Conservative Activism Grips Our Supreme Court, or What "Lesser of Two Evils" Voting Has Gotten Us...

[Totally Committed]

Conservative Activism Grips Our Supreme Court
Submitted by Bill Scher on June 25, 2007 - 2:23pm.

*Way too many folks rolled over when John Roberts and Sam Alito were nominated for the Supreme Court. And now we're seeing the consequences.

In my recent book, I characterized the conservative judicial activist agenda as "elitist government, no longer representative of and responsive to the people, handcuffed from insisting upon responsible corporate behavior, but free to subject all Americans to one group's version of morality." And today, we're seeing that vision in all its glory.

The conservative activists on the Supreme Court decreed in a series of 5-4 decisions:

* Individuals, who believe their tax dollars are being unconstitutionally misused by the White House to promote religious beliefs, aren't allowed to enter a courthouse to make their case.

* The Environmental Protection Agency can avoid its responsibilities under the Endangered Species Act, even though it's a law reflecting the public will as passed by the democratically-elected Congress.

* Corporations can once again use their checkbooks to flood the public airwaves with political ads during election season, again overruling Congress.

It's critical to recognize these decisions -- along with earlier decisions to end privacy between a woman and her doctor, and to make it harder to challenge pay discrimination -- are part of a pattern................ Roberts and Alito were able to get on the Court because their dishonest PR operations went largely unchallenged. Roberts was christened "brilliant" and lauded as a lover of grammar. Alito was heralded as an "open-minded" judge who loves baseball and his mom. All that was meaningless fluff intended to mask their conservative agenda. We must remember how these nominees were misrepresented so they could get confirmed. We must catalog the damage they did after being confirmed. We must crystallize what the conservative activists are trying to achieve, and how it undermines what our founders wanted our judiciary to do.

If we do all that, the next time a conservative activist is being sold to the public, we can insist on proof that the nominee will uphold constitutional principles of representative government, not undermine those principles with elitist government. And if we don't get any proof, we can reject that nominee on the merits -- that we cannot risk granting another lifetime appointment to someone who will not protect our constitution and our democracy.


Entire Article:

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/conservative_activism_grips_our_supreme_court?tx=3


* This is what voting for anyone with a (D) after their name has gotten us... a bunch of corporate-loving, do-nothing, roll-over-and-play-dead, look-the-other-way, D I N Os who confirmed these judges, and don't you forget it.

Next time anyone wants to criticize me for my deeply held concerns for this Party, they should remember I, too, gave the system every chance to work, but it is now broken beyond repair.


TC

[AtomicKitten]

1. I don't know that any other choice

by this WH would have turned out any better considering that's one of the perks of the presidency. That is the reality of this.

However, I disagree with your conclusion. Now more than ever, it is IMPERATIVE that a Democrat appoint the next Supreme Court justice. That is the stopgap measure that we do have the power to impose on this runaway court. And that is precisely why it is more important to me that a Democrat takes the WH in 2008 than which particular Democrat.

[rinsd]

2. In absolute agreement that it is imperative that a Dem nominate the next justice (nt)

[Totally Committed]

5. I didn't want to let this thread gather any more steam before telling you

that I respect your opinion, and understand where you are coming from, but we disagree on this. And, just because we disagree, it doesn't mean I think any less of you, and hope you feel that way visa versa. This is just an impasse I don't see a way around.

TC

[AtomicKitten]

6. *

:toast:

[MuseRider]

3. Question.

"If we do all that, the next time a conservative activist is being sold to the public, we can insist on proof that the nominee will uphold constitutional principles of representative government, not undermine those principles with elitist government. And if we don't get any proof, we can reject that nominee on the merits -- that we cannot risk granting another lifetime appointment to someone who will not protect our constitution and our democracy."

I thought we did that. Next time? I did it and I know many people here did it and they told their friends and they did it. We called and demanded. We called and we cried. We called and we asked for consideration. We wrote the same and all of it to the many Democrats making the decisions. (some of us did it to our R Reps because that is who we are stuck with)

I am with you TC. The Democrats did very little to stop this even though we all exhausted ourselves trying to stop it. The installation Judge Alito was the last day that I was a Democrat. I thought we had done enough and if that was not enough we are sunk.

