If you’re wondering what those sounds are all about… we captured this recording of noises emanating from the Supreme Court chambers, and have determined it’s a totally different tribe of screeching black cats, a rattling of chains as the ghouls get together there with all their ghost writers to see what this week’s precedents will be. I know that sounds spooky, and here’s such a cat-out-of-the-bag as might’ve better held off until Halloween to tell his spooky tale around the campfire, but it seems the supreme Court couldn’t wait that long to bring out their ghosts.

I have here a cat that’s only half out of the bag, apparently unable at this time to come completely into the light, but what information he does bring is sufficient that we should give ear and hope to coax him on out. The bag seems to be holding this creature stuck, some kind of an adhesive material that looks like it is made from “I will tell you but I can’t give you my name” compounds. I always hate those types of cats, but in this case there is enough of the story out to warrant hearing whatever more we can.

“Did you know,” meowed this one, “the Justices do not write those opinions sold to the public as their own?”

That is all it took for me and I’m ready to hear the whole half of this subject not stuck in the bag. Nor am I alone on this. Usually around our place if it’s just a few sections of information we don’t pay much interest; but Mr. Dictionary cat, Mr. Taylor cat and the rest of the purring class have gathered around to get today’s episode of this and with full gleefulness. In fact the purrs are even lowered because they’re intrigued at the thought that the most notorious moves against the rights of the Sapiens are not even by the Justices’ themselves.

You know from our last report, Marshall vs. Madison had made things bad enough with the so-called supreme Court Justices assuming themselves to be constitutional interferers, I mean interpreters. We found out how Marshall vs. Madison became the Magna Carta for judicial review. Which was unfortunate by itself, history having a choice to turn either the Madison faucet on or tap into the Marshall spigot for a flow of justice wherefrom the people might drink, even purrrhaps a little of both. But, as we now have seen, Madison’s original concept was shut off from the outside and could not have even been turned on, thus leaving only the false notions of Marshall to quench any thirst for truth.

Well, at least Marshall wrote his own opinion. But, take these courts of modern times: especially the Warren Court – where the absolutely spookiest ghost stories and changes took place. This cat is now dangling a bit more from the bag, unable to come on out, and yet contented that we’re listening to what he knows and can tell us.

Here our cat begins purring in relentless comfort, as he names all the writers behind that Warren Court. The 1957 list provided these names:

William H. Allen, 30, Clerk for Chief Justice Warren, Stanford University, not a member of the Bar;

Martin F. Richman, 27, Clerk for Chief Justice Warren, Harvard Law School, not a member of the Bar;

Curtis R. Reitz, 27, Clerk for Chief Justice Warren, University of Pennsylvania Law School, Member of the Pennsylvania Bar;

Robert Girard, 24, Clerk for Justice Black, Harvard Law School, not a member of the Bar;

George C. Freeman Jr., 27, Clerk for Justice Black, Yale Law School, Member of the Alabama Bar;

Andrew Kaufman, 26, Clerk for Justice Frankfurter, Harvard Law School, Member of New Jersey and D.C. Bars.

Jerome A. Cohen, 26, Yale Law School, Member of the Connecticut and D.C. Bars;

William Cohen, 24, Clerk for Justice Douglas, UCLA Law School, not a member of the Bar;

David Wagoner, 29, Clerk for Justice Burton, University of Pennsylvania Law school, Member of the Pennsylvania and D.C. Bars;

Roger Cramton, 28, Clerk for Justice Burton, University of Chicago Law School, Member of Vermont Bar;

And the list goes on to show the names of such others as Clyde Szuch, Clerk for William Brennan Jr., who is now retied and serves on the board for the Brennan Center for Justice, having a logo of “Carrying on the Fight.” Have you ever wondered why there should be a fight to begin with? One would be led to believe that the law might stand on its own, if it is the law; otherwise some internal organism must be putting up a resistance. If so, shouldn’t we be aware of who is fighting whom? I neither knew it was the court’s job to be fighting, nor the legislature’s; and certainly not that of some high-rolling organization “educating” the people to change their laws. It seems to me (just a kitty cat, but with credentials I remind you) that I don’t know it all, and yet – isn’t the law the law? Like the court is the court and legislation is legislation? Well, if that is so, there’s no reason for fighting. All one needs to do is follow the law, as the State and Federal constitutions mandate to us. Don’t fight, never judicially disturb, do not “educate” changes into the law; go by the law and stand on it.

If there is reason for alteration, Article V is the standing law providing our only method for that amendment. Yet, in each case, the Brennan Center is committed to continually further bending law and policy through the usage of three tools: litigation, legislative advocacy and public education as per their own statement. Jessie Allen, Associate Counsel in their “Democracy” Program and one of the Center’s legal combatants, argued for the plaintiffs that the law, Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), is unconstitutional and that its disenfranchisement is “racially” skewed. Says Allen: “This is a law passed after the Civil War to deplete Blacks’ political power, and it continues to carry out that discriminatory purpose.” In fact, the law denies more than ten percent of Florida’s Black residents the right to vote, a rate twice that of Whites. As the Center continues fighting this law through coalition-building and public education, notice that they discount the rights of States to make laws against felons voting. What State wants criminals determining its policies? Those habitually perpetrating crimes surely do not belong in the voting (lawmaking) class. As far as weeping over the percentage of these felons being of the Black race, we should steer our weeping rather toward the victims they’ve killed or almost killed while robbing and raping, not what color their skins. Jessie Allen acts as if dreaming up some way to guide more Whites into committing felonies at the same time bringing Black crime down. But, since it’s the statistics that are speaking and not some person who might later be blamed just for reading aloud the figures showing this ratio, then clearly our minds (or at least Jessie Allen’s) are off in lulu land. Do you think the families of these victims (or even the people at large) are at a loss because criminals are banned from voting? Are we trying to convince the people that we are too hard on these felons? Since we have brought up this issue of fighting, who out there of considerable influence and having access to the public forum is fighting for the moral, the well-behaved, self-governed people? Furthermore, if my State should take a stand similar to that of Florida, I would be pleased to know that such people of wicked and lawless natures aren’t in the voting booths molding our policies.

