A VIEW FROM THE WHAT IS NOW THE FRONT

I receive this email comment in respect of my previous blog from Bob in California. He is an old friend and graduate of the third listed best law school in the United States, the University of Chicago. It is just off the Midway Pleasance in South Chicago. I visited him there in February of 1965. We were together on the 21^st February 1965 on the day Malcolm X was assassinated in New York.  The Nation of Islam’s Temple No:2 was located only a few blocks to the north on South Greenwood Avenue, a mere 4 minute drive away. I recall that I was in need of some aspirin and we drove around to find a convenient drug store. I seem to recall, we passed by the Nation of Islam  residence, very heavily guarded in the light of expected repercussions due to the event in New York earlier in the day. The building was later revealed to have been under surveillance by the FBI during the sixties. Just a bit of historical background. Herewith his comments.

 

“Well, Ed, here’s the scoop on the Court.  Trump appointed three “justices”, all of whom were put up by the Federalist Society, a right wing organization run by Leonard Leo. The organization cultivates their candidates through college/law school and ultimately into the judiciary. The Society is funded by right-wing billionaires, who continue to wine and dine their justices once on the Court with lavish vacations and other gifts, including a very expensive motor home ultimately given to Justice Clarence Thomas. Not counting Roberts, there are 5 of these right-wing hacks on the Court, who will do the bidding of the supporters of the Society, who consider it in their best interests if a Republican is elected to the Presidency. One of the billionaires is a Nazi memorabilia collector!

So, if you are looking for any real legal reasoning for any of their decisions, save your eyesight. It’s all political. Problem is that in order to impeach any of them, it would take a majority of the US House of Reps to vote for the impeachment petition, and 2/3 of the US Senate to remove a justice. So, they act without any ethics rules that bind them to be honest, and instead act in the interests of their patrons.

Thanks to Trump, we’re stuck with these posers.

 

I did not know that Frank Morgan was on the Court at one time. Apparently, being the Wizard of Oz was a prerequisite! Who knew?”

 

That February of 1965 saw one of the severest snow storms in the Midwest. I can’t remember exactly which Hall of Residence Bob lived in. It might have been Goodspeed or Wieboldt Hall or neither. Whatever it was, it was very cold and heated by very old fashion radiators that sucked all the humidity out of the air. I drove off back to LA the next day and was caught in a snowstorm in the Ozarks on what is now, and maybe then, Highway 44. Somewhere between St Louis and Springfield Missouri, the windscreen wipers on the car could only sweep across 4 or 5 inches of windscreen there was so much snow. A short while later the car just stopped and was apparently dead.. I was fortunate in that it was at a crossroads near a gas station and got a tow from a guy at the station who had been pulling cars off the road practically all day. Once under cover in the garage I could see the car was covered in a sheet of ice and there were blocks of ice around the wheels with about a millimetre of space between the ice and the tyre. Effectively I had been driving in a block of ice for some time.  It came to a halt because the petrol had frozen in the carburettor, also encased in ice. I took off quite a while later when things were a bit clearer and the ice cube round the car had melted. The deluge had stopped and there were clear skies. A bit further down the road though the highway itself was completely covered in a sheet of black ice and the car spun round 360 degrees. I had noted a number of HGVs jack-knifed on the side of the highway on my way. I managed to pull off at a place called “The Oasis Motel”. 

 

But all that’s another story. Indeed the United States is full of stories but none, at the moment, as important as what is happening to the rule of law. I thank Bob for his comments and wish they were more optimistic in tone. Perhaps it is just another conspiracy theory, but it sounds quite plausible to me. 

 

Herewith a current promotional film for the Law School and its surrounds: