McAdams gets Salvaged

[James DiEugenio]

I kind of thought this would happen.

Scott Walker has had enough time to back his candidates, as well as the Koch bothers, since you run for the Supreme Court in Wisconsin unless you resign early and Walker can appoint you. Right now, its a 4-3 rightwing majority.

But if you read the article, Marquette did make a mistake and put someone on the administrative panel who spoke out for Abbate before the hearing.

I  still do not understand why she did not sue Marquette and McAdams herself.

https://www.apnews.com/87630740b8b74a04b10aac3b62c5904b/Wisconsin-high-court-sides-with-fired-conservative-professor

 

 

[James DiEugenio]

This is what I mean by the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-destruction-of-the-wisconsin-supreme-court

This has become, I think, the most serious and overlooked problem in America  today.  The Federalist Society and other groups have done all they can to load up, not just the federal supreme court, but also appeals courts and circuit courts and state supreme courts and tilt them to the right.  Therefore we get things like Citizens United and last week's decision against agency fess for public sector unions.  Which began in Wisconsin with Scott Walker in 2011.

In my opinion, this is a long-term and determined  reaction to the ad that greeted Kennedy in Dallas and complained about the so called activist Warren court.  Because as AG Bobby Kennedy said at the University of Georgia Law School in, I think,  March of 1961, he was going to enforce the Brown vs Board decision of 1954.  With very few exceptions, Eisenhower and Nixon had not applied that ruling with any rigor.  But prior to that, Senator Kennedy had addressed a forum in Jackson, Mississippi in 1957 and said the same thing.

I have never been able to understand this logic of the rightwing getting upset with the Kennedys enforcing that decision. IMO, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments should have been enough to grant former slaves their political rights. But the state governments passed laws to contravene these amendments.  Therefore, when the Warren Court and the Kennedy administration passed new laws reinforcing those old amendments, the rightwing called it judicial activism. To me this reaction was nothing but a veil for racism.  But they got away with it.  Partly because of the assassinations of the sixties.  And now this rightwing activism has grown to the point that it has infested the judicial system to a degree that is really an epidemic.

I don't think its something that can be ignored anymore.  And this case is an example of why not.

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Congratulations to Professor McAdams. I for one, will be glad to see him back teaching some common sense about the assassination. His book is required reading. OK, let the attacks begin.

[Ron Bulman]

5 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Congratulations to Professor McAdams. I for one, will be glad to see him back teaching some common sense about the assassination. His book is required reading. OK, let the attacks begin.

They began a long time ago and reach far and wide.  For good reason.

http://www.prouty.org/mcadams/

[David Von Pein]

18 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Congratulations to Professor McAdams. I, for one, will be glad to see him back teaching some common sense about the assassination.

Hear, hear!

Edited July 6, 2018 by David Von Pein

[Ron Bulman]

I'd venture a guess three quarters or more of U S citizens don't have a clue what Citizens United is about if they've heard of it at all.  It's not something discussed much in the Main Stream Media.  I don't pretend to have a deep understanding of the inter workings of our political system but packing the courts has long term implications.  Citizens United and it's implications are discussed in all three of these books if anyone is interested.

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307947904/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530917981&sr=1-1&keywords=dark+money+jane+mayer&dpID=61rbwjq32nL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Captured-Corporate-Infiltration-American-Democracy/dp/1620972077/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530919087&sr=1-1&keywords=sheldon+whitehouse+captured&dpID=51ocY1BZwuL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Your-Doesnt-Count/dp/1631493213/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530919141&sr=1-1&keywords=rat+fu--ed+book&dpID=41vTVqsxuXL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

[Pat Speer]

The tribal nature of the courts is once again revealed. This is one of the worst rulings in recent history. Those supposedly enamored with freedom should rally in support of a university's right to fire an employee who cyberbullies a student, but they instead rallied around the bully, simply because he was "one of them".

That line about McAdams not knowing Abbate would be harassed as a result of his actions is a lie akin to "separate but equal".  Of course, McAdams knew she would be harassed. He made sure of it.  He'd done it before, and knew full well that, if he kept writing and complaining about her, someone would take the next step he was too gutless to take.

I mean, c'mon. This ruling makes it sound like McAdams wrote one blog entry, and it had unfortunate consequences, when the fact is he picked out a victim and set out to harm her, and kept writing about the issue until she was harmed. He then made out that he was the victim. Repulsive.

 

[Douglas Caddy]

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2018/07/06/marquette-professor-john-mcadams-prevails-academic-freedom-case/759800002/

[James DiEugenio]

Actuallly its worse than that Pat.

McAdams wrote about her several times, using her name.  He then went on the radio and did the same.  He made sure blood was in the water.

