[avatar user=”Naomi Aeon” size=”thumbnail” align=”left” link=”http://naomiaeon.com/”]Naomi Aeon[/avatar] A friend and I were talking today, with reverence, about how hard people were hit by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing. We were agreeing that Ginsburg had been, without any of us quite realizing it, holding up the world. Ginsburg’s departure from this earthly dimension feels to be more than the loss of a true revolutionary and force of nature. It feels to be a call to each of us to shoulder more of the load when it comes to the way our world is. All that weight should not have been on her shoulders to begin with. As we process the implications of her death, there’s a ramped-up fervor to call senators and get registered to vote. Yet even with our redoubled efforts, we’re still kind of hanging our hopes on a miracle happening. We’re hoping that somebody, anybody, will get a handle on the situation and deliver a solution to the myriad problems we have sitting in our laps. It is we ourselves who must pledge to take more responsibility for the way things are, and for the ways we could be showing up but aren’t. This “showing up” I’m speaking of goes beyond protests, phone calls, social media posts, donations, and even voting. It goes beyond whatever anyone outside of ourselves is telling us we should be doing. What I’m talking about is showing up in the specific way our soul is nudging us to. The only thing that differentiates a Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the rest of us is that Ginsberg listened to her inner nudges. She did the unreasonable and the unexpected. She walked her talk and stood her ground, unwaveringly. She followed the unique path that beckoned to her. She tuned out the nay-sayers and those who told a cautionary tale. Ginsburg did Ginsburg. Similarly, equally courageously, we must do so ourselves. We all have inner whispers quietly but powerfully offering us guidance. We must learn how to discern, listen to, and heed these whispers. We must familiarize ourselves with the workings of our internal compass and follow its true north. This requires shifting gear from mere compliance with the dictates of the going social change agendas. These tend to be rooted in groupthink, ignoring the spectrums of our very real individuality, and compelling us to take on perspectives that don’t accurately reflect the nuances of our personal truth as life has shown it to us. Instead of allowing ourselves to be pulled ever more aggressively out of our own center, we must re-center more securely within ourselves. It is by honoring our truest and most authentic selves that we are equipped to make the difference only we can make. To make the difference only we can make, we have to come home to ourselves. We must learn to be at one with ourselves. And this is easier said than done. For without realizing it, many of us have gone numb. We’ve grown ever more disconnected from ourselves. We’re addicted to our phones, our social media feeds, our television sets, and the planning of our next purchases. We’ve gone numb within an on-going recovery process from the stresses of our workaholism and our relentless striving to have more and get more. We’re perennially looking outside of ourselves to fill a randomized hunger that can only be filled from within us. And now we’ve reached a dead end. We’ve come as far as we can in our somnambulant state. It’s as though we are now paying a price for having collectively gone to sleep. We expected things to remain a certain way. Until suddenly things weren’t sturdy anymore. Suddenly things were topsy-turvy. Suddenly our whole reality changed. Suddenly there we were with our heads spinning and the world seemingly going to hell in a hand basket. There’s an entitlement issue at play when we expect the pillars to remain in place, even if we ourselves aren’t doing much to ensure the foundations remain solid. We can be entirely well-intentioned, yet coast along with little self-reflection as to whether we are doing our part to ensure our world is the way we want it to be. Doing our part is a matter of doing deep inner work on ourselves and taking action in our surroundings. We have to put more into ourselves to get more out of ourselves. By the same token, we have to put more into life to get more out of it. We have to offer more to others. We have to contribute to the world around us in a more energized, proactive way. It’s impossible not to feel weary and apprehensive about the state of the world right now. But if we can’t find our strength within ourselves, and if we refuse to bring more to the table, we can’t realistically expect that anyone else will. Powerless as we might feel, we are being called to step into our personal leadership, our inner leadership. This moment demands that we tap into our capacity to claim more authority and more sovereignty over our lives. It is possible to ask more of ourselves while still remaining gentle with ourselves. The past year has posed very real challenges for most of us, and we must designate time to retreat and replenish and perhaps to lick our wounds. If we find ourselves in a deep personal crisis, it may be that the best thing to do is “dissolve” and go inward. To surrender to the sacred process of dying and being reborn, even while we’re alive. But if we have any bandwidth for it at all, we must listen to the whispers within us and heed what we hear. We must go beyond “reacting”; to the pain, to the discomfort, to the suspense of this moment. And it’s we ourselves who must determine, using our own best judgment, what we should or should not be doing. And then actually do the thing. If this world is going to right itself, more of us are going to have to be willing to “be the change.” More of us will have to find it within ourselves to show up with the strength, the healthy mindset, the open-heart, and the bravery our world is needing from us right about now. Whether within our most intimate inner circles, or within the world at large, we ourselves must be the influencers. We ourselves must be the game-changers. We ourselves must be the pioneers, the trail-blazers, and the edge-makers. For in the end, when it comes to the world we are living in, we ourselves are the leaders we’ve been waiting for, and no one else. — Naomi Aeon, PhD