This group, in the Warren court’s legacy, comes on as a very strong advocate for the “14th Amendment.” It seeks to continue these policies by “carrying on the tradition of the Center’s founders, by working to reform law and policy through the courts, through legislative advocacy, and through public education.”

Notice that Article V is not mentioned in changing laws. This center promotes the idea that laws should be amended by the Courts, and by legislative acts following “education.”

Have you ever heard the song, “Brick in the Wall, Part II”? The words go something like – “We don’t need no education, We don’t need no thought control, purr, purr, purr,” or something like that; then it turns to, “Hey, teacher! leave them kids alone.” Well, I can understand now what Roger Waters was getting at there. Anyway, back to the ghoul writers.

One firsthand account of how law clerks are hand chosen came from former Justice Sherman Minton, who retired in 1966. He was quoted in an interview with U.S. News and World Report when asked what his clerk did for him: “As far as my own [clerks] were concerned, they prepared memoranda on all certiorari. On opinions, they would correct them as to the facts and they would make suggestions on the law with respect to opinions. If I agreed with them, the opinion would be rewritten.”

In response to a question put to him by U.S. News and World Report, “Did they draw up memoranda, citations, precedents, etc., or merely supply a list of pertinent decisions?” His response: “They prepare memoranda on what is in the certiorari and what the lower court had decided and recommend whether we should take the case. As you know, the Supreme Court is selective in choosing cases to hear.”

Therefore, from this statement by Justice Minton, we learn that his little helpmates made the decision as to whether a case should even be taken. So much for appeals to the court; we should petition these clerks.

U.S. News and World Report went on to ask if the clerks drafted opinions. Justice Minton replied, “In my case, after an opinion was written I submitted it to the boys for their comments and criticisms. And if their criticisms were valid the opinion was rewritten.”

Now, did you catch that, or should we just call it ball one and pitch again? “Submit it to the boys”? And make changes as per their opinions? So, instead of nine justices making decisions, there are at the Warren Court 27 ambuscading cases. That’s right, or what else would you call that system of deciding which ones to accept and then how to rule on them?

Here is where we could not get that cat fully out of the bag. Even U.S. News and World Report didn’t reveal the name of this high government official, but did point out that he was a “former high official of the Government with experience in the federal judiciary” when quoting him as saying, “Many lawyers feel that law clerks in the Supreme Court and other U.S. courts are too influential in preparing some of the opinions handed down”; then adding, “If a judge is not aggressive or very able, if he is a very busy or lazy man, his clerk can be very influential… If the judge is a man of strong mind and convictions he will be exercising his own convictions in writing opinions. However, the reverse can be true… There is a well-founded belief among lawyers that some judges rely heavily on their clerks, and the clerks are in a position to direct the judges’ attention to certain views and conclusions that may show up in their opinions.” You might take note that even after Brennan’s time on the bench, himself now deceased and his clerk Clyde Szuch no longer with the court, all of this is still changing our America. Merely going by what the cat has let partially out of the bag here, we see their efforts as yet undermining the law by these three methods they use in place of the U.S. Constitution’s Article V. You can go to their website at www.probono.net/ny/news.cfm?fa=detail &id=41373&fromFa=summarizeArchive and see that such social plans aren’t just in their heads, but are active and gaining over the American people.

The 1997 Harvard Law Review stated, “If Chief Justice John Marshall was the chief architect of a powerful national government, then Justice William Brennan was the principal architect of the nation’s system for protecting individual rights.” Did you catch that? “Powerful national government.” And this, many years before the “14th Amendment.” I will say about Marshall that he can be credited with the origination of “judicial creativity” within the courts. Such innovation has nothing but the boundaries of imagination to limit the court’s reign. Remember: no document or verbal confirmation existed that would have backed John Marshall’s Marbury vs. Madison dictum, a remarkable work that is yet to be exceeded either by himself or any supreme Court justice since. His painting of nationalism, judicial control and the power of the court was canvassed out with rainbows in the air, unicorns roaming meadows that flourished daisies; birds, butterflies, and streams led to the great national fountain of youth, a picture of such beauty that no one even suspected, nor could they have heard, the rattlings of serpents in the background. Because of the mesmerizing effect of this picture painted by Marshall, no viper could strike so long as the painting held captive its beholders. But then came such stalwart critics as the John Taylors and the John C. Calhouns, with senses that could penetrate into the background images, unveiling that sound back there to the spellbind beholders who only belatedly shook off these effects and made out the rattle, when, then – and only then – did the hidden serpent strike; causing the “Civil War” and the venomous “14th amendment.”

The Court has no constitutional license to make laws by way of opinions, but even ghost writers do so today. I was told by one cat that sleeps close to the Court house steps that mysterious sounds emanate from there, like, “I’m on the first step, where is my opinnnnion?!” “I’m on the second step, where is myyyy opinion?!

Oooohh! Rattle, clang. Boo! I’m outta here and turning on all the lights. This is spooky – and getting scarier.

The First Freedom