Five Supreme Court Justices — Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy — are entrenching, in a whirlwind of judicial dictates, judicial legislating and sheer ideological judgments, a mega-corporate supremacy over the rights and remedies of individuals.The artificial entity called “the corporation” has no mention in our Constitution, whose preamble starts with “We the People,” not “We the Corporation.”Taken together, the decisions are brazenly overriding sensible precedents, tearing apart the state common law of torts and blocking class actions, shoving aside jury verdicts, limiting people’s “standing to sue,” pre-empting state jurisdictions — anything that serves to centralize power and hand it over to the corporate conquistadores.Here are some examples. (For more, see thecorporatecourt.com.)Remember the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound 22 years ago? It destroyed marine life and the livelihoods of many landowners, fishermen and native Alaskans. Its toxic effects continue to this day.After years of litigation by Alaskan fishermen, the Supreme Court took the case to review a $5 billion award the trial court had assessed in punitive damages. A 5-3 decision lowered the sum to $507.5 million, which is less than what Exxon made in interest by delaying the case for 20 years. Moreover, the drunken Exxon captain’s oil tanker calamity raised the price of gasoline at the pump for a while. Exxon actually made a profit despite its discharge of 50 million gallons.The unelected, life-tenured corporate court was just getting started and every year they tighten the noose of corporatism around the American people. In Bush v. Gore (5-4 decision), the court picked the more corporate president of the United States in 2000, leaving constitutional scholars thunderstruck at this breathtaking seizure of the electoral process, stopping the Florida Supreme Court’s ongoing statewide recount. The five Republican justices behaved as political hacks conducting a judicial coup d’état.But then what do you expect from justices like Thomas and Scalia who participate in a Koch brothers’ political retreat or engage in extrajudicial activities that shake the public confidence in the highest court of the land?Last year came the Citizens United v. FEC case where the Republican majority went out of its way to decide a question that the parties to the appeal never asked. In a predatory “frolic and detour,” the five justices declared that corporations (including foreign companies) no longer have to obey the prohibitory federal law and their own court’s precedents. Corporations like Pfizer, Aetna, Chevron, GM, Citigroup and Monsanto can spend unlimited funds (without asking their shareholders) in independent expenditures to oppose or support candidates for public office from a local city council election to federal congressional and presidential elections.Once again, our judicial dictatorship has spoken for corporate privilege and power overriding the rights of individual voters.Eighty percent of the American people, reported a Washington Post poll, reject the court’s view that a business corporation is entitled to the same free speech rights as citizens.Chances are very high that in cases between workers and companies, consumers and companies, communities and corporations, tax payers and military contractors — big business wins.Inanimate corporations created by state government charters have risen as Frankensteins to control the people through one judicial activist decision after another. It was the Supreme Court in 1886 that started treating a corporation as a “person” for purposes of the equal protection right in the 14th Amendment. Actually, the scribe manufactured that conclusion in the headnotes even though the court’s opinion did not go that far. But then it was off to the races. These inanimate giants, astride the globe, have privileges and immunities that “We the People” can only dream about, yet they have equal constitutional rights with us (except for the right against self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) and more limited privacy rights).What is behind these five corporate justices’ decisions is a commercial philosophy that big business knows best for you and your children. These justices intend to drive this political jurisprudence to further extremes, so long as they are in command, to twist our Founders’ clear writings that the Constitution was for the supremacy of human beings.To see how extreme the five corporate justices are, consider the strong contrary view of one of their conservative heroes, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in a case where a plurality of justices threw out a California regulation requiring an insert in utility bills inviting residential ratepayers to band together to advance their interests against Pacific Gas and Electric. The prevailing justices said — get this — that it violated the electric company monopoly’s First Amendment right to remain silent and not respond to the insert’s message.Conservative Justice Rehnquist’s dissent contained these words — so totally rejected by the present-day usurpers: “Extension of the individual freedom of conscience decisions to business corporations strains the rationale of those cases beyond the breaking point. To ascribe to such artificial entities an ‘intellect’ or ‘mind’ for freedom of conscience purposes is to confuse metaphor with reality.”It was left to another conservative jurist, the late Justice Byron White, dissenting in the corporatist decision First Nat’l Bank v. Bellotti (1978), to recognize the essential principle.Corporations, Justice White wrote, are “in a position to control vast amounts of economic power which may, if not regulated, dominate not only the economy but also the very heart of our democracy, the electoral process.” The state, he continued, has a compelling interest in “preventing institutions which have been permitted to amass wealth as a result of special advantages extended by the state for certain economic purposes from using that wealth to acquire an unfair advantage in the political process.… The state need not permit its own creation to consume it.”Never have I urged impeachment of Supreme Court justices. I do so now, for the sake of ending the Supreme Court’s corporate-judicial dictatorship that is not accountable under our system of checks and balance in any other way.Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader grew up in Winsted and is a graduate of The Gilbert School.
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One systemic consequence of slavery is the loss and obscuring of the histories of those who were enslaved. Records were often not kept about where Africans had been stolen from or who they were related to. Families were torn apart, leaving nothing but the faintest traces of the past. The delineation point, where genealogists can no longer trace histories back, is refered to this as the “document wall.”
Today, 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence and more than 160 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, there is a growing effort to restore some of the history stripped from enslaved people and their descendants. Among the leaders of these efforts is Mills, president of the Alex Breanne Corporation, a nonprofit organization that works to identify previously anonymous Black Americans from history and connect them with their living relatives.
The work began with Mills’ sister, who started digging into their family’s past in the 1990’s and introduced him to this emerging world of genealogy. Through that process, the Mills family discovered their great-great-grandfather, Ned Mills, who had been enslaved in Texas. His last name came from his final enslaver and remains the family surname. Through their research, they found that the document wall directly affected their ancestor, who learned of his liberation on June 19, 1865, now commemorated as Juneteenth.
