by Ed Sumcad 

   When in the court of last resort legal niceties reached the end of the rope, ....

    ....the sky is falling and no light is seen at the end of the tunnel, the way of the desperate and the hopeless offers a deadly alternative. edwin a. sumcad/06/19/08

     Police calls it threat and intimidation and at its worst, assassination. In the story of Jack the Ripper, East London’s mythical killer, murder! 

      In the jungle of legalities called the U.S. Supreme Court [ U.S. S.CT or the Court], a swing vote shakes our tree of national security. We dropped to the ground right into the waiting mouths of predators – terrorists, the nation’s nemesis, and Public Enemy No. 1.
 
       To drive home a crucial point, why use chimpanzees as main characters for this editorial satire? “The structure of the chimpanzee brain is startlingly similar to that of the human …” Jane Goodall Institute. [1]
 
       Chimpanzees love to swing.  Which one imitates the other – the chimpanzee or the human swinger?  In their respective wild environments, both swing.
 
       Many of us may be surprised. But let me give you what chimpanzee scientists say: “Chimpanzee behavior and social relations, emotional expression and needs, and intellectual abilities are similar to humans… Both have the capacity for endless romping and play … Many of their emotions, such as joy and sadness, fear and despair, are similar to or the same as our own.” [Ibid] So where lies the difference?
 
       A chimpanzee swing vote that recently occurred in the U.S. S.CT, alarmed America. Many Americans lost a lot of sleepless nights imagining what kind of tragedy looms ahead when terror strikes.
 
       My son-in-law, a professor and practicing attorney, invited me to dinner to discuss and ponder upon the impact of this U.S. S.CT ruling on our national security. Since we are also both lawyers in our own legal turfs, we lapsed into the world of law and chewed a lot of sticking bones. I could see his concerns written all over his face.  He is happily married to my eldest daughter, a career woman [senior specialist in one of America’s major intellectual property firms].  They love my grandson dearly, their only child, and he is so apprehensive of what the immediate future might bring, now that terrorists in Guantanamo may be freed by writs of habeas corpus, to create and detonate their “dirty bombs” again and kill more Americans.
 
       To continue this jungle spoof that’s happening in Washington, D.C. within the halls of the highest court of the land, let’s lay down the configuration of the nine Justices that sit on the bench like copies or clones of Emperor Nero who historian chronicled was playing the harp with that nocturnal melody of a deranged ruler-stalker deliriously laughing like a mad man in the darkest of night while Rome was burning.
 
        Since the U.S. S.CT became an amphitheater of slaughter of American values when Justices, like the gladiators of ancient Rome, plunged themselves into a cultural war, those warring legal combatants divided themselves into two equal opposing groups.  The first phalanx of Justices that stands closely together, are Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.  Media described them as “Conservatives” or “Cons”.
 
       The second group of legal combatants in the U.S. S.CT amphitheater similarly armed with their own court nets, case nooses, attack swords and all sorts of cultural weaponry for legal defense and offense, is known as  the “Liberals” or “Libs” composed of such fearless bench warriors as John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyers.
 
        The 9th Justice – the swing vote – is Anthony McLeod Kennedy although anyone of them could choose to be a tie-breaker by casting a chimpanzee swing vote in the jungle court.
 
        The U.S. S.CT – the court of last resort --was once known as the bastion of impartiality and wisdom. Justices were the nation’s “wise men” whose only biased objective judgment [an oxymoron] leans towards justice. Since “Liberal” Justices evened up the composition in number, the Court had changed drastically.
 
     Today the disappointed American public believed there is no right or wrong anymore for America when Justices decide cases critical to the security of the nation.  The “Libs” have their own definition of what is just, what is right or wrong, what is not and what is, a violation of the Constitution, what is liberty and right to privacy versus national security, and the like.
 
     Just because the “Cons” say so, the “Libs” automatically say otherwise. Justice is no longer altruistic but egotistic – it alienates reality when truth is created as a weapon of aggression. The opposing group just acts with spite and disdain of the other’s philosophical dicta … they are in the thick of their own cultural war inside the Court, right there in their home turf …!!
 
