Judges. Subject to the same vices as all of us: Greed and Extreme Partisanship. Focus on UNC Judges.
A couple of years back Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts [who I have a high regard for] gave a famous statement with the intent of saying federal judges are independent minded and deal out justice impartially, regardless of who appointed them. It sounded very good, but which all wise individuals know is blatantly false in the modern era, and maybe all eras. Politics has driven the Supreme Court for many decades (perhaps always); decades back the Supreme Court was driven by liberal majority Supreme Court, which enacted things like social security, equal rights for minorities, and voting rights. In recent decades it has been driven by a Conservative majority which most recently has taken away women's rights to control their own body.
The intention of this blog is not to focus on the Supreme Court. John Oliver in his program Last Week Tonight episode shown on Feb 18/ 2024 gave a scathing yet accurate reflection on the integrity of certain members of the Supreme Court. He could have gone into more detail about the 3 Trump justices who at their confirmation hearing swore to uphold laws of the land (everyone quietly referring to Roe vs Wade), which under oath they stated they would uphold. As soon as they were all confirmed their first major accomplishment was ruling Roe vs Wade was unconstitutional. The first of likely several laws protecting the rights of individuals will be taken away... But don't worry gun rights are safe.... At the time of Oliver's research the Supreme Court had an approval rating among the US public of their integrity of 18%. My question is, who are the 18%? Likely these are anti-abortion fanatics, so in point of fact there may be essentially no confidence by any reasonable person that the Supreme Court has integrity. Sad but unfortunately true. Their current decision to hear Trump's case regarding whether the president of the US is above the law, seems to have allowed them the ability to delay the court proceedings of Trump and the Jan 6 Insurrection to beyond the upcoming election. If Trump wins then he can make all the cases against him effectively go away.
We cannot forget senator Mitch McConnell's partisan trickery, disallowing a pick by Obama for a Supreme Court judge, while at the same time allowing Trump 3 picks, in particular the last pick just under the wire. Not to forget the hubris of Ruth Bader Ginsburg not retiring when she should have, which effectively allowed unravelling of much of the work for women's rights she focused on for her entire career, by allowing for a Republican pick. I almost forgot, Anti-abortion activists who were able to find the one Federal judge, who appropriately enough is in Texas, to rule that anti-abortion drugs should also be banned. He used as the scientific defence for his opinion something as authoritative as the pamphlets Jehovah Witnesses hand out to you, when they annoy you by coming to your door on Sundays.
Oliver suggested some possible remedies. These are my recommendations, which rely on seven basic principles of ethics: 1. The dodge ball rule, that opposing teams select alternating choices to their team. 2. The pie portion rule. You cut, I choose. 3. Power corrupts rule. Time limits for appointment. 4. Dementia rule. Some old people become demented and should not be driving cars. 5. The transparency and accountability rule. If a person is under a spot light, it is difficult (not impossible) to act with corruption. 6. The recusal rule. As it is presently clear that everything is now driven by partisanship, recusal rule should be strictly enforced on every judge where a conflict of interest may possibly exist. Possibly because it is clear even with the faintest stench of conflict of interest, it now most certainly exists in reality. Starting with Justice Thomas on the Supreme Court. 7. The unintended consequences rule. Every action of every kind may have the intended consequences, but at the same time the unintended consequence. Everything is subject to atleast 10% unintended consequences. A good outcome generally has less than 30% unintended consequence. Most things that happen probably have about 50% unintended consequence.
All that in mind:
Supreme court justices should have 10 year terms. Term limits are in effect in all other democracies in the world for their chief court.
Since recent years have shown how the picking of judges can be easily gamed, based on who is in control of the senate, and there is a two party system that judges also take part in that game. The Dodge ball rule should be in place in combination with the Pie portion rule. To keep a reasonable balance there must be an even number of judges in a two player game, and they should have equal representation, 4 players from each team. Selection of possible candidates should be decided by the opposing party, where they pick 3 judges who have the political view of the opposing party (and whom their picks they may feel tolerable, ie; actually fair-minded) and the party whose turn it is to pick selects who of the 3 they want:The pie portion rule. If the teams are out of balance in numbers then the next couple of selections should be made for the team with fewer numbers. There should be 10 Supreme Court justices, and the court composed of 5 members of the Republican team and 5 from the Democratic team. Currently there are 6 members of the Republic Team on the Supreme Court and only 3 on the Democratic side, so the next 3 picks should be Democrat team players.
The Supreme Court should have a code of effects. Justices that break the code should be summarily fired. Transparency and accountability rule. I have focused on the importance of transparency and accountability for all individuals and organizations in charge.
It does seem remarkable that ultimate justice is now based on the number of members of one party who are in the Senate of the United States, which is a vastly different standard than the standard of integrity and truth, and inherently dangerous. Truth is now a secondary matter. In the time of Richard Nixon's presidency, truth ultimately did mean something. Now truth is in the back seat to partisanship.
It is clear to wise people that there is disintegration of integrity in perhaps all branches of government, but to varying extent. Where the Republican led US House of Representatives is currently the gold medal winner for incompetency and partisanship. What is even scarier, is many of the States in the USA are even worse.
