(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Kitchen Table Kibitzing: Patinkin in The Good Fight [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-04-20  

I’ve been streaming Paramount+ The Good Fight for a few weeks now and Season 5 introduces Mandy Patinkin as a fake judge in a kangaroo court that promotes real justice. It was especially enjoyable watching last night, given the spectacle of the Dominion v Fox case, where justice came in the form of a $787.5 million payout. The American public didn’t get the opportunity to see the characters from Fox take the witness stand. It infuriates me. That’s why the justice meted out in Patinkin’s faux court is so delightfully satisfying.

The scenes in Patinkin’s court, which operates in the back of a copy store, are hilarious but authentic. At the end of each case, Patinkin, as Judge Hal Wackner, has both sides say to one another “I respect and I love you.” The bailiff keeps score on a chalkboard. Wackner allows hearsay and conjecture and can be influenced by the lyric of a song. His court is named Court 9 (in a nod to Harry Potter). Those in attendance in the court often cheer decisions. The basic premise is that in the absence of a working, trustworthy, and affordable legal system, those who come before his court are willing to abide by his decisions.

There is without doubt a lack of trust in our judicial system. Duke University writes, “… the judiciary does not operate in a vacuum, separate from the public it serves. Our independent courts rely on the trust and confidence of the public—and when the public has neither, we not only undermine our justice system, but our democratic system as a whole.’

Case in point: Disarray in lower courts after Supreme Court’s 2nd Amendment shake-up

WASHINGTON (CN) — Gun regulations preventing domestic abusers from possessing firearms were shot down on Thursday at the Fifth Circuit not because modern society deems them unnecessary but because the founding generation did. The USA v. Rahimi ruling is just one of many relying on the Supreme Court’s new framework for evaluating gun laws under the Second Amendment. If the founders did not have an analogous law regarding firearms, then neither can modern society.

and Losing Faith: Why Public Trust in the Judiciary Matters:

I think it’s fair to say that the Court is in the middle of things right now. It’s received a lot of criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. From my point of view, the Court’s been under fairly continuous attack from conservatives at least since the 1970s, and it’s now under fairly continuous attack from progressives as well. Even well before the decisions of the last term, which were so consequential, there have been serious calls for court-packing, for jurisdiction stripping, for other kinds of devices that would either limit the Court or change its direction. From whatever vantage point these critical assessments are launched, the basic point that the critics seem to make is that the Court is a political — perhaps even partisan — institution, and that it is making decisions on a host of pressing issues facing the country that ought to be left to the political branches. And this characterization is intended as a challenge to the Court’s essential legitimacy: Why should nine people have that kind of authority to make political decisions? They presumably have that authority to make legal decisions, but the critics would say that many of these decisions aren’t legal.

I’m not going to go into my outrage over the Fox case but rather share with you some videos of Patinkin’s singing.

It’s amazing the range of songs he’s performed!

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/20/2164755/-Kitchen-Table-Kibitzing-Patinkin-in-The-Good-Fight

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/