On Edit I went back and read it again. We did catalog everything they had done before and that did not work, that is what I meant. Yes, we can catalog what they do now but will it ever again matter? Did it ever matter? If the Dems thought these guys were good enough not to put up a huge fight over what makes anyone think they will put up someone with the guts to fight with them?

[Totally Committed]

4. I truly believe we have reached The Tipping Point...

We will never again see a true Liberal On the SCOTUS -- at least not in our lifetimes. Why? Because we keep electing more and more conservative Dems by voting for anyone with a (D) after their name... you know, the "Lesser of Two Evils". What that will give us, no matter WHO is elected POTUS will be ia an unending list of conservative ideologues to get confirmed. No one else will make it anywhere NEAR the confirmation process.

The only thing a Democrat in the WH will give us a conservative ideologue that is less conservative than we have in there now. And, that won't do us much good. We need an infusion of honest-to-gawd Liberalism to straighten the court and the country out.

Like I said -- it ain't gonna happen in our lifetimes if we keep voting in these DINO's who do nothing but vote with the Republicans most of the time anyway.

TC

[MuseRider]

7. We agree

as sad as that is. I hate that this issues splits so many of us. I was a D all the way until the Alito vote. That is what woke me all the way up. I saw your message up thread about how you feel about people who disagree with you. I feel the same way but I just can't go there again. I want a Democrat who will do what we need and will stick by their stated policies when the going gets tough and it will get very tough.

I don't think I will be able to live long enough to see this country turn all the way back around and become at least as good as it was before. I only hope to be able to help change it enough so my children will be comfortable.

The lesson learned for me is this. We are fragile, our system is fragile. If we do not pay attention when things start to get hinky (Nixon) and then get just plain freaky (Reagan) we are going to lose it and that means that Democrats have to have the guts to put these criminals away and not pardon them because they "think it would be too hard on the country". Puhleeze! Put them away and we need to make certain they hear us. If we can be torn down to this point in 6 short years by a Bozo and his troops then we have been ignoring our system for years. This lays directly in our laps, we have to make it better now because we allowed it to get to this point and this current crop of Reps are not helping.

[Totally Committed]

8. I am hating the thought of leaving my children and all my grandchildren

to deal with this mess. It keeps me awake at night. So, I know exactly where you're coming from, MuseRider.

TC

[LoZoccolo]

9. WHAT??!! Oh you did NOT JUST SAY THAT!!!!

Two of these appointments were due to NADER. It was NADER who didn't think Supreme Court nominations were important enough, and who also dismissed abortion as "gonadal politics". That was NADER'S talking point.

FUCK NADER!

These two justices were opposed by the Democrats way more than Republicans ever opposed the liberal justices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_supreme_court#Current_membership

[Totally Committed]

10. No one here is talking about Nader, fercripessake!

Calm down, and discuss, please.

TC

[LoZoccolo]

11. ANY time people complain about the SCOTUS, they are talking about Nader. n/t

[Totally Committed]

12. That's BIZARRE. The DINOs in office who voted for the current crop of RW fanatics on the SCOTUS

have nothing to do with those confirmations? Get real.

You've got a Nader fixation.

TC

[LoZoccolo]

13. And George W. Bush* nominated them.

And Nader said those nominations weren't going to be important enough to keep Bush* from office. He's STILL saying that.

And the Democrats fought against these conservative justices more than the Republicans fought against the liberal ones.

[Totally Committed]

15. He nominated judges he knew he could get confirmed.

And they weren't confirmed without Democrats colluding with him and abetting his choices. Sorry, Nader is, at the most, tangential to this argument.

TC

[ClassWarfare2008]

22. I don't believe Ralph Nader has a vote in the Senate.

Arguably, he shares the blame for the 2000 theft, but he has nothing to do with how the DLC hacks in the Senate have failed to do the jobs they were elected to do.

[LoZoccolo]

23. Lame. n/t

[Usrename]

42. 41 votes in the Senate were all that were needed to stop Alito.