Folks, the USA Today story below (national news!) is a prime example of why the Coastal Network is your watchdog on all things Delaware and Andre Bouchard’s Chancery Court. You can trust me to keep an eye out for those things that matter most.

There was a victory for property owners in the United States Supreme Court this past week, indeed a victory for those who don’t want their property to be “Taken” by State shenanigans.

As is well-documented, in my educated view and in my previous articles, It appears Chancellor Bouchard threw out the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution in his bizarre, illogical rulings on the TransPerfect case and replaced them with an episode of, “How to Make my Cronies Rich, on the Backs of 5,000 Employees.”

This is the Federal Government finally changing 30 YEARS of precedent to give those in the Shawe’s position (citizens facing a State government “taking” of private property), a better chance to fight those in Bouchard’s omnipotent and arbitrary position.  Now, if someone like Bouchard is taking your property, you can go right into federal court — you no longer have to wait until the state court proceedings are finalized.

It’s difficult to say if this is in direct response to the TransPerfect case or not and my extensive expose of it, but nonetheless, Bouchard and (Chief Justice / Former Bouchard Intern) Leo Strine, were able to avoid Federal review of their actions in the TransPerfect fiasco — by legal “mumbo jumbo.” Well folks, it just got much harder for them and other State government actors attempting to seize property, and do so without facing a Federal challenge. 

Please see the USA Today article below. Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

Respectfully Submitted,

JUDSON Bennett-Coastal Network

Conservative victory: Supreme Court gives property owners fast track to challenge government takings

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY

Published 10:27 a.m. ET June 21, 2019 | Updated 12:08 p.m. ET June 21, 2019

WASHINGTON – Landowners won a closely watched property rights victory at the Supreme Court Friday in a case that centered on a cemetery.

After holding two oral arguments over four months, the justices ruled that a Pennsylvania woman whose land was used for access to an old burial ground can seek compensation in federal court. The 5-4 opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, with conservative justices behind him and liberal justices opposed.

“A property owner has a claim for a violation of the Takings Clause as soon as a government takes his property for public use without paying for it,” Roberts said. “The property owner may sue the government at that time in federal court.”

The decision overrules a portion of a Supreme Court precedent that in turn was based on other cases dating to the late 1800s, which Associate Justice Elena Kagan noted in her dissent.”Under cover of overruling ‘only’ a single decision, today’s opinion smashes a hundred-plus years of legal rulings to smithereens,” she said.

Noting that Associate Justice Stephen Breyer earlier this term criticized the court’s conservatives for overturning precedent by wondering “which cases the court will overrule next,” Kagan added: “Well, that didn’t take long. Now one may wonder yet again.”

The decision represents a victory for conservative and libertarian groups opposed to government takings. During the second oral argument in January, Associate Justice Samuel Alito had accused the local government of seeking “home-court advantage” in state court.

The ruling partially overrules a Supreme Court precedent dating back more than 30 years – something the court generally tries to avoid, but which some conservative justices have been more willing to do in recent years.

The challenge was brought by Rose Mary Knick, who sought damages for the 2013 invasion of her property by Scott Township, Pennsylvania. Under local rules, property owners must allow access to private cemeteries discovered on their land.

The dispute focused on when a taking is effective: When the government stakes its claim, or only later when financial compensation is denied in state court.