     As a result, the brilliant mind of the U.S. S.CT that used to be impartial and wisely judicious in rendering judgments for the interest of the American people, a nation of justice and fair play, evaporated in the air … it is now gone completely.  
 
      Today the general perception that rounds the corner is that the Justices are no longer deciding cases for the people, only for themselves. As adhesive adversarial groups reaching at each other’s throat, the two factions are locked heads up in a battle that only the terrorists cheer, clapping their hands in standing ovation every time a combatant makes a “kill”. Barely a week ago, the “Libs” made a “kill” – U.S. S.CT granted terrorists right to habeas corpus equal to Americans they murdered.  Al Qaeda celebrates!
 
       While Justices are deeply engrossed in their own war, the interest of the public is kicked out of the window.  They don’t care anymore if the nation is drowning.  They don’t have a disturbed conscience even if the terrorists are benefiting from their kitchen war as they serve the public with their own brewed opinions endangering our national security.
 
       The latest menu of opinion dished out to the public was this Court’s shock decision, that terrorists in the Guantanamo Bay naval prison camp have a constitutional right to habeas corpus protection.
 
        It means that temporarily free after filing a petition for the writ of habeas corpus, detainees who murdered Americans in 9/11 and their accomplices in detention, could be free while awaiting trial … free to kill again, this time with vengeance.  I wrote about this dangerous folly in a series of possible “dirty bomb” explosions, recently published by NWS. In the NWS homepage, the “columnist” button provides an access to the published materials.
 
       It is an understatement to say that this deadly decision is extremely dangerous. The Court was divided, cut right down the middle.  The four “Cons’ Justices hit the roof in opposing the majority opinion, while the four “Libs” Justices celebrate their “kill” in this Supreme Court battle for supremacy.
 
       The swing vote that broke the tie, was cast by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a centrist that came to the Court only recently after fellow centrist Sandra Day O'Connor retired in January this year. Newcomer Kennedy was a Reagan appointee.  Reagan, a diehard do-or-die Republican fighter who in the Cold War fought the communists hammer and tong and brought down the Berlin Wall, must be stirring in his grave.
 
      A Republican who dangled and swung the pendulum of conservative “betrayal” in favor of terrorists as shown in this case of a conservative U.S. S.CT appointee, may be pictured in this editorial parody, as a human chimpanzee that loves to swing in the tree that grows in the garden of public opinions.  The swinging judgment that ruffled the branches of this extraordinary tree -- the tree of our national security – threw us to the ground where terror opens its jaws waiting to catch the falling victims.
 
       Terrorists whose only excuse for being is to kill like the predatory creatures of the wild … in a jungle which many Americans believe the U.S. S.CT has become, would once more roam the streets as beneficiary of habeas corpus entitlement.
 
       It sounds poetic for terrorists to even stand in court with rights equal to the rights of Americans they killed. As if the bell of liberty, and the call for human rights, have just been sounded on, assuring us not to be alarmed. The only problem is, terrorists that had just been granted those constitutional rights by the benevolence of a chimpanzee swing vote, are compulsive killers that cannot resist the urge to commit murder in the name of their God, just as kleptomaniacs cannot resist to pick up any item of interest in the store, in the name of their demon, for the kick of it.  
 
       Because of their religious sickness to kill an infidel in every opportunity that presents itself, terrorists from Guantanamo, free of their penitentiary manacles and out of their legal chain, need to detonate a “dirty bomb”.  The dirtiest and the more pervasive the mass murder is, and the more buildings destroyed, and with this vicious destruction American bodies are either buried under the rubbles or blown up to smithereens, the easier for these assassins – who in their comatose belief their killing is an act of God -- to enter the gate of heaven.
 
      An Al Qaeda killer in the rat hole once shocked the American public with a confession that to kill an infidel is a religion, an act of God.
 
       The U.S. S.CT has just handed down to terror a new franchise to destroy and once more the opportunity to kill.
 
        When a curious legal mind examines this chimpanzee swing opinion written by Justice Kennedy, the indubitable conclusion is, the Court had usurped the power of Congress. Record shows that Congress passed a law – the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 [DTA] – that defines the rights of terrorists detained in Guantanamo.  Justices cannot supplant those rights of terrorists captured by the military in the war on terror by creating their own version.  Only Congress can do that under the constitutionally prescribed doctrine of Separation of Powers.     
 