42 voted that he is unfit to sit on the court.

Yet there he is.

Please explain how that makes sense.

41 votes needed to stop him, and 42 voted that he's unfit, and there he sits.

Nader has very little, if anything, to do with it (other than perhaps to act as a shiny object that can easily distract the feeble-minded).

[Totally Committed]

39. I totally agree with you... this isn't "lame" at all. n/t

TC

[riqster]

44. Nader is part of the picture, like it or not.

...but even more importantly, the people who voted for him are.

The basic thesis of this thread - that weak elected Dems, and the people who voted for them, are to blame for this mess-is corrupt.

It is not lesser-of-two-evils voters that enabled the Occupation, but those who got up and bleated the bullshit "no difference" line. They sucked voters away from Gore and narrowed the margin to the point where a theft could be pulled off.

Those who did not vote for Gore are complicit in the crimes of the Reeps. At least those of us who held our noses and voted for Gore know that we made an effort to keep Bush out. The self-absorbed, self-righteous, ivory-tower, comfy suburban theoreticians who voted for Nader or stayed home helped Bush win and Gore lose. They were not the only factor, but have to take part of the blame. But they refuse to do so, pointing their fingers everywhere EXCEPT at themselves.

Posts like this one are part of their efforts to absolve themselves. I am having none of it. If you helped Bush win, you have blood on your hands.

[MuseRider]

45. Sucked voters away?

People usually consider who their vote is going to and if they preferred him it was nothing more than their right to vote for him. Perhaps they think the blood belongs on the hands of those who vote for ham sandwiches? Just wondering and thinking aloud.

[riqster]

46. Here's where I am coming from

In America, we have a binary choice for Prexy. Reep or Dem. Votes for any other candidate are wasted, and serve to draw from one of the aforementioned. In fact, third parties often advocate such activity as a way to "teach party R or D a lesson". Thus it was with Nader. He took Reep money and worked to elect Bush, by depressing and diverting Dem votes.

And it's not as though people were unaware of this, either-lots of people on the Left WANTED Bush to win. They thought it would whip the Dems into line and force them to the Left. THOUSANDS OF LEFTISTS WORKED TO DEFEAT GORE AND ELECT BUSH. Now we read their screeds against moderation, after their misdirected extremism helped to put Bush in the White House.

Our votes are not just our personal statements-they have global consequences, by virtue of the actions of those we elect. For all of the fraud and chicanery, millions of people did in fact vote in such a way as to elect Bush. The Supreme Court is now busily enslaving us all, thanks to those who put Bush in office.

Am I pissed at the wussy-assed Dems who didn't do enough to block the packing of the Court? Damned skippy. Are they they the primary reason for said packing? No. The primary reason is the illegal Bush occupation, aided and abetted by some of our own.

[tigereye]

14. well if it's any consolation, we at least have a Dem congress

who can offset some of this.

And, from what I had read, even the majority on the rulings made it clear that the rulings were pretty narrow in their scope.


But yes, Alito and Roberts scare me.

[Totally Committed]

16. Alito and Roberts are scary, but know who really is a whack job?

Antonin Scalia. He scares me pretty badly as well.

TC

[tigereye]

24. well, the weird thing is that Scalia is sort of a maverick among conservatiives

he's that out there. He also has a scathing wit. Some folks feel that he is more influenced by Thomas, than the other way round, based on decisions.

I'm mostly steamed at Kennedy for buying their line. He really should be operating as the voice of reason at this point. Roberts as CJ will tend to be more of a consensus builder, and Kennedy seems to want to follow along.

Sadly, O'Connor was keeping many things in check.

don't mind me, I'm a SCOTUS junkie.

[Totally Committed]

26. Thanks for the insight! ---

It's really Scalia's Extreme Catholicism (he is openly Opus Dei), and his delusions (he thinks Jack Bauer is a real person, as just one example), that make him scary to me. His extreme RW views aside, of course!

TC

[tigereye]

27. no, I don't think it's his Catholicism - although Opus Dei stuff is creepy

our former Senator Rick Santorum seems to espouse some of those extremem Catholic views, I think it's his legal and judiciary framework...