I have left the focus of this blog to the end... but will make it more at the beginning in follow up blogs on The Retaliation Playbook. One of my favorite GDD sufferers brought to my attention a podcast from Alan Dershowitz (the podcast called the Dershow Mailbag), which probably was released within Feb 2024, which she sent to me because I had let her know I would be extremely interested to have the subject of Gadolinium Toxicity (GDD) presented on national news to achieve wide national /international attention, and I like and mainly watch CNN for news coverage (and Bill Maher and John Oliver). Also, since many of the broadcasters and reporters are white females, I am quite sure some of them have the disease but do not know it, and may have been told they have fibromyalgia (GDD may actually be a Gd-based form under the large umbrella of fibromyalgia, and other causes may be other metals like lead... this is also another blog). Having GDD sufferers speak out who have a national platform is extremely crucial in this phase of the struggle to acknowledge truth about GDD. I think her intention was to inform me: 'you think CNN is so impartial but see what the Dershow podcast says about their legal experts being biased and almost always wrong'. This podcast focused on Fanni Willis, but what drew my attention, and stimulated the timing of this blog is that he commented on the corruption of State judges. He focused on the fact that State judges were elected positions, and that no other judges are elected in any developed nation [paraphrasing him, and his surmising why so many are corrupt]. This struck a chord with me because the final coup-de-grace of retaliation against me at UNC was that UNC judge led group of 3 Court of Appeals judges , a second, also a UNC judge, and I think the third probably just a sycophant, was that there was no retaliation. Not by the individuals I named or even by UNC. This shouild rate amongst the most extreme partisanship driven rulings in US history.. So that is something, that I am part of history. I had the courage and integrity to stand up against senior administration [standing up internally and not trying to expose them publically at the time] because I reported that 1 physician was allowed to operate drunk for two decades by his senior administrators and another at the time of my reporting threatened a large number of hospital employees. Together forming the worse medical misconduct and worst expanded cover-up in modern US history. All that said, I found it odd initially that UNC was so cavalier about my Whistleblowing and this is why:
They knew that the great majority of the state judges in North Carolina were UNC judges, and UNC judges would perform their duty of squelching any case that would be detrimental to UNC. The final master-stroke of a Retaliation Playbook. UNC senior administration knew that they could massage the case such that all judges that heard the case were UNC extreme partisans.. I prefer the term extreme partisan over corrupt because it is a more precise description.
When I state UNC judges this is short for Judges who have matriculated from the UNC Chapel Hill Law School. Dershowitz focused on State judges being corrupt because they were elected and not appointed, which federal judges are. Ironically, in principle the whole basis of Democracy is leadership determined by the will of the people, which is a wonderful principle that the majority of wise people agree with. This however is the well understood unintended consequence of allowing large donors to act unchecked in democracy is that democratic victory in the modern age has more to do with money put into an election campaign than anything like integrity, ability, honesty, compassion, and wisdom. It is mainly about money. So whereas the concept of elected judges is great, but when the judges are from a University, and that University is the largest organization able to fund an election campaign, presto the judges elected are spawn from that University.
This can be easily dealt with, with the two rules above: 6. The recusal rule and 7. The transparency and accountability rule. Very simply, no UNC judge should preside over a case that involves UNC PERIOD especially a case as fundamentally challenging to UNC.. This should apply universally throughout the US (and world-wide). This is obvious. The fiction that judges with an obvious extreme bias (their alma mater and their pals, and who is paying for their elections) somehow can be impartial is just that, a fiction. I have used multiple examples above of Federal judge and justices showing unbridled extreme partisanship. Also many of these rulings, including mine, slip below the radar of having enough public interest to be worthwhile for the news to pick up. If cases can be quietly dealt with in an extreme partisan fashion, this is the perfect outcome for corrupt individuals. It is easy to misunderstand my case of Whistleblowing as the grievances of an old white man. One half of the political divide (and maybe 25% of the public are fanatical) already have their martyr of an old white man with grievances, so they don't need another one, unless he is carrying a Tiki torch in an aggressive parade. The other half of the political divide, which I am more of an adherent to, misunderstand my account as the grievances of an old white man (and old white men are the scourge of the planet and why everything is more or less bad), and not for what it actually is: the one physician in the US with the courage to speak up against gross misconduct in health care and severe injury and potential injury to patients and health care workers and the cover up by senior administration. There actually is no more important story than that.
... although for altruism reasons I have focused on getting the story of Gadolinium Deposition Disease out into wide public attention first, and as it turns out now Deposition Disease of all other heavy metals, such as lead (Pb).
After that I will not hold back against speaking up about what actually is the rot in the US University system and medical systems: incompetence and/or mistreatment and cover-up by senior administration > the latter is the key problem, and I am focused on it.
One final note, in the setting of extreme corruption being the cause of one's misfortune, it is important to see the dark humor in it. So in my case, thinking of being a victim from corruption in a southern US state, by organizations, law men and judges, I like to think of the movie with Dan Aykroyd, Demi Moore, and Chevy Chase: Nothing But Trouble, and movies and shows entitled the Dukes of Hazzard. That more or less is the swamp pit I have fallen into. I do however like the song in Nothing But Trouble Same Song. Maybe that could the sound track when I go on the stage and pronounce "you switched the samples" [Harrison Ford line in the Fugitive 1993].
Protector publicus.
Richard Semelka, MD.
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