I was thinking about judges and confirmation hearings after recently watching the Senatorial process in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a United States Supreme Court Justice. As I’ve been writing about the TransPerfect Global case, it got me thinking about Delaware’s confirmation process in confirming Andre Bouchard as Delaware’s Chancellor, or lack thereof.   Justice Brett Kavanaugh had a total of 7 FBI investigations, was put through the ringer answering countless questions on uncorroborated allegations, his reputation was tattered, and finally only after completing a nightmare of a process, he was confirmed by the legislative branch.   Did Chancellor Andre Bouchard face any questions about his past judicial decisions? No. About whether he would follow the law faithfully? No. About whether he’d respect the U.S. Constitution given that he’s Canadian by birth? No. About whether he’s even read the U.S. Constitution? No. About whether it is an inherent problem that Chief Justice Leo Strine was his intern at Skadden Arps, and now must judge him on appeals? No.   How do I know this? Because in contrast to Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Chancellor Andre Bouchard’s hearing lasted a total of 13 minutes and he had to answer a whopping ZERO questions from our state legislature — much like his time on bench. In my view folks, his confirmation hearing was a complete sham!   And after all of that, we’ve seen his true character as a judge coming out over the past few years. As most of you know by now from reading my coverage the past few years of the TransPerfect Global case, Bouchard’s life-long friend, who represented former TransPerfect co-CEO Elizabeth Elting in the trial, attorney Kevin Shannon of Potter Anderson, was given every possible consideration beyond normal reason. Additionally, you also know that Shannon’s windfall victory was tainted by the fact that ZERO witnesses testified against Shawe — and ZERO witnesses corroborated Kevin Shannon’s self-serving story. This alone exposes in my opinion the seemingly dark underbelly of the Delaware elites like Chancellor Bouchard. But there’s another ZERO that perhaps you didn’t know… ????   I would say that your elected officials, and especially Senator Greg Lavelle among others who opposed fixing the inequities in the Chancery Court, surely acted irresponsibly in this situation, because there was no scrutiny whatsoever for Bouchard in the vetting process. The position of Chief Chancellor was/is simply too important a position for Delaware to entrust with a man who has been handed everything in his life based on a privileged upbringing and political favors vs. being the right man with the right character for the job. And, now all of Delaware is paying the price for what can reasonably be viewed from my view as Bouchard’s corruption. In my opinion, Bouchard believes paying people back who supported him in his ZERO-bench-experience ascension to Chancellor is his now job. The $250 million which I believe was stolen from TransPerfect to enrich his elite friends, is the prime example of his abusing his position. Delawareans deserved a confirmation hearing with some level of scrutiny on Andre Bouchard from Mr. Lavelle and our other elected officials. Delawareans deserved a real confirmation hearing — and Delawareans deserve better than Andre Bouchard.   In fact, Bouchard, having no experience as a judge, was lazily confirmed in just 13 minutes by the Delaware Senate, after his appointment by the Governor. It’s glaring and he was not properly vetted! Don’t just take my word for it……   Here’s a quick recount of the hearing from Celia Cohen’s April 10, 2014 Delaware Grapevine story “SPEED-VOTING FOR CHANCELLOR” written just after Bouchard’s appointment: “Thirteen minutes were all it took for Delaware to get a new chancellor…Buying a new pair of shoes has been known to take longer.”   Digging into Bouchard’s past, it doesn’t surprise me that he got this job with no scrutiny whatsoever. In fact, since I have followed the case and witnessed the most biased, ludicrous, mismanaged, and outrageous decisions in Delaware judicial history resulting in fleecing and looting of a healthy Delaware company — it actually makes more sense to me now knowing that Bouchard had a ZERO question confirmation. But that doesn’t make it right!   His tenure as Chancellor is a pathetic embarrassment to the State of Delaware; from his fiasco managing the Sussex County Register of Wills office, where he made 3 inadequate political appointments for Chief Deputy — instead of listening to the best and most experienced person, Cindy Green, the elected Register of Wills.   Unlike Brett Kavanaugh, who was deeply investigated, Bouchard’s past is unknown. I wonder if we really got into it, what we might uncover? Of course, we do know he was a member of the Skadden Arps law firm, which is under investigation by the Feds for various possible violations. Kind of makes Bouchard suspect I think, doesn’t it? By the standards now, it seems that people in esteemed offices are deemed guilty until proven innocent. Brett Kavanaugh was considered guilty by every Democrat Senator except Senator Mansion from West Virginia. Yet there was absolutely no corroborating evidence. (This probably wouldn’t bother Bouchard, because Bouchard needs no witnesses corroborating Kevin Shannon’s story — handing Shannon a windfall and ruling against TransPerfect in the most draconian way: Corporate Dissolution!)   Thank God our country has as part of our obligatory system, “a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.” As a result, Brett Kavanaugh is a Supreme Court Justice and Andre Bouchard will probably remain a Chancellor. But as least Kavanaugh can say he lived through the scrutiny of a tough confirmation, and succeeded. Bouchard cannot. And Delaware will be paying the price for years to come.