[Stinky The Clown]

17. TC, you hit the nail on the head ..... the issue of our lifetime

I'm glad to see The Supremes getting some talking about .... not just on DU, but in the media, too.

[Totally Committed]

18. SCOTUS... Yesterday's votes finally woke the sleepers up, my friend

The damage is right there for all to see. We'll never see another Thurgood Marshall on the bench again in our lifetimes.

Wouldn't Mario Cuomo have made an excellent Chief Justice?

TC

[Stinky The Clown]

20. My second favorite job for him ..... after having been our 42nd president

Mario Cuomo ...... if only ....... ah .... what could have been.

Edit to fix VERY misleading title typo

[Totally Committed]

21. Oh, don't get me started on how great a POTUS he would have been!

The US might be a totally different country today if he had run and won. I will never get over the disappointment!

TC

[paulk]

19. the illogic of this article is mind-numbing

Yeah, sure, the Democrats are somehow responsible for the Conservative appointments of a Republican President, a President who was able to steal the White House because too many of the ivory tower set didn't vote for the lesser of two evils.

[dsc]

25. We didn't have majority control of the Senate at the time

and apparently this article doesn't advocate filibuster. I fail to see what public relations would have done here.

[welshTerrier2]

28. corporate conservatives versus corporate "liberals"

when the K Street boys make up their shopping lists, it's important to understand that they really have only one concern: PROFITS.

to make more profits, they seek a government that will promote policies that reduce their costs and increase their revenues. cost reductions often are sought in the form of rollbacks of environmental laws, worker safety laws, and trade laws. increases in revenue often come in the form of government contracts especially for defense.

in making their plans, they seek to fund candidates who will pass legislation favorable to them. issues like freedom of choice, religion in schools, gay rights and others are NOT issues they care about directly. to hedge their bets, the approach they use is to find pro-corporate Democrats with "liberal" social agendas and pro-corporate republicans with conservative social agendas. they don't give a damn about those issues but, regardless of which way the public leans on any given issue at any given time, they have a very well funded candidate ready and waiting to fill the demand.

we see this in the current presidential campaign. "if you don't vote for Hillary, we'll get more conservative judges." well, that's true. but it's also true that you'll get more pro-corporate judges. and we will never be free as long as that's the case.

real progressives, instead of the phony ones campaigning for corporate candidates, understand that to be truly progressive requires two elements and not just one. it requires candidates who oppose the abuses of corporations in the political process and liberal social policies as well.

we are being blackmailed by K Street and the corporate candidates they fund, both republicans and Democrats. if you don't vote for X, all these horrible things will happen. citing the balance on the court is just one example. don't give in to the blackmailers. if we really want a government that puts the people's interests first, i.e. puts them ahead of "special corporate" interests, we have to reject ALL corporate funded candidates.

[Totally Committed]

29. Great post (as usual), and you know I agree with you!

People just are not getting this concept:

we are being blackmailed by K Street and the corporate candidates they fund, both republicans and Democrats. if you don't vote for X, all these horrible things will happen. citing the balance on the court is just one example. don't give in to the blackmailers. if we really want a government that puts the people's interests first, i.e. puts them ahead of "special corporate" interests, we have to reject ALL corporate funded candidates.

Or, this one:

real progressives, instead of the phony ones campaigning for corporate candidates, understand that to be truly progressive requires two elements and not just one. it requires candidates who oppose the abuses of corporations in the political process and liberal social policies as well.

And until they do, people like you and the rest of us who DO get it will have to keep driving the point home, again and again.

TC

[welshTerrier2]

30. from "Alice's Restaurant" ...

"I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired. ..."

[Totally Committed]

31. You old Hippie, you....

:)

LOL!

TC

[welshTerrier2]

32. guilty as charged ...

makes you wonder what happened to so many of us ... i'm afraid the counter-cultural lifestyle quickly disappeared into a haze of materialism and the politics were not too deeply held by most even back then ... "keep me out of the draft" is transitory and not "of the soul."

many seem to see it as a natural maturing process. what a bunch of crap that is ...

