by Noah It's long past time for America to realize that Supreme Court Justice John Roberts is the Stephen Miller of the court. That doesn't mean he is the only anti-voting rights judge on the court. There are others and right now it looks like their number is about to grow by one more. But, Justice Roberts is their leader. He has devoted his life to the decimation of voting rights for selected citizens and we know who is at the top of that list. Conservatives may have changed their names and party affiliations over the decades but they haven't changed their targets. If Trump's spoken plans to take the election to the Supreme Court come to pass, Robert's position on suppression and ballot counting will be key. Roberts started his career at the Supreme Court as a clerk for Justice William Rehnquist, one of the most arch conservitive judges to ever plague the court. Then, in 1981, at age 26, Roberts took a job as one of Reagan Attorney General William French Smith's aides. He was then chosen to make the case against our voting rights laws which were up for renewal and fine-tuning at the time. He was a perfect choice for such an evil. The voting rights act that Roberts was so dedicated to overturning even as a young man was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That law dismantled much of the post reconstruction era Jim Crow law system that blocked millions of American citizens of color from exercising their right to vote, especially but not exclusively in the states that, to this day, celebrate their heritage of being members of the Confederacy and fighters for repression and slavery. Jim Crow made many citizens pay "unique" poll taxes; guess the number of marbles or beans in a jar, recite poems they'd never heard before, and subject themselves to endless other indignities when they showed up to vote. This is what Roberts wanted to continue and wants to no doubt fully restore. Nowhere was that desire more evident than in the Roberts-led Supreme Court 2013 decision to finally gut the Voting Rights Act with Roberts leading the way by disingenuously saying the law was no longer needed since, in his opinion, racism is over. How's that for a big transparent screen to hide behind? He might as well have said that Black Lives Don't Matter since that has obviously always been his thinking anyway. Since the infamously immoral 2013 decision, every state with a typically racist republican legislature has moved to put Jim Crow style voter suppression rules back into place. And, of course, we haven't seen a bit of racism in our society since 2013, right? Vote suppression and the twisted use of the Supreme Court have been two of the pillars of Republican Party strategies to win elections. There is no better example than the Bush Crime Family's strategy in Florida for the 2000 presidential election when Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State, under the direction of Jeb Bush, did more than get rid of votes. She purged extreme numbers of voters from the rolls, thus taking away their ability to vote to begin with. The key determination usually used in such things is race and it seems that Harris removed names that "sounded African-American." In 2000, the Bush vs. Gore decision damaged the Supreme Court's credibility. This year, Trump is steering the court like a Titanic heading for a killer iceberg. Republicans across the country have already spent up to $20,000.000 to back up the voter suppression mechanics that they have previously put in place. President Trump and his party are now pushing the envelope well beyond what was done 20 years ago. This time, purging and voter suppression tactics aren't enough to satisfy their plans for a white nationalist fascist dictatorship. The Republican Party's Dear Leader is openly calling it his "Get Rid Of The Ballots" strategy. It's Bolivian. It's Putinesque. It's however you want to call it. It's the deliberate final nail in the coffin of our long decaying Democracy. It is the Republican Party sum total be all and end all platform for 2020 and they hope to have the Roberts Supreme Court decide this year's election in their favor. Trump is being so bald-faced about this that he has publicly said that that is why he wants his new nominee confirmed immediately and you can bet that a commitment to rule in his favor on election matters and any other matters before the court was clearly made to be a qualification for being the nominee during the interviews. His record of demanding loyalty before country is well recorded. Just ask Jim Comey. Trump is a kiss the ring mobster and he plans on having one more immoral judge that will see things his way so he can consolidate power just like his pals Putin, Duterte, and Kim did it. Our psychopathic president has made his plans obvious at least since his "president for life" statement 3 years ago. Now he is openly calling for getting rid of ballots and he's not just counting on Louis DeJoy's efforts at the USPS. He's got the sleaziest Attorney General of all time, William Barr, corrupting and commanding the entire so-called Justice Department to work overtime on finding ways to make our votes "disappear like a miracle." Make no mistake. This has been the long term Republican Party strategy for decades. The proof of that is in the fact that, as I write this Friday morning, nary a peep or anything above a vague whisper of objection to this "Get Rid Of The Ballots" strategy has been heard coming from the mouths of Republicans anywhere in this country. There's no shock there. When they were against impeaching Trump and embracing Putin and his cash, they showed their colors. They've had days to object to Trump's recent public revelation of his plan to stay in office. There has been no patriotic, country first screaming from the rooftops. They are what they are. By the way, I recently saw Chucky Schumer on MSNBC where he described Roberts as a "moderate." He did it with a straight face even though he was decrying the repbulican steal the election strategy. He is not alone. Many democrats and media hacks refer to Roberts as a "moderate." That just goes to show how far to the right the Democratic Party has moved in the past 50 years in a grotesque and nearly futile effort to keep up with the Republicans. As we all should know by now, that leads nowhere but to oblivion.
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