(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Money Gets What the Money Wants [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-30 The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision: WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests. ... The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren’t crystal clear. OK, so that happened. Forty years of administrative law, torpedoed in one fell swoop. I’m not here to analyze the decision or give a dissertation on administrative law or Chevron deference; it’s not my area of legal expertise, although I really feel for my fellow attorneys whose entire practices have just been blown up, and whose expertise has been rendered worthless, by this obviously bought-and-paid-for decision by this obviously bought-and-paid-for Court. Here’s the thing: In America, in the 21st century, the money gets what the money wants. That was true in the 19th century as well, to a large extent (the abolition of slavery notwithstanding); in the 20th century, not so much. The 20th century brought us things like building codes and child labor laws and minimum wages and weekends and pollution controls — all sorts of things and all sorts of ways to protect the public, workers, consumers and the environment from the excesses, predations, by-products, and amoralities of capitalism. In 2021, Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote: During Chief Justice John Roberts’ tenure, the Court has issued more than 80 partisan decisions, by either a 5-4 or 6-3 vote, involving big interests important to Republican Party major donors. Republican-appointed justices have handed wins to the donor interests in every single case. (emphasis added). More here. Senator Whitehouse, to his great credit, remains on this beat. That “more than 80” number has got to be north of 90 by now, but I don’t have an exact number. When the money gets what the money wants every single time, over a 20-year period, along the same political/ideological lines, something other than good-faith “constitutional interpretation” is going on. Nothing in the Constitution says, implies, or requires that the money gets what the money wants every single time, at the expense of the public, workers, consumers, and the environment. As I have said and written many, many, many times, today’s Republican Party exists for one reason and one reason only: To ensure that the wealthy, powerful men, corporations and industries that own that Party, fund its campaigns, fund its members’ lifestyles, and fund the vacations of Supreme Court justices, enjoy maximum profit at minimal risk, and are never held accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers, or the environment. Stated more succinctly, its purpose is to ensure that the money gets what the money wants. And what the money wants is control . Yes, the money wants more money, it always does, but as a means of getting more money it wants to control the apparatus for holding it accountable — or not — for the harm that it inflicts or wishes to inflict on the rest of us. You’re going to hear and read the words “unelected bureaucrats” a lot over the next several days, from people defending the bought-and-paid-for Court’s near-fatal blow to the “administrative state” that the money has been itching to dismantle for decades. The head of the Heritage Foundation Kevin Roberts used it in that horrifying MSNBC interview a week or so ago (which was, I think, the most Nazi thing I have ever seen on American television), and it’s been showing up a lot on Xitter. Let’s be clear about what this euphemistic hyperbole is code for; what the money and its allies really mean when they say it: “people, institutions, and processes that we don’t control.” The purpose of purchasing this latest Court decision is to allow the money and its allies to take the ability to hold corporations and industries accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers and the environment, away from “unelected bureaucrats” that they don’t control, and hand it to unelected judges that they do control. That the so-called “bureaucrats” are experts in their fields and the judges are not, is of course an important factor, but the main factor is control; the corporations and industries essentially want, and have now essentially been given, the power to regulate themselves. Their problem with the “administrative state” and “unelected bureaucrats” and other such buzzphrases is and has always been that they don’t, and can’t, control them; they can’t control whether or not they are held accountable for the harm they cause to the public, workers, consumers, or the environment. Now they can. Once again, the money gets what the money wants. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/30/2249920/-The-Money-Gets-What-the-Money-Wants?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=community_spotlight&pm_medium=web 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/