      In DTA Congress provides procedures for review of the status of dangerously categorized detainees. This job belongs to Congress, a constitutionally dictated prerogative of the Legislative Branch of government. The law protected the rights of terrorists in detention. Several courts declared that Congress acted within the mandate of the Constitution.  DTA is constitutional.
 
     DTA provides a means for vindicating petitioners' rights, it is necessarily an adequate substitute for habeas corpus. See Swain v. Pressley, 430 U. S. 372, 381 (1977); United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 223 (1952).  In short, Congress prescribed that terror prisoners can bring up their constitutional rights to trial in the military tribunal as combatants and/or prisoners of war. In this regard, Congress provided that DTA is equivalent to habeas corpus for captured terrorists.
 
      This was granted by Congress to enemy combatants even though in the thinking of the court, terrorists have no right to habeas corpus.  A panel of Justices from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals declared that habeas “does not extend to Guantanamo … detainees … do not have a constitutional right to a writ of habeas corpus.”
 
      And suddenly, this U.S. S.CT swing opinion ruled that the DTA procedure is “not an adequate substitute to habeas corpus.” It struck down DTA as an “unconstitutional suspension of the writ.” It was a complete turn around. The roar of the crazy lion, Lord of the Jungle, was heard all over the place, from King Kong’s lair down to the ant colony, the smallest social unit of the wild. Confusion and pandemonium reign. The U.S. S.CT just decreed a judicial law for terrorists – believe it or not!  
 
      The more the swing majority opinion is examined, the more worms pop out of the can. At the end, the curious expects to find a judgment for the American people.  What was found was a judgment for and in behalf of terrorists – the enemy of the American people.
 
       What do we do when Justices become dysfunctional to the detriment of public interest?  What recourse do we have when swing chimpanzees dominate the ruling of the court of last resort that pave the way for Al Qaeda assassins to blow us up to kingdom come?  
 
        Impeachment is one of those legal niceties. The Jefferson’s Manual of the Rules of the U.S. House of Representatives [Section 603] [2] may open impeachment proceedings recommended by a joint resolution of any state legislature.
 
       For example, the California legislature can pass a resolution recommending impeachment of those Justices who are stuck for life in handing down obvious partisan rulings that for the sake of decency are considered “dirty” and toxic to public interest, in the guise of “honest” judicial opinions.
 
       Unfortunately, for the health of the American people, those cleverly disguised “state of the art rulings” are viewed with revulsion, dressed down in the bar of public opinion as emotional contaminants that are unsanitary and unsafe, security-wise, especially when it polarized the nation in opposing camps, now facing each other eyeball-to-eyeball with attitudinal murder in their mind.
 
     To state this more succinctly, this judicial divisiveness is again security-wise, a contamination from the bench that is infectious -- a wanton indulgence of legal whims and caprices if you may --  that dropped on the heads of Americans like badly used toilet papers blown from the branches of the tree by the foul breath of an ideologically divided Court fighting its internal war in public.
 
         Just recently, the Texas sodomy law was struck down by the U.S. S.CT in a scandalous manner. Liberal assassins of the institution of marriage had a ball. It validated not only same sex marriages but also legalized the practice of sodomy, especially by homosexuals.  The ruling warned other states that any attempt to obstruct the right to practice sodomy in private, violates the privacy law.
 
       According to this liberal “wisdom” of the Court that claims to be the guardian of morals and public morality, for as long as the secrets of this admittedly “abnormal sexual behavior” are locked in the privacy of the home, society is protected.
 
      Is the Court myopic, if not, hopelessly naïve?  What if the secret is no secret when it is done in public parks, in pubs and watering holes, in private parties open to certain public and etc. you name it, is society protected?   
 
       Unluckily, chimps do not answer this kind of question.  They can’t. To them, who cares? Just blindfold your children when going out to enjoy the evening in public parks.  
 
