Words Matter: It Is a Make or Break Moment for America

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This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our Super Secret Studio in the third

sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. And from other, undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to D.S.R.s Words Matter. It is that time of the week. I'm David Rothkuff and I look forward to it because I get to turn to Norm Ornstein who

is not only the smartest guy in Washington, but kind of a therapist, kind of the most entertaining person to talk to in Washington, certainly what every one of us needs at least once a week.

“So, let me start by asking you a question, Norm, and that is, how do you do it?”

You know, as I was listening to you David, I was thinking everybody should have a therapist that makes them feel worse after the visit when they came in. I have very divided feelings right now. One part I am exultant in the remarkable victory of the Minnesota Timberwolves over the Denver Nuggets.

That's going to resonate with our one Timberwolves fan, as we may have a few people from Minnesota list. That's true. And on the other hand, it is just unrelenting horror from not just this administration, but a Supreme Court, and I just keep repeating, I've got a piece I've just working on

now, over the weekend, when Amy Coney Barrett in 2021, early 2021 went to Kentucky, and standing next to Mitch McConnell, her benefactor, the guy who jammed through her confirmation eight days before the 2020 election said, "I'm here to show you that we're not just a bunch of partisan hacks."

“Well, six partisan hacks went to the first White House dinner I believe ever for a state”

dinner that was totally partisan, not a single Democrat from Congress, not one Supreme Court justice nominated by a Democrat, but six Republican justices went to be feded by this fetid president, and nice job there. That's, you know, for people who are real words, man. Yeah, sorry, it's FETED followed by FETID, I got it.

And of course, six to three issued the at least no worse than any other, no better than any other. The most disingenuous, anti-historical, unconstitutional ruling called Calay

on a district in Louisiana. That as the great legal scholar Rick Hassan pointed out, basically

ignored the reality of not just the law, but the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, when Sam Alito, joined by all of the other partisan hacks, said, "There's nothing in the

“Constitutional law that says you have to take race into account."”

They're explicitly about writing the wrongs of what had happened to one race in America,

had in a long time. We might talk a little bit about what we could do about it, which is

partly what I've been writing about. But then, you know, we have Donald Trump saying, he doesn't need congressional approval for a war. Nobody's ever asked for it before. Nobody's

“ever had it before. By the way, I think you may have missed the news, which is literally”

moments before we've started to record this. The White House introduced a new legal ploy and has declared the war over. Yeah. So this is mission terminated. And, you know, now, you know, they don't have to report because the war actually ended with the beginning

of the ceasefire. Other brilliant legal scholars have noted that a blockade is actually

an act of war. And, of course, it's completely contrary to the spirit, the letter of the war power, is that? Anyway, I didn't mean it erupted. No, I just -- what's disappointing about that is they didn't say the war has been 86ed. Oh, you're -- oh, you're going to

“be prosecuted now, Norm. You're going to be prosecuted because you have now in vote”

with the seashells of death, which is -- you know, which is -- which is the truth. But I would -- I don't want to -- I'd like to get to all that. But I don't want to go past Kelle, okay? Yes. Because Kelle is, as decisions go, as you said, as bad as the worse that we've ever seen in our history. This court is as bad as the worse we've ever seen that our history. John Roberts, as the worst as any Chief Justice, was worse in Roger

Toney, right? Right. Well, you can say, as worse, some people say, you know, dreads got --

that's basically said, black people don't have rights or slaves don't have rights. That

was pretty bad. But we don't have to judge. You know, we don't -- we don't have to make

“that decision. Certainly as bad as we've ever seen. But, you know, sometimes I think we”

don't really sort of pull the camera back for enough to see the whole picture. And the whole picture is that about 25, 35 years ago, a bunch of conservative billionaires got together. And they said, we want to undertake the kind of structural reform in America that's going to undo the progress of the past 150 years. And systematically, I mean, the things that you and I have celebrated in the course of our lives, breakthroughs and civil rights,

breakthroughs and women's rights, breakthroughs and individual liberties, pushing back on the role of religion and the schools, breakthroughs and protecting the environment. Literally, one by one by one, they have eliminated all. Surely, within the next two or three years, they will eliminate the right of people to marry whoever they love. And undue gay marriage in America. But -- and -- but literally it's -- essentially it's saying it's 1850 again.

