Station Selected:
Starting the final broadcast of our first year on the Civic Media airwaves with a
special segment of “What Happened Today in History”—highlighting the return in
1994 of Russian dissident and Nobel Prize Winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the
Soviet Union (after the dismissal of criminal charges against him) and the 1935
decision of the United States Supreme Court invalidating President Roosevelt’s
National Industrial Recovery Act (a pivotal component of his omnibus New Deal
package to reinvigorate the nation’s crippled industrial/labor/economic
status)—both of which are reflected subtly in the Rule of Law news of this past
week.
In that focus, critical examination of Chief Justice John Roberts’ public remarks
about the challenges and reputation of the High Court; the equally troubling
commentary of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch condemning the government’s
attempts to promote community health during the pandemic; and (arguably most
important) the landmark decision of a nominally unanimous SCOTUS that restricts
dramatically the capacity of the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce the
Clean Water Act—finding that its reach extends only to only those waterways
“adjoining” as opposed to “adjacent” to covered areas (much like the High Court’s
ruling last year that limited significantly the enforcement of the Clean Air Act).
Addressing other reporting in the category of “delivery of justice,” the decision by
a South Carolina state court judge to suspend (likely temporarily) the legislative
action of the government one day earlier to limit abortion access to only the first
six weeks of pregnancy (when most women are unaware of their medical status);
the impending vote of the Texas House of Representatives to impeach the
incumbent Attorney General, Kenneth Paxton, for bribery, corruption, and abuse of
office; and the decision of successful litigant E. Jean Carroll to seek to augment her
recent $5 million defamation/assault judgment against Donald Trump, based upon
his most recent, additional claims that her claims were fabricated and fraudulent.
Finally, an in-depth review of the most significant sentencings to date of
defendants convicted of seditious conspiracy and other violent crimes for their
insurrectionist attack on the United States Capitol on January 6—including Oath
Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes (18 years) and three of his principal deputies
(ranging from 12 years to 4 years); central to that discussion, the insightful and
revelatory comments of the sentencing judge about the conduct and the personal
histories of the attackers, including one who (as he remarked) should have been a
role model for Americans instead of the disgraced actor that she has become.