       In clubs and wild private parties where the practice of lesbianism and homosexuality makes your glass of champagne taste not better but bitter, just let alcohol blunts your vision of reality.  Maybe you are so drunk that you don’t even remember what you witnessed the night before.  But if you are “them”, enjoy. The U.S. S.CT prescribed the occasion for you.
 
      It’s like we are drowning for help in the depth of the Court’s loudest silence when questions are left unanswered … as if the writer of the “Libs” majority opinion who decreed this moral lunacy in the practice of sodomy is saying to the outraged American public, look here guys, here in the Court we are fighting our cultural war against the “Cons” … Anything goes. If you don’t like our ruling, you must be a xenophobic Republican wanting to join this imbroglio … so c’mon, make my day!
 
       And the most you can do is roll over your eyeballs.
 
       Very much aware of the people’s frustration, President Bush made a recommendation to the U.S. Senate to amend the U.S. Constitution by providing that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Politicians in the Senate believed that this is the only way to stop the left-leaning Judiciary from legislating their own laws and ram them down the throat of the helpless public.  But the Senate thought this move is not politically correct, especially when politicians will lose the nation’s gay votes. So the Senators opted out and wished Bush good luck.
 
       There is no recall for U.S. S.CT Justices which is only possible in the case of elected public officials at least here in California. Impeachment seems to be the only legal recourse left.
 
       We have to wait for terrorists who are temporarily freed by habeas corpus while awaiting trial or while being tried in court, to detonate a “dirty bomb” that if nuclear or biological, would annihilate thousands if not millions of Americans.  Then we have more than enough proof of treason and high crime to put those Justices away.
 
   But until then, life in the United States becomes a game of roulette. If terrorists happened to exclude you and me from the slaughter, or if with a Chinaman’s luck you and I survived the blast, then we can stand even on just one leg left, as certified witnesses to this infamy.
 
     The way of the angry, of the desperate and the hopeless, is as I said earlier, assassination. Fear gripped this disquieted expectation of educated and disciplined Americans, that hated public officials might catch a bomb or a bullet.  Depression and desperation seep in when down with intense frustration the mind can no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel and goes on tilt.
 
      President Bush knew the Republicans would lose the 2006 mid-term election because of the mean-spiritedness illegal aliens were subjected to. They advocated a pay-or-slay policy against illegal immigrants. “Illegals” must “pay” for violating the immigration law [arrest, incarceration, deprivation of benefits, deportation] or be “slain” [shoot them dead as “criminals” if they resist arrest].
 
       This hellish policy caught up with the ignorant, the Skinheads and Supremacists – the shame of America -- and the result was the murders of immigrant Ileto, Chin and Tobera.  As I write this piece, the editorial report is headlined in the homepage of NWS.com.
 
     Again aware of immigration xenophobia going on a bender, President Bush introduced a compromise solution – Temporary Workers Program -- an opportunity for illegal aliens in the country to begin the process of legalization to become part of our mainstream society.  The Republicans were first to jump on Bush, crying out loud – no amnesty, pay-or-slay. After the election, it was they who were slain out of power. They lost Congress.
 
      It is almost impossible to talk sense into the head of those committed diehards. This Jack the Ripper alternative seems to draw us there for want of any further possible solution. It is the way of the hopeless.
 
      Serial killer Jack only killed prostitutes in the East side of London. He reportedly wanted to stop prostitution after he contracted syphilis. But it was not as easy as swimming the English Channel to escape to the Europe mainland where he could hide his shame. Frustrated with such impossibility, he instead resorted to killing prostitutes in a very peculiar way.
 
     The Ripper’s case is a philosophy of retreat and desolation, of despondency and wretchedness that isolate the brain from reality.
 
      But we are not advocating this politics of despair that no doubt would breed an army of assassins, literally and figuratively speaking. If we do we will just be creating another jungle for predators worse than what is now transpiring in the U.S. S.CT where a chimpanzee swing vote kills.
 
      Let’s not even think about it. #
  Copyright Edwin A. Sumcad.  Access NWS June 18, 2008.
  The writer is an award-winning journalist.  Go to NWS homepage, click on the columnist button to know more bout the author or you may e-mail your comment at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

   

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