseless Election Suit,” Peter Wade, Rolling Stone

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Judicial Maneuvers In the Dark

Late Monday, a week before Election Day, in the dead of night, Senate Republicans confirmed Amy Coney Barrett as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. She was sworn in quickly, in the dark, behind the White House on the South Lawn. President Trump did most of the talking.

God save the Republic.

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Law & Order: Japan

Evan Hadfield of Rare Earth discussed Japan’s criminal justice system.

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