Liberty and Justice for Some song by Mitch Margo (2000)
Spin a little spin, stay the truth to win
Suddenly it’s become liberty and justice for some
Forget Election Day, it’s equal protection day
We don’t have to vote at all
The Supreme Court will handle the call
Those wise old owls in their treehouse
changed the course of history
Though there’s a song for every bird
Some of them will not be heard
The Liberty Bell has lost its ring
my voice don’t mean a thing
It only takes a 5-4 swing
Liberty and Justice for some
How can I trust a man
who doesn’t seem understand
that there is something inherently dumb
about liberty and justice for some
Mitch wrote that song after the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the Florida vote recount in 2000. Remember the hanging chads! The song was Mitch’s commentary on the election system, and he must have had a vision into the future, as our election process continues to be a sh*t show 25 years later. The landmark Bush v. Gore case centered on a dispute over the vote count in Florida, which was critical to determining the winner of the Electoral College and, ultimately, the presidency. It was a highly controversial decision, sparking accusations of political partisanship and raising debates about the role of the judiciary in political processes. It brought to light flaws in the U.S. election system, particularly concerning the inconsistent application of voting standards and the potential for narrow margins to create electoral uncertainty. The decision underscored the complexities of federalism and the interplay between state and federal courts in matters of election law. So here we are again, but in a different circumstance, as the head of the current regime has demanded that the electoral maps in Texas be redrawn in order to give the GOP advantage in the 2026 midterm elections. The Texas legislature was successful in their gerrymandering efforts, and as of now, the GOP has a 5 seat advantage in Congress. I am fairly certain that the Supreme Court will be getting another election case in the not too distant future, and it will politicize voter rights.
There is clearly executive overreach and checks and balances have been diminished, as both the US Congress and the Supreme Court are rubber stamping the Executive orders of the President. We are already in a Constitutional crisis and these actions will affect our democracy for generations to come. The Supreme Court is especially aiding executive overreach as it is making decisions with virtually no case law backing those orders. In an article about the SCOTUS Shadow Docket by The Brennan Center dated July 2022, Harry Black and Alicia Bannon explained that the conservative justices are increasingly using a secretive process to issue consequential decisions.
Controversial uses of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket makes it quite clear that the justices are willing to use this previously obscure procedural mechanism in ways that their predecessors did not. For better or for worse, the shadow docket is now a significant part of Supreme Court jurisprudence. The Brennan Center explainer notes that shadow docket cases “typically do not receive extensive briefing or a hearing. The decisions are accompanied by little to no explanation and often lack clarity on which justices are in the majority or minority. They are sometimes released in the middle of the night, creating a sense of palace intrigue.” This is why SCOTUS has now gone rogue, as it no longer seems to be one of the checks on the Executive branch as was intended by the framers of the Constitution. Malcolm and I delve into the Shadow Docket, and its destructive path towards the environment and the dismantling of democracy, as both Congress and SCOTUS walk in lock step with the Executive Branch. To help defend democracy please donate if you can to help lawyers defend our constitution by going to https://www.aclu.org/ https://www.brennancenter.org/
To find out how to take actions to heighten your civic duty go to https://civ.works/ Please go to the following organizations to get info and if you can, donate to https://www.ucs.org/ (Union of Concerned Scientists which helps scientists continue their valuable work). If you want to help protect the environment please donate to https://earthjustice.org/ and World Wildlife Fund: WWF
To listen to past TMSOG shows go to: https://hudsonriverradio.com/ and https://malcolmpresents.com Follow The Many Shades of Green on FB, Threads and Instagram @tmshadesofgreen and on Blue Sky @tmshadesofgreen.bsky.social. Listen to TMSOG podcasts on all major podcast apps.#RaiseYourEco&SocialConsciousness
A Special shout out to Neil Richter for all of his help and engineering wizardry in getting TMSOG up and running each week.