We have just turned everything back. And it's all because these right-wing extremists with money undertook not just a culture war, but a campaign to alter the -- to make structural changes in the United States. And frankly, I mean, and let's be honest about this for that 35, 40 years that this has been going on. The Democrats sat on their hands. And they said, let's talk about marginal issues. It's only now that Democrats are starting to realize that this is

a structural issue, that what we face -- I mean, personal -- this is just my personal point of view. Sorry to offer my own little rant here. But my personal point of view is, if a Democrat is not running, saying the Supreme Court needs to be reformed, we need to go to 13 seats, which corresponds to 13 circuit, that we need to add DC and Puerto Rico estates, that we need to change campaign finance roles. If they don't run on those things as central, if instead they run on some mushy,

bullshit, you know, campaign -- I'm not voting for it because they're missing the point yet. I couldn't agree more. It is, you know, code blew time for us right now. And the idea that

you believe that the natural majorities would work for Democrats. Partly this notion of when they

“go low, we go high and we'll show people how it should be done so that they will rebel against”

or react against the outrageous of the other side. And those all have to change. I want to do it just a little bit of history on Kelle before we go back. We know that John Roberts, back as a junior lawyer in the White House and the Office of Legal Council, wrote memos decrying the voting rights act. Since John Roberts was in his 20s or early 30s, he has been determined to blow up the voting rights act. Then we get to his confirmation hearing where it was all about,

I'm going to be modest. We are not going to go forward with these partisan decisions that then

“we're five to four. We are going to call balls and strikes. We're going to decide cases as”

nearly as possible. We're going to rely on stary decisive. We're going to respect the role of Congress. Then we get, I'm not going to talk at length about the campaign finance decisions about citizens united, which proved that he lied through his teeth at his confirmation hearing.

But we get to Shelby County. And their John Roberts pulled a neat little trick. Basically,

he didn't directly strike section five, which required pre-clearance by states and localities that had shown a clear pattern of blatant racial discrimination. Before they could change their laws involving federal elections, they had to get it pre-clear by the Justice Department. He changed the part in section four that was any enforcement for section five. So in effect, he went through a back door to kill section five. But you know, set at the time, okay, we still have section two.

Section two was where individuals voters affected and the government could challenge in court districting or voting laws done with the outcome being racial discrimination. And he said, five has gone, two is okay. What did they do this time? They didn't kill section two. They didn't do what we feared would be one equivalent of killing section two, which is to say, complaints can't be brought by anybody except the Justice Department, with this Justice

Department effectively killed it. Instead, Sam Alito, who wrote this opinion and he wrote the opinion because John Roberts assigned him to write the opinion, said, oh, there's still section two. But there is no opportunity to enforce it if it involves invoking racial discrimination.

So they pulled another invidious incidious back door way of killing what basically remained

to the voting rights act. And I have little doubt that one, the John Roberts dance to a victory jig. This has been a goal of his, a racist goal of his for decades. But also, at some point, we may find memos leaked from the Supreme Court with discussions between Roberts, Alito and some of the others saying, you know, if we just say section two is dead, we're going to get all kinds of blowback. So let's figure out a way to kill it without having any fingerprints on it. And by saying,

“it's still alive. It's just that it's brain dead. So you have to look at this Supreme Court”

and the six partisan hacks, who just imagine you're about to issue this Earthshaking horrible decision ignoring the Constitution, the history, the law and reality. And all six of you go to an elegant dinner for the King of Great Britain, King of England. If you could find a more blatant appearance of conflict, but we know that they don't care about appearances. They don't care about ethics.

beyond shameful. To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know,

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the DSR network than by becoming a member. Members enjoying ad-free listening experience, access to our discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more. Use code DSR 26 for a 25% off discount on sign up at the DSR network.com. That's code in DSR 26 at the DSR network.com/buy. Thank you and enjoy the show. Well, it's not just beyond shameful. It is a threat to the identity and character of the

United States that is every bit as great as the threat that we face during the Civil War.

