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The Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, needs to stop whining and start acting more like a chief justice.  As chief justice, Roberts serves as chairman of the Supreme Court, but he acts more like a spoiled brat who cries when he doesn’t get his way.  Case in point, in the recent aftermath of the Supreme Court’s infected action of overturning Roe v. Wade, in setting back by several decades women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies without governmental interference, after the public backlash Roberts recently told a judicial conference in Colorado “If the court doesn’t retain its legitimate function of interpreting the Constitution, I’m not sure who would take up that mantle, and you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate opinion is.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/11/roberts-remarks-misunderstand-court-anger/.  I don’t agree with that, I think the public’s opinion should count for something, and it certainly should count more so than the opinion of illegitimate members of the Supreme Court who got there by lying during their confirmation hearings, which is exactly what Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch did —let’s call a spade a spade and make that as clear as can be, they lied.  So to respond in kind to Roberts’ statement that “you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate opinion is”, I will wholeheartedly say that I would much rather put my faith in a conscientiously expressed opinion by the public —the actual stakeholders— rather than the opinion of illegitimate members of the Supreme Court who are nothing more than political sycophants who had no problem in lying under oath to achieve their underhanded goals to pacify certain right wing political organizations headed by crazies and lunatics of the highest social order.

Roberts went on to whine that “Lately the criticism is phrased in terms of ‘Because of these opinions, it calls into question the legitimacy of the court.’ I think it’s a mistake to view those criticisms that way.”  Roberts further whined that “Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for criticizing the legitimacy of the court.”  I have a news flash for Roberts, the legitimacy of the so called “court” has been called into question well before the Roe v. Wade decision was dumped onto the country against the wishes of the majority population.  In an oral argument on December 1, 2021, on the issue of the 2018 Mississippi abortion law, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts? I don’t see how it is possible.”  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/sotomayor-suggests-supreme-court-won-t-survive-stench-overturning-roe-n1285166.  So Roberts needs to wake up and smell the coffee and realize that it isn’t only the opinion of the public that is outraged, but members of his own court are as well, to the point that Justice Sotomayor characterized the political polarization of Roberts’ court as a “stench”.

While Roberts whines, Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan says “The way the court retains its legitimacy and fosters public confidence is by acting like a court,…By doing the kind of things that do not seem to people political or partisan. By not behaving as though we are just people with individual political or policy or social preferences that we are making everybody live with, but instead we are acting like a court, doing something that is recognizably law-like. That is where we gain our legitimacy.”  Kagan showed that she is in touch with reality when she said “People are rightly suspicious if one justice leaves the court or dies and another justice takes his or her place and all of a sudden the law changes on you,…That doesn’t seem like law.” 

For my two cents I think we would, as a country, be much better off with either Justice Sonia Sotomayor or Justice Elena Kagan as Chief Justice of the United States.  Roberts is a very inept chief justice in many different ways.  Roberts leaves much to be desired as chief justice in many different ways and his whining doesn’t help bring confidence to an already record low public opinion of the Supreme Court —that is sinking by the day.  In a recently released Gallup poll, only 25% of respondents had confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court, compared to 40 percent of respondents in 2020 and 36 percent just last year. The poll was released a day before Roe v. Wade was overturned.  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-record-low-25-percent-of-americans-have-confidence-in-the-supreme-court-poll/ar-AAYSMQF?ocid=uxbndlbing.

Roberts has been a dismal failure and disappointment in many different ways, such as in opposing a much needed code of ethics for the Supreme Court.  Roberts has consistently defended the Supreme Court’s refusal to adopt the Judicial Conference code, or any other code, making it the only court in the United States without a formal set of ethics rules.  Roberts says that “every justice seeks to follow high ethical standards” and therefore a code of ethics for the Supreme Court is unnecessary.  Yeah, right!  https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-court-chief-justice-john-roberts-gives-incomplete-history-lesson-ncna1286943.  After all, when it comes to “ethics”, let’s not forget that we have Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.  What could go wrong?

When sexual harassment of employees in the federal judiciary became a hot topic not long ago, members of both parties introduced the Judiciary Accountability Act of 2021 that was to provide some much needed protection for judicial employees subjected to sexual harassment by sexually perverted judges and other high level sexually perverted court officials and would have given judiciary workers the same rights and whistleblower protections as other federal employees.  https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/the-federal-judiciary-has-a-harassment-problem-but-theres-a-fix; https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2553/text.  However, on August 25, Judge Rosalyn Mauskopf, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee indicating that the Judicial Conference opposes the bill.  https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/12/roberts-to-congress-on-court-reforms-were-on-it/.  Mauskopf wrote that “the bill interferes with the internal governance of the Third Branch…and imposes intrusive requirements on Judicial Conference procedures”.  https://www.uscourts.gov/news/2021/08/25/judiciary-informs-congress-its-opposition-bill.  Roberts rubber stamped Mauskopf's action in opposing this much needed bill.