“For the first time,” Mills writes on his website, “American slavery wasn’t something that had happened to anonymous people in a history book. It had happened to my family.”
The discovery gave Mills a familial pride he had been missing for years. That pride fueled his desire to help others find their own history. In 2023, Mills received his certificate in genealogical research from Boston University. He has used his expertise to help descendants of enslaved people uncover histories they never dreamed of learning.
To do this, he uses a process called “reverse genealogy,” identifying a person from the past and working forward to discover their descendants. Along the way, Mills has found some remarkable people who fought for freedom on American soil, some of whom were never freed.
Pay Bill for Robin Starr’s service in the Continental Army.Courtesy the Alex Breanne Corporation
At the Cornwall Historical Society event, Mills will present the stories of four Connecticut families: Job Lathrop of Norwich, the son of Pirmus Armes, about whom Mills has published a book; Prince Mortimer of Middletown, also the subject of a book by Mills;, the three sons of London Wallace of Simsbury; and Robert “Robin” Starr of Danbury, who later lived in Cornwall and Sharon.
A few years ago, Cornwall Consolidated School social studies teacher Will Vincent reached out to Mills for research guidance on a local history project his students were undertaking. Together, they learned about Naomi Freeman of Cornwall. After purchasing an acre of land on Great Hollow Road in 1828, Naomi Freeman became the first Black female landowner in Cornwall.
The students petitioned the town to rename a road after the historic Cornwall resident In April 2025, Great Hollow Road was officially renamed Naomi Freeman Historic Road. U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes joined Mills and the Cornwall Consildated School students for a presentation of their research.
Since then, Mills has guided the students in their quest to learn more about Starr’s story. Starr was a Revolutionary War soldier who joined the Continental Army to earn enough money to buy his own freedom, receiving the Badge of Merit in the process. The stories of his descendents’ services are equally worthy of their own books.
In recognition of Mills and the students’ work, First Selectman Gordon Ridgway proclaimed Feb. 8 as Robin Starr Day.
Preregistration is required for the event at the Cornwall Historical Society. To learn more about Mills’ work, visit
alexbreanne.org.
John Mills speaking at Quinnipiac University.Courtesy the Alex Breanne Corporation
Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.
Dogs have been at the center of Saetta’s life since childhood. She remembers going to the library to research different breeds and trying to convince her parents the family needed a dog. She had her heart set on an Irish Wolfhound, but she was more than happy when her mom brought home a West Highland terrier.
After college, she adopted Charlie as a puppy from a rescue on Long Island. He was a hound-shepherd-Rottweiler mix who suffered from intense seizures. Some veterinarians recommended euthanasia, but Saetta wasn’t ready to give up on him.
When Charlie would have an episode, she would sit with him, nose to nose, talking him through it. She learned to look for the moment he began to come around — when he could smell her again and his tail started to wag.
“You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor,” Saetta said. “I like to think that all the dogs that come through are going to have that person that they connect with just the same.”
Through a network of women working to rescue animals in Texas, she learned about the desperate situations facing many dogs.
With limited space, some public pounds euthanize even healthy animals to make room. Limited access to veterinary care leaves sick dogs or unvaccinated puppies especially vulnerable.
Saetta saw that reality firsthand with a puppy named Gus, a Labrador mix she fostered who has since been adopted. Gus and his sisters had been dumped beside a road, where they were living under an abandoned car. People would leave food for them, but no one would take them to the pound.
“Even the people who rescue animals down there were like, ‘sadly, the best place for them to be is on the side of the road,’” she said. “That’s safer. Someone might actually help them that way.”
Saetta knows that there are far more dogs than any one person can save, but she also knows that helping one dog means one fewer on the street.
Stephanie Saetta,with her rescue dog George and Blue (left), a shepherd mix awaiting his forever home.Madi Long
Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary operates entirely through foster homes, a model that Saetta believes is best for the dogs and the humans hoping to adopt them.
Rather than moving directly from a difficult environment into a permanent home, the dogs have a chance to settle into a quieter setting. They can learn what it’s like to live with a family, sleep somewhere comfortable and receive affection without fighting for attention. Fostering also allows the rescue to really get to know each dog.
“As fosters, we’re honest,” said Saetta. We’ll tell you everything that’s been bad, everything that’s been good. What their temperament is and how they’ve responded to all the things they’ve experienced.”
A successful adoption is not just about finding a dog a home; it’s about finding the right home where the dog and family can thrive together.
Saetta is looking for more people willing to open their homes to foster dogs. She understands that the thought of growing attached and eventually saying goodbye can feel daunting. But she sees that goodbye a little differently.
Fostering means being part of a dog’s journey, even if only for a short time. It gives dogs a safe place to rest, the chance to trust again and the love they have gone without for much of their lives. And when the time comes for them to leave, it is not really a loss. It is the reward of knowing they are moving on to a forever home.
Blue, Saetta’s current foster, is hoping to find his perfect home.
Blue, a 7 year-old Shepard mix, is waiting for his forever home. Madi Long
Now around 7 years old, Blue spent most of his life wandering the streets of Texas. People sometimes left food out for him, but his mangy, dirty coat kept them from stopping to pet him. Today, he has a chance to experience something different.
Blue is still waiting for his forever home. Saetta believes he would do best as the only dog in a household or alongside another senior dog. He will need someone willing to continue working with him on his training and understand that a dog with his history needs patience.
But what he gives in return is a whole lot of love.
“He’s so enthusiastic, he’s so excited for life, he’s so friendly, and he’s got such a good heart, and he loves to cuddle,” Saetta said. “He’s a good, good, good dog.”
For more information on adopting Blue or how to foster, visit ccbsanctuary.org.
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