Because essentially what they're doing is they are saying we want to engineer

“the control of the United States by minority of white male Christians and specifically rich,”

white male Christians who will have superior powers to everybody else. Now, you know, somebody out there, you may be listening to this and you go, I give up. This is, you know, this is liberal, overstatement, melodrama. It's not because what we have is a bunch of people gaming the Constitution of the United States, giving disproportionate, which already gives

disproportionate power to red states because of, you know, games that were played in the 19th century,

right? Why are there two decoders? Sure. And, and they are trying to lock it in so that forever white people will control the votes in these states. The black votes in these states will be minimized. Women's rights will be minimized. They're actively now trying to enable you know, you know, putting the 10 commandments into schools and advancing this pro-Christian agenda, not just at the court, of course, but, you know, Pete Higgseth and DOD and so forth,

you know, which is the largest organization in the United States. And they, you know, they pull no punches when they need to wave Senate rules, they wave Senate rules, when they need to, you know, game it in the courts, they game it in the courts, when they want it on the shadow dockets, so they don't have to explain their decision, they put it on the shadow docket. And unless the Democrats realize this is the issue, the issue is whether black people, people of color in America

get above. The issue is whether women have the right to control their bodies. The issue is whether people can be with who they want to be with. The issue is whether people who live in blue states, people who live in cities primarily will become subordinate to people who live in rural area. And you've written about this eloquently throughout your career, but I just think we're at a moment of crisis here. And you know, the Democrats, just the arguments I hear people have it. And you know,

you've got the fucking centrist Democrats were like, oh no, don't talk about this stuff. We don't want to, you know, we don't want to offend them with discussions of, you know, holding them accountable,

“just talk about bread basket issues. That's how Americans care about. Don't go after billionaires.”

Don't go, you know, and I'm just like, holy shit, the house is on fire. And these people don't get it. Yeah. And it starts with the leaders. It starts with Chuck Schumer. And extends to unfortunately, at least at this point, Hacking Jeffries and the other leaders who think that they just have to say affordability over and over again. And I don't think there's any real understanding. You're right. Let me talk a little bit about what we need to do. And you're right

about enlarging the court. And let me say it's not packing the court. Mitch McConnell packed the court. When he blocked Merrick Garland and didn't even give him a hearing for almost a year, when he jammed through Amy Coney Barrett eight days before the election. 13 justices for 13 circuits makes objective sense. But it's also an absolute requirement to unpack

had been followed. If fundamental norms had been followed, then Merrick Garland instead of being

“attorney general would have been an associate justice of the Supreme Court. If fundamental”

norms have been followed, Joe Biden would have filled the seat now held by Amy Coney Barrett. And we would have a five four majority of democratic presidential nominees on the court instead of six three right wing partisan hacks. So that's one thing. I'm going to interject something there. If fundamental norms had been followed, then in Bush v. Gore, you wouldn't have had a

public and majority entered seat in an election prematurely tipping the scales in a purely

partisan way for a legal team fighting for George W. Bush that included John Roberts, Brett Cavana, and Amy Coney Barrett. Yeah, absolutely and could not agree more. But I would also say

“that enlarging the court is not enough. And by the way, we should add not just DC and Puerto Rico”

his states, we should add Guam American Simoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They're not all going to be Democrats, by the way. But how about Northern California and Southern California as state? How about nine states in California, which you could easily do? Now, having said that, I, the peace I'm writing, which will be in the contrary and on Monday, says, you know, sure, turn limits as well. But, you know, I've been for term limits for the

Supreme Court for 30 years. What hasn't been resolved in this, because it sounds wonderful and it would be, how do you get it there? How do you phase it in? So that in fact, you have one of the major parts of it, which is each president then gets two vacancies to fill. Do you say all of the existing justices have to, you know, we count back to how long they've been on the court? That's one thing. But it'll take a long time. But I want to look at one other element

that is more far-reaching and maybe more powerful than enlarging the court. The Constitution

gives the court a Constitution created a Supreme Court and other inferior courts that Congress to it create. They gave it very limited original jurisdiction, including very limited original appellate jurisdiction. You know, fundamentally, it's cases involving ambassadors and representatives or consoles. One citizen against another citizen from another state, states against other states, citizens from one state against another state. And a few other, you know, pretty narrow things.