[Totally Committed]

33. Well, I'm an old Hippie relic, too....

and, I'm very proud of it!

I think the mentality of which you speak is the "Dead-Head sticker on the Cadillac" one. "i'm afraid the counter-cultural lifestyle quickly disappeared into a haze of materialism and the politics were not too deeply held by most even back then............ many seem to see it as a natural maturing process. what a bunch of crap that is ..." -- yes, indeed!

And, as far as, "'keep me out of the draft' is transitory and not 'of the soul.'" I remember the days when there were absolutely consciencious objectors to war, it was tough for them then, but can you imagine what they'd be called today?

The world has changed, and we along with it, but I still know a corporatist shill when I see one, and I know that can't be a good thing for this Party or this Country.

TC

[Totally Committed]

34. From the NYT -- an Op-Ed:

NYT OpEd: Three Bad Rulings (SCOTUS Monday Hat Trick)

Chief Justice Roberts and the four others in his ascendant bloc used the next-to-last decision day of this term to reopen the political system to a new flood of special-interest money, to weaken protection of student expression and to make it harder for citizens to challenge government violations of the separation of church and state. In the process, the reconfigured court extended its noxious habit of casting aside precedents without acknowledging it — insincere judicial modesty scored by Justice Antonin Scalia in a concurring opinion.

First, campaign finance. Four years ago, a differently constituted court upheld sensible provisions of the McCain-Feingold Act designed to prevent corporations and labor unions from circumventing the ban on their spending in federal campaigns by bankrolling phony “issue ads.” These ads purport to just educate voters about a policy issue, but are really aimed at a particular candidate.

The 2003 ruling correctly found that the bogus issue ads were the functional equivalent of campaign ads and upheld the Congressional restrictions on corporate and union money. Yet the Roberts court shifted course in response to sham issue ads run on radio and TV by a group called Wisconsin Right to Life with major funding from corporations opposed to Senator Russell Feingold, the Democrat who co-authored the act.

It opened a big new loophole in time to do mischief in the 2008 elections. The exact extent of the damage is unclear. But the four dissenters were correct in warning that the court’s hazy new standard for assessing these ads is bound to invite evasion and fresh public cynicism about big money and politics.

Entire Op-Ed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/opinion/26tue1.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

TC

[Greyhound]

35. K & R

:kick:
Some of us were talking, begging, shouting, and warning of just this kind of thing, all the while being told what nuts we were and how it was so important for "our representatives" to "keep their powder dry" (as if that means anything) by the "go team 'D'" faction.

The coming two to four nominations are the only reason I'm voting for the the likely Democratic candidate next year. As recent history has clearly demonstrated, that there is no hope of improvement from within the party.

[Le Taz Hot]

36. K & R

PERFECT counter to the powder-dry Dems who keep reminding us of how important SC justices are. Yes, they ARE monumentally important -- which is why we need to fight for competent, honest people without a specific agenda walking into the confirmation process.

[MuseRider]

37. K&R n/t

[sampsonblk]

38. K & R

[wryter2000]

40. Excuse me

This is what refusing to vote for a Dem has got us. I'm all for voting your conscience, but don't try to pin this on people who voted for Democrats.

[Totally Committed]

41. I hear what you're saying, I do.

It's just that voting for ANY candidate with a (D) after their name has gotten us to this place. Some of those candidates do not share true Democratic Party values, and now vote with the Republicans on the majority of legislation, as well as these SCOTUS appointments. So, where has that gotten us?

That's all I'm asking. I think we have to consider carefully who we are voting for, and WHAT/WHO they represent (really) before we pull the (D) lever as a matter of course.

TC

[wryter2000]

43. One can argue that voting for Nader got us Bush

I don't believe that, but Nader didn't help. Plus, if we'd had more Dems in Congress we wouldn't have had to filibuster.

I agree that it was totally stupid and reckless not to filibuster Alito. Roberts was less clear, and he was replacing Rehnquist, anyway. But they should have filibustered Alito. I, personally, believe that it's more cowardice on the part of Dems, rather than being corporate whores.