This decision is such a twisting of the issue of academic freedom that its really almost a parody of the law.   Academic freedom does not refer to endangering a student teacher's well being.

But this decision, as I said, shows just how terribly politicized our courts have become.

If you read that second article i linked to, one Wisconsin supreme court justice actually almost strangled another over Walker's 2011 anti union decision.  Thanks to the  Federalist Soceity our judges have become pretty much partisans.  I mean for another example look at Bush vs Gore.  What a joke.  A case that was desided to make a Republican president and to have no other precedent ever.  When, in fact, that is what the Supreme Court is supposed to do.  Bugliosi actually wrote a good book on that decision. I called him and congratulated him about it.

The thing is, these kinds of things have repercussions.  Without that 2000 decision, Bush would not have been president. And therefore the USA would not have invaded Iraq.  The worst foreign policy mistake since Vietnam. Resulting in 5500 dead Americans, about a million dead Iraqis, and a bankrupt US treasury.  All over a supreme court decision that was a farce from step one.

Edited July 7, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[W. Niederhut]

    I'm surprised that Mr. Bugliosi spoke to you, after the well-deserved beating he received in your scathing critique of Reclaiming History.

    As for McAdams, how does he manage to have his disinformazia website surface at the top of Google searches about CIA-related topics?

[Ron Bulman]

There should be limits to academic freedom.  A PhD and tenure is not a license to defame or endanger.  There are limits to judicial freedom as well.  Calling a fellow jurist a bitch, as in a female Dog, in front of the other jurists on a "supreme" court is sexual harassment in the workplace.  Grabbing her throat as if to choke is physical harassment.  He should have been arrested.  The man should be disbarred.  How is a group expected to work together when one axx hole within the group is allowed to behave in such a way?  The whole recusal issue is such a chicken sh*t cop out.  Sickening.  JMO.

[Pamela Brown]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I kind of thought this would happen.

Scott Walker has had enough time to back his candidates, as well as the Koch bothers, since you run for the Supreme Court in Wisconsin unless you resign early and Walker can appoint you. Right now, its a 4-3 rightwing majority.

But if you read the article, Marquette did make a mistake and put someone on the administrative panel who spoke out for Abbate before the hearing.

I  still do not understand why she did not sue Marquette and McAdams herself.

https://www.apnews.com/87630740b8b74a04b10aac3b62c5904b/Wisconsin-high-court-sides-with-fired-conservative-professor

 

 

I agree that Marquette made a costly mistake.  McAdams will go to any extreme available to libel someone whose views he finds offensive.  I too wish Abbate had sued him and Marquette on her own. 

[Ron Bulman]

The Koch's won.  After all it was Koch vs Koch was it not?  Somewhere in all this over the last few years I've read Mc Adams received funding in some shape, form, or fashion from one of the Koch front's.   Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his "new" supreme court are all heavily supported by them as well.  What should we expect?  Cheryl Abbate got Rat F**ked.  So did judicial impartiality and respectability.

[James DiEugenio]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

    I'm surprised that Mr. Bugliosi spoke to you, after the well-deserved beating he received in your scathing critique of Reclaiming History.

    As for McAdams, how does he manage to have his disinformazia website surface at the top of Google searches about CIA-related topics?

His book on that case came out before his useless tree killer on the JFK case.

We got along pretty well until that pretentious pile of rubbish was published.

[James DiEugenio]

4 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

The Koch's won.  After all it was Koch vs Koch was it not?  Somewhere in all this over the last few years I've read Mc Adams received funding in some shape, form, or fashion from one of the Koch front's.   Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his "new" supreme court are all heavily supported by them as well.  What should we expect?  Cheryl Abbate got Rat F**ked.  So did judicial impartiality and respectability.

This is a key point about what the Kochs have done.  As several conservative Republicans of late have stated, like Max Boot, the modern GOP today is really a white nationalist party with a conservative fringe.  I mean the alt right, as led by Steve Bannon made sure of that. Especially by his support for that rightwing racist nut and child molester in the Alabama senate race.

This decision in this case is essentially an in your face type of decision.  McAdams was given not one but two administrative hearings at Marquette.  At the end of the second one, they actually offered him a deal to come back.  He did not take it.  And he never expressed any remorse for what he did to Abbate's life and career.  It is  rare when a civil court overrules an administrative court.  Especially one which gave McAdams an out.  And the lower court decision backed the administrative hearings.  But the organization which McAdams hooked up with for his legal case is a broad based regional group that, as Ron said, is financed by the Koch brothers.  They are focused on these issues at a state level.  See, its always been the ambition of the right to stigmatize higher education and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.  Because most of the time, its that knowledge that ends up overthrowing their belief system.  Especially in the field of humanities. I mean look at what the declassified papers and tapes are doing to the Nixon presidency. This fits right into that whole field of endeavor.