And what it said was that they would have appellate authority over those things unless Congress said otherwise. And Congress could give other jurisdiction beyond that original jurisdiction. Everything that the court does now fundamentally is what Congress has granted it that is not

“part of the Constitution. I think we ought to think about taking away that power. And that includes”

the appellate power, which is their real power. Give it to a new court of appeals. Maybe, you know, to make it fair, consisting of the chief judges of the 13 circuits, plus the chief judge of the DC circuit. However, you want to set it up, they do not have constitutional right to be the final arbiter of most of these issues. They do not have the right except what Congress has seated to them to determine whether a voting rights act passed unanimously

in one house, nearly unanimously and another, done through a long thoughtful process was a relevant and unconstitutional. They don't have the right to throw out 150 years of campaign finance law, willy-nilly. Or to make up law. Yeah, out of whole cloth, not just, you know, ignoring started to say this, but this whole shadow docket thing is completely made up. And we've seen what they've done with the shadow and emergency docket from these memos leaked out from the court.

courts the way it's supposed to happen. John Roberts said, "I don't like this." And he took it

“up in this emergency docket long before it had been litigated elsewhere, which was a complete”

breach of every norm of the court and blocked it and then began to use this shadow docket and emergency docket to give Trump whatever he wanted, partisan hack indeed, and time for all of that to change. Yeah, and I would say two things on this to which, of course, I would like your

response and wisdom. The first is this. Democrats need to approach this as holistically and

systematically as the Republicans did. Yes. It is not just about the court. It is not just about the number of states and what that means for the electoral college. It is not just about eliminating the electoral college. It is not just about changing campaign finance laws. It is about all of

“those things. And if we do not do all of those things, this system will not only remain broken,”

it will become unfixable. There is another element to this, though, which I'd also like your response

to because this is not just boring structural inside the beltway it's stuck. Okay, this is stuff

about how you as a person of color, you as a woman or you as an LGBTQ person or you as a resident of a blue state have had your rights taken from you. And that ought to piss you off and a good political leader ought to be able to frame this in a way that people understand just how personal this is. But I would take it a step further and I would say, look, you who think everything's about affordability is an issue. These issues are not disconnected. These issues are directly linked

because essentially this system enables the few to rule over the many and the few within this system because of citizens united who have the most say are the richest Americans. So they are currently writing tax laws that benefit them and stripping away services just like they're stripping away rights from Americans. And there's a big front page storing the New York Times today about how millions of Americans are giving up healthcare because the Republican party wanted to

give more tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. And all of this is tied together under one core idea, which is the system in the United States is rigged. It's rigged for the Epstein class. It's rigged for billionaires. It's rigged for big corporations. It's rigged for white Christian males. It is rigged in a way that the vast majority of Americans are having their rights trampled on

“and stolen. And if you want to have affordability, if you want to have opportunity,”

if you want to have education for everybody, if you want to protect the environment, if you want America to be competitive, if you want our values to be manifested in our society, we have to do the structural form in order to get to the social, economic and political goals that we share. And I just don't see those two pieces being put together, frankly, by anybody. I think you're right, and I would even take it a step further. The affordability idea

is directly affected by the Supreme Court unleashing a madman with its immunity decision. Who then goes ahead and stumbles into a horrific war, which is going to raise prices, reduce food supply, and create other horrific problems, shortages of jet fuel, helium for chips, which will leave us further behind. And people's affordability will be directly affected by that. At the same time, look at public safety. We're now getting people dying because of raw milk

and cheese, which has now been taken from the market because it was infected made with raw milk. Why? Because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made a big deal out of how healthy raw milk is.

We have the polio. We have the possibility of having polio return. We have people for the first time

All of those things, public safety affected by what's happening in this cacostocracy.

“And they're blowing up the elements of government that protect people's lives and well-being.”