Roberts’ resistance to the adoption of the Judicial Conference Code and Mauskopf’s objection to the Judiciary Accountability Act of 2021 bill is very concerning.  Roberts’ thumping of his chest in making such cavalier statements about how great of a job the Supreme Court is doing by policing itself and his bold statements about how priestly the federal judges have been operating in the lower courts are very much belied by the facts.  As chief justice, Roberts, is the nation’s highest ranking judicial official, and speaks for the judicial branch of the federal government, and he serves as the chief administrative officer for the federal courts.  In this capacity, he —Roberts— heads the Judicial Conference of the United States, the chief administrative body of the U.S. federal courts, and he appoints the director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.  So it should be interesting to the people who are concerned with sexual harassment in the workplace in the federal judiciary that it was Roberts’ own appointment of Rosalyn Mauskopf who did the deed in opposing the bill that was designed to protect the federal employees from sexual harassment in the federal judiciary.  It's very interesting that this Supreme Court majority, led by Roberts, who were so hell bent on overturning women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies in Roe v. Wade, have no problem with federal judges and federal judicial officials sexually harassing female employees in the federal judiciary of which indifference is clearly exemplified in Roberts’ appointment of Rosalyn Mauskopf as director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, from which position she sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee indicating that the Judicial Conference —headed by John Roberts— opposed the sexual harassment bill, and thus, leaving the judicial employees without any protective safeguards against the federal judges and judicial official perverts who were sexually preying on them.  For that, the vulnerable judicial employees can thank Chief Justice John Roberts and his selection of Rosalyn Mauskopf as director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts for their opposition to the bill that would have protected them from the sexual pervert judges and judicial officials who were preying on them.

And as for Roberts’ priorities, we should not forget about how Roberts once during a so called “year-end report” put his salesman like smile to work and while pushing for a pay raise for federal judges praised that the courts are supposedly “frugal, dedicated and crucial to the life and economic recovery of the nation.” and in spewing this, he added a very interesting caveat to this plea to further enrichen the bank accounts of the already rich federal judges, Roberts said “But to keep the courts strong,…Congress needs to pass pay raises, or at least cost-of-living increases, for federal judges.”  And he went on to say “Given the judiciary’s small cost, and its absolutely critical role in protecting the Constitution and rights we enjoy, I must renew the judiciary’s modest petition: Simply provide cost-of-living increases that have been unfairly denied!" And then he ridiculously said “We have done our part — it is long past Congress to do its.”  And Roberts then alluded that the money should be given to the federal judiciary since it is “the one charged to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals.” https://www.jdjournal.com/2009/01/02/roberts-federal-judges-need-pay-raises/.

It is a joke for Roberts to be thumping his chest about how the federal judges who he campaigned for more money for their bank accounts are "guarding" the "Constitution" and "the rights of individuals."  Tell that to the thousands of people in the country whose cases against powerful government agencies and rich and powerful corporations are being routinely dismissed by indifferent federal judges who have zero interest in protecting those peoples’ constitutional rights to redress of their grievances.  Tell that to the judicial employees who have been sexually victimized by perverted federal judges and perverted judicial officials but who receive no protection from the proposed bill that Roberts’ own appointed director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Rosalyn Mauskopf, opposed —with Roberts’ blessing.  And tell that to the women of this country who no longer have the right to make sacred decisions about their own bodies thanks to John Roberts and his illegitimate court that includes sexual perverts among them which was revealed in public confirmation hearings going back to Clarence Thomas and now Brett Kavanaugh, not to mention the lying members of this illegitimate court, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, who lied at their confirmation hearings in testifying that "stare decisis" —settled law— was the rule of the day when it came to Roe v. Wade, but then jumped at their first opportunity to disregard the “settled law” from Roe v. Wade in order to pacify their right wing political enablers.  All three would be impeached for their perjured testimony at their confirmation hearings if we had a functioning Congress —which we, of course, unfortunately do not have.  Perhaps if John Roberts, as chief justice, would spend more time actually working on protecting the peoples’ rights in this country rather than worrying about pay raises for the already rich judges infested in the judiciary, then public confidence numbers in the Supreme Court wouldn’t be nearing rock bottom at such an alarming rate.

Roberts needs to stop whining and start doing his job.  Better yet, Roberts should be replaced.  I vote for either Justice Sonia Sotomayor or Justice Elena Kagan to replace the whining John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States.  Either of these strong women would be a very positive and strong step in helping rebuild the integrity of the Supreme Court of the United States.