This is one of the two or three best books I've read this year. Jeffrey Toobin is my favorite legal nonfiction writer. He is squarely on the progressive side of the political ledger.
The book is a history of the Roberts Court and its conservative agenda to remake American law. Specifically, that agenda is to embellish the rights of corporations and the 1% at the expense of the average American. Their agenda is sinister. Progessive forces led by President Obama are opposed by not only an obstructionist Congress but by a 5 to 4 Supreme Court. Roberts gained his reputation litigating the rights of big corporations against the rights of individuals. Roberts and his right-way justices stand forthrightly for the rights of the strong vs. the rights of the weak.
The Citizens United decision opening the floodgates to unlimited political constributions by coporations under the guise of declaring corporations as "persons" is the most conspicuous example of the Roberts court's agenda. But there are also restrictions on women's rights, the speeding up of capital punishment, lowering the barrier between church and state, and according to Toobin, a new interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
Toobing says that the Second Amendment until recently was interpretated as protecting only state militias. Now a recently minted right-wing reinterpretation interpreters the amendment as an unlimited right for citizens to bear arms. That this is a new interpretation of the Second Amendment is something I learned in this book.
The most dangerous people in this country are not Republican poltiticans like Romney and Ryan. The most dangerous are the five conversatives sitting on the Supreme Court. This is why the relection of President Obama is so important, for the next President could appoint one or two justices. The future of this country for the next 40 or 50 years is at stake.
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