June 7, 2016
I used to bring my children to Judge Smith’s courtroom, particularly when he was sending people to jail. They knew him better as Poppy.
Later on, I came across Alexander Bickel. I was hooked. I gave his books to at least 5 different lawyers. Sorry, Mike.
The segue from Bickel to Bork was deliciously simple.
Bork was a Sitting Federal Appellate court Judge. 90 minutes after the announcement of his nomination to the Supreme Court he was accused on the floor of the United States Senate of being a secret Nazi, a plague spreader, a dirty movie addict, a public misogynist, a seral cigar smoker, and a degenerate poker player.
During his confirmation process it was revealed that he did some free-lance writing to earn some extra money. That he did this so that his cancer-laden wife could die a bit more gracefully and somewhat less painfully, a situation with which I am most familiar, did not stop the vitriolic billingsgate from being tsunamied on him. Modern American Liberals are highly skilled in using the escape hatch that “eclectic indignation” allows them. Simply put, if you are identified as a bad guy, with a bad guy being someone who doesn’t think that urinals should be destroyed, your ass is grass. It’s OK and commendable to pole-ax the “bad” guys”.
In the political arena, Judge Clarence Thomas, then a sitting Federal Appellate Court Judge, became a Justice on the Supreme Court for 2 reasons:
#1 – Senator Lard Kennedy, a toad who gave fat, drunken lecherous Irishmen a bad name, was in no position to criticize anybody’s sexual proclivities, be the real or imagined.
#2 – Judge Thomas told his persecutors – Senator Curly Biden, primus inter pares, no? – that if they were going to lynch him he wasn’t going to give them the rope. Senator Danforth of Missouri distinguished himself as an honorable man while Senator Moynihan of New York fell far, far short on that scale.
The point here is that Judges have always been criticized in this country.
Chief Justice Marshall and President Andrew Jackson were mortal enemies who regularly called each other out in a most vicious manner.
Franklin Roosevelt didn’t like it when the 9 member Supreme Court ruled against him. Why wait for the actuarial tables to help him he said, just add 6 members, all of whom would be appointed by him. I believe the term was “court packing”.
In 1988, while appearing in a Chapter 11 proceeding in the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court, the sitting Judge, Prudence B, Abram, a woman proud of the fact that hot water, shampoo, and her hair seldom met, would regularly bellyache in her court that she had to spend 10 hours in preparation for each hour in the court room. I was never good at math but that worked out to 43 hour days, 12 day weeks, and 46 day months.
In 1993, in my 6th year on trial in the United States Tax Court, and thank God I have an appreciation of things absurd what with the courthouse being across the street from the DC’s largest homeless shelter, Judge Carlton Powell would refer to litigants in his court room - the official term was “petitioners” – in less than civil terms. In a house keeping procedural manner he would ask “which rock did these people crawl out from under?” These people, American citizens all, were fighting for their financial lives. Why didn’t that get them a bit of judicial respect?
My attorneys turned their eyes and ears away from such sights and sounds because of one simple fact. The Bankruptcy and Tax Court practices are tight-knitted, exclusive enclaves. Pissing in other people’s soup is frowned on and discouraged. Failure to adhere to the rules can get you shunned. And that’s how the real world operates.
Why shouldn’t Judges be criticized? If the non-Gringo Federal Judge in Indiana can’t be criticized why does the California Stanford swim team rape trial Judge need a police escort to get to and form work? The same people who are canonizing the Hoosier Judge want to draw and quarter the California Judge.
I am very proud of my time with Judge Carole Ferentz, a New Jersey State Superior Court Judge who sat in Newark.
I was ill served by counsel in a billing dispute that went to trial.
I fired him and went pro se. I presented the newly found evidence to the New York State Appellate Court and had the trial Judge’s decision reversed. I brought that notice to Judge Ferentz again on a pro se basis. [I think it adds to the story that while I was wearing a custom made, monogrammed shirt with a Turnbull & Asser tie my Gucci loafers were in tatters.]
She actually began to froth at the mouth when I presented her with the New York document and the actual language from the Constitution, the one written in 1787. She seemed to be unaware of Article 4 Section 1 that said each state must recognize “the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state”. Since it seemed to be terra incognita to her I took the opportunity to thank James Madison for his work on the matter.
She took great delight in insulting people, lawyers, litigants, witnesses, and on one instance a bailiff, in her court room. She snarled at me that “what goes around comes around”. I took that as a threat that should I ever appear in her court room
She was a nasty, vicious, bruja-like harridan who gave hecates a bad name.
Her ass, while not quite at steatyagonous proportions, would require 2 broomsticks, a gallon of Gorilla Glue, 5 yards of Duck Tape, and a dozen well placed industrial strength brads to get her air-borne.
“Free men still speak with free tongues”, right?
Let me add that I honored her by naming her the first
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR.
It is an award that has grown in stature over the years. She got hers the old fashioned way: She earned it.
The United States government takes tax dollars from its citizens and subsidizes art tours. One features a piece called “Piss Christ”. It is see-through container that is filled with pee. A crucifix is suspended in it. That a lot of Americans think that the Man on the Cross is 1/3rd of the Blessed Trinity, and thus Divine is of no great import
If it is OK to criticize and belittle God why can’t this Zapata wanabee take a few shots for the team, the team being free speech?
If Judges can ask for campaign donations when they run run for the Black robe and gavel shouldn’t they have to disclose how they would rule on certain topics? We know what Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will do in certain situations. Campaign donations are made to candidates who most resemble your views. Why should Judge elections be different? Should the Gods see fit to punish us further by making Hillary Clinton the President does anyone believe she will nominate a Judge who opposes Roe v Wade? Speaking of elections, what would be the reaction if a Republican woman candidate showed up at income inequality demonstration wearing a $13,000 Armani coat? Bernie Sanders hasn’t spent $13,000 on clothes in his entire life. Other than the fact that his wife is dressed by Omarina, the Queen of Plus Sizes, he would have been able to include her also. As the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne still says, “What a country! That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba!”
Kevin Smith
WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET
PS – Speaking of Judges who are less than honorable, retired New Jersey Appellate Court Judge Geoffrey Gaulkin still resists attempts to cleanse the blots from his escutcheon. It’s 30 year old, uncovered chit, one that is surely not enforceable in any court of law except the one whose motto says, “A promise made is a debt unpaid”. Move over Judge Ferentz. We may have another NJ Judicial Smarmy Bastard.
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