Found this interesting article over on MSN in which Thom Hartmann contends that when the conservative majority guts our nation’s regulatory agencies later this year, long a priority of the anti-deep state coalition of right wing pinheads and industry barons that financed the Republican Party’s take over of SCOTUS, revenge for Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mother will in part be part of at least one Justice’s motive for doing so.
Gorsuch’s mother Anne was a corporate lawyer turned legislator who served on Ronald Reagan’s transition team in 1980 and later in his administration appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency despite a dearth of background in environmental matters beyond a fervent desire to permanently neuter the Agency.
“The modern effort to destroy or at least neuter America’s protective agencies began when Ronald Reagan put Anne Gorsuch in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
She directed the agency to dial back restrictions on expansion of factories and other operations that were already polluting the atmosphere. That provoked a challenge to the Supreme Court, Natural Resources Defense Council, v. Gorsuch, where the Court overruled the Reagan administration.
Gorsuch nonetheless continued her efforts to gut the EPA. In her first year heading the agency, there was a 79 percent decline in enforcement cases, and a 69 percent drop in cases the EPA referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. She pushed a 25 percent cut in her own agency’s funding into Reagan’s first budget proposal.“
One of the probable outcomes of Anne Gorsuch’s time misadministration of the EPA was the adoption, in 1984, by the then much more balanced and apolitical court, of what is called “The Chevron Deference”, a most sensible guidance that considers the fact that as Congress gives regulatory power to an Agency that employs hundred and thousands of persons versed in the environmental sciences, which most of Congress is not, SCOTUS, which is in much the same boat, should “defer” to that agency in most cases when it determines actions are needed to bolster our ability to breath fresh air and drink clean water.
According to Hatmannn, at the heart of the coming SCOTUS attack on regulatory agencies will be the destruction of the Chevron Deference – which means giving over the power of scientists and regulators who are specifically educated to form sensible guidelines to protect our country from the almost certain predations that corporations will, if allowed, subject our resources to to a group of men and women who have not a clue as to how much CO2 should be present in the atmosphere or safe levels of harmful bacteria in our food.
But this erasure of the “deference” of the Court to people who are paid to keep us healthy and safe is what their corporate overlords most keenly desire now that the courts have already stripped women and minority voters of their fundamental rights.
And this abomination might be in the darker recesses of Neil Gorsuch’s consciousness, as revenge for what ultimately befell his Reganite mother:
“(Anne) Gorsuch finally resigned her office to avoid prosecution for what Newsweek described as “a nasty scandal involving political manipulation, [Super]fund mismanagement, perjury, and destruction of subpoenaed documents, among other things.”
Her son, Neil Gorsuch, was devastated by his mother’s resignation. In her memoir Are You Tough Enough? she tells the story of how Neil confronted her when she resigned:
“Neil,” she wrote, “got very upset. Halfway through Georgetown prep and smart as a whip, Neil knew from the beginning the seriousness of my problems. He also had an unerring sense of fairness, as do so many people his age.
“‘You should never have resigned,’ he said firmly. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. You only did what the president [Reagan] ordered. Why are you quitting? You raised me not to be a quitter. Why are you a quitter?’
“He was really upset,” she added.”
Interestin to note that Republican spawn back in the 1980s were already rehearsing “I was only following orders” defense which we’ll be hearing so much of in the coming months.
History may not repeat but it often rhymes.
Hmm. I think Mr Gorsuch should be REQUIRED to recuse himself since he’s OBVIOUSLY biased in any matter involving regulatory agencies.
It also strikes me as incredibly hypocritical that SCOTUS (even the conservative members) has long viewed CONGRESS as having the ultimate say over how agencies should be regulated and that SCOTUS and the judiciary in general should only become involved when/if Congress fails to act. But, we’ve borne witness to all these right-wing justices–who historically have decried the notion of “legislating from the bench”–being all too willing to do just that when it comes to their pet causes.
I’ve got a feeling that if Gorsuch and the other cons do scrap regulatory agencies, there WILL be a massive cry to expand the court with liberal/progressive justices and for President Biden to just ignore the Supreme Court’s decision as being contrary to the very principles of not only the Constitution but the Declaration of Independence.
Mr Gorsuch should be reminded of what the Preamble to the Constitution says: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Note the “promote the general Welfare” part. That, one could reasonably argue, means having agencies that do things to protect the well-being of the American people (such as ensuring the air and rivers aren’t polluted).
Maybe he will be forced to recuse by the SCOTUS ethics committee…
Oh, wait… Nevermind.
Gorsuch has no business sitting on the bench of this court in the first place but he MUST recuse himself. If the s.c. continues down its corrupt path, not only must the corrupt members be impeached, but every decision made by these corrupt pieces of sh*t the past 6 years needs to be re-tried/re-decided. You do not follow the judicial decisions of those who lie, who accept millions in gifts from litigants, etc. You don’t put them on the highest court in the land in the first place. Failing that, when you get a very good view of their corruption, you remove them in any way possible.
Pity I do not live where these corrupt f*cks live. They need to have crowds of people stand in front of their homes so the justices can sh*t themselves, which is apparently what happens when people stand in front of their homes to protest their corruption. Beggar the fools by making them wash their underwear fifty times a day.
As you can see, over & over again, RW ARE UNFIT to GOVERN!