And I would hope in addition, as we find in more news today, the Trump kids, Donald Jr. and Eric, now buying into a company that is getting huge contracts from the Pentagon, the corruption that is across the board. And I saw Lara Trump today saying,

he's the first president who left office poorer than when he came in. And it's like

every word out of their mouths, including A and B, is a lie. But you could add up all of the corruption in every administration in the history of this country. And it wouldn't come close to equalling the corruption that's already happened in the Trump administration. And if Democrats can't make issues out of those things, the challenges to people's ability to pay their bills, to get food on the table, to pay their rent, to buy almost anything as the prices are going up

because of the combination of tariffs, the blockade of the straight-of-horre moves, and a whole lot of

other factors affected by Trump. When we get electricity outages and shortages because of what they've been doing, including Trump systematically, you know, the idea that you are going to pay companies on the verge of opening wind farms to destroy them instead boggles the mind. And people are going to die. They're going to die of heat stroke as we saw over many years in Texas. You got to link all of these things back to this vicious dictatorship, unleashed by the Supreme Court, run by a

narcissistic malignant, narcissistic psychopath, surrounded by licks, bittles, yes men and women,

and destroying the lives of average Americans. And financed by the abstine class. Finance, yes, to benefit time and time again from all of this stuff. And get pardoned when they're caught with their hand in average people's cookie jars. Right. And with that, and we could certainly go on and certainly people are hearing that this is how we, you know, cycle ourselves up for the weekend. But, but, but, but, but, you know, we don't have time to go on, but, but as part of that, I would add two small footprints.

One is that's part of the structural form, not just the court, not just the number of states or or the electoral college, not just campaign finance or form, but part of it is is binding ethics laws on the court, on the Congress, outlawing this corruption. You are absolutely right. Corruption is a central issue here. The system is corrupt. When we say the system is rigged, that means it is corrupt.

“And, you know, it is essential that we do it. And the other thing that Democrats have got to do,”

rather than tossing the bland out there like Chuck Schumer and blah, blah, blah, who are just, they just, you know, I mean, look, Joe Biden had a blue ribbon commission on the Supreme Court present him ideas and he, he couldn't do it because he was two in too much of an institutionalist. That generation, and I'm sorry to say, you know, to some extent, our generation, to over turn the page move on because it has failed in this regard. And one of the areas,

and I just bring this up as a subtext because as I was listening to, is we have to take back the language of this discussion. You know, when they talk about the administrative state as these Republicans want to do, what they, they don't mean too many bureaucrats. They mean health care for you, health care for your family, schools, clean water, clean air, protecting the environment,

“what they're taking away are things that are essential to the lives of hundreds of millions of”

Americans in order to do just one thing. And that's siphon off more of the gross domestic product

at the end of the day, that's what this is about. And it ought to know as the eight people,

“it ought to make people angry and above all, it ought to make them stand up and get active.”

I agree completely before we go just one more point. There was an excellent piece in the new Republic today about what to do in the aftermath of this Cala decision. And it didn't reflect

on the courts. It was on Congress. And it was the response to this when there is control

is for Congress to mandate that states do proportional representation in congressional elections by having multi-membered districts so that you're not going to be in a situation like we're about to see in a state like Tennessee where there will be zero representatives for the 35

to 40 percent of the people in Tennessee who are Democrats. And otherwise, we get a race to the

bottom because Democrats will do this to carve up their majority minority districts to add more Democrats. And that means we're going to lose something really important, which is the physical representation in Congress of people of color, which is important for so many reasons when you're

“making laws, you need those perspectives. You need to, you know, have a house of representatives”

that is representative. So we got a lot of things that could be done. And if they're too timid, now they better not be timid when they're back in a position to do something about this. Totally agree with you. As ever, I feel energized by the conversation. I feel smarter because I've talked to, I hope everybody else says. And I look forward to continuing the conversation and trying to rouse out as many people as we can get them energized and out there. We're six months

“away from vitally important election. And I really, really hope that we can help shape that debate.”

For now, thanks very much, Norm. Thanks, everybody, for listening and have a good weekend, everybody. Bye bye. I feel that Shopify is a platform for continuous optimizations. Everything is super simple, integrative and useful. And the time and the money that I can't be able to answer differently. For all in the vaccine. Now, the cost list is on Shopify.de.