SCOTUS decision for Bush in Bush v Gore.... Conspiracy or not?

[Fumesucker]

What do you think, did the felonious five communicate with each other or with anyone else in making a determination to find for Bush in Bush v Gore?

Or did they each individually and separately make their decision without ever talking to anyone else about what they were going to do?

If you believe the first scenario is more likely then Bush was installed as president by means of a conspiracy.

What say you conspiracy phobics?

conspiracy:

1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/bugliosi

In the December 12 ruling by the US Supreme Court handing the election to George Bush, the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. If you doubt this, try to imagine Al Gore's and George Bush's roles being reversed and ask yourself if you can conceive of Justice Antonin Scalia and his four conservative brethren issuing an emergency order on December 9 stopping the counting of ballots (at a time when Gore's lead had shrunk to 154 votes) on the grounds that if it continued, Gore could suffer "irreparable harm," and then subsequently, on December 12, bequeathing the election to Gore on equal protection grounds. If you can, then I suppose you can also imagine seeing a man jumping away from his own shadow, Frenchmen no longer drinking wine. -much more

[zbdent]

1. well, when you consider that the Reagan era papers were scheduled to

be released (as per rules which were put in place to make sure that Carter's papers were released) in 2001, they had to make sure that Saint Ron would not be exposed as having done all the things that were rumored ... so they had to make sure a Republican was placed in the Presidency so that the "release" would be shut down ...

[pnorman]

2. Excerpted from Associate Justice Steven's dissent:

"Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

I respectfully dissent."

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore/Dissent/Stevens

pnorman
PS: I won't go so far as to assert, that the "fix" was in at the Supreme Court (although I'll credit almost ANYTHING of Clarence Thomas). But the entire State of Florida (excluding it's residents, of course!) smells to high heaven! And PLEASE don't blame it all on Nader!

[Fumesucker]

3. "Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision.

Stevens had no way of knowing what was in the future..

I fear the wound inflicted that day was mortal.

[pnorman]

5. I seriously doubt that ANYONE could have guessed the outcome.

Even many of the PNAC crowd are now gingerly distancing themselves from it.

Getting back to the SCOTUS, it seems pretty certain that Justice Sandra O'Conners put her partisan feelings toward Bush, ahead of her judicial judgment. She openly stated that she wanted a Republican President to pick her successor. But lately, she has expressed severe "Buyer's Remorse".

pnorman

[EOTE]

34. I had hoped that Stevens was right.

Now I fear that you are right.

[crimsonblue]

18. Some of the blame goes to the little old ladies...

that did not look at their butterfly ballots and just punched the second slot. If you do remember the butterfly ballot, Buchanan was 2nd and Gore was third. In the counties that used the butterfly, Buchanan recorded vote levels far exceeding his national and state average. Idiocy is a two way street, but I would definately agree that SCOTUS should have made sure that the vote was counted, even it meant they had to push back the deadline. I would think that getting the count right would be more important than a deadline, but whatever...

[pnorman]

36. In retrospect, the selection of that "butterfly ballot" must have been deliberate.

Please don't blame it all on those "little old ladies"! It had been argued that the person in charge of those ballots was a Democrat. True, but here's the story on her:

"Speaking of Harris, there she was alongside a gleeful Governor Jeb Bush Wednesday in West Palm Beach for the ceremonial signing of the elections bill. Also part of the photo op were Lt. Governor Frank Brogan and Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LaPore, who the day before withdrew from the Democratic Party and re-registered as an independent.

Both women are interesting studies. While throughout the madness following the Nov. 7 election, LaPore was repeatedly portrayed—mainly by Republicans who wanted to stop the manual recount—as a loyal, true-blue Democrat, Jake Tapper in his book, “Down & Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency,” noted that LaPore originally was a registered Republican, then in 1979 re-registered as an independent. “When a third party formally registered as ‘Independent,’ she changed her registration to ‘no party,’” Tapper said.": http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/051101Conover/051101conover.html

I used to take a lot of courses at my union's training school. Most of them were quite technical, and frequent tests were the norm. The almost daily 25 multiple choice question tests were no problem; you either knew the answer or you did not --- NO squawk. But the occasional 100 question tests were ALWAYS a source of OUTRAGE from some, when they came back graded. The "visual clues" were just as ambiguous as those damn butterfly ballots. And these were ship's officers; many of them were chief engineers -- and did they HOWL! (Me Too!)

pnorman
On edit: Being a staunch Republican was part of the persona of some of those guys. No surprise, but Later I've heard the same guys sneer at those "little old ladies who can mark a bingo card, but NOT a ballot".

[malaise]

25. At least Steven's can sleep without all the Placidyl

that Rehnquist not only used with regularity, but was afraid would become public knowledge. I've always wondered about the blackmail factor.

http://www.slate.com/id/2156978/

[Uncle Joe]

26. Didn't one of the dissenting Justices

sign their dissent without using "respectfully"? I seem to remember that being an incident of note.

[Fumesucker]

35. "I dissent"

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

[MonkeyFunk]

4. well I'm sure they discussed it with each other

that's how the court reaches a decision.

I doubt it's criminal, though. It's not against the law for them to make bad decisions.

[Fumesucker]

6. Did you read the definition of conspiracy?

An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.

[MonkeyFunk]

14. Yes I did

did you read the legal definition?

[Fumesucker]

31. What the five on the SCOTUS did was not illegal..

I think.

Mostly because no one had imagined that five SCOTUS justices would do such a thing. (unlike flying planes into buildings)

It was most certainly immoral and wrong.

And it was a conspiracy.

[Winterblues]

7. Well we do know one thing, it was the ONLY decision by Extreme Court

That could not be used as precedent. They said this decision was for this case and this case only which is completely against everything the Extreme Court stands for..The entire purpose of Supreme Court is to establish legal precedent

[Fumesucker]

11. The entire purpose of Supreme Court is to establish legal precedent

Except when it isn't, apparently.

I do find it telling that not a single conspiracy phobic has weighed in to say that Bush v Gore was not a conspiracy.

[gulfcoastliberal]

21. I love how the vile scum used equal protection for lil Bush.

Yeah, it was definitely a conspiracy to hand the election to Bush.

[MissWaverly]

28. it was based on the equal protection defense

it was ludicrous, totally ludicrous that equal protection used to guarantee that minorities would have the right to vote would be
used to guarantee Bush's victory.

[Echo In Light]

8. I'd recommend Mark Crispin Miller's books...

Cruel & Unusual: Bush/Cheney's NWO, and Fooled Again.
http://www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/

[Echo In Light]

9. Video:

Mark Crispin Miller - Elections: Fooled Again

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6855737433113022646&q=Mark+Crispin+Miller&total=101&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

[leftynyc]

24. None Dare Care it Treason

Link is to an essay by Vincent Bugliosi (prosecutor for the Manson murders). He later expanded the essay into a book. Riveting reading on that decison.



http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010205/bugliosi

[ljm2002]

10. It had to be, in one form or another...

...because the rulings were biased from the get-go, such as stopping the Florida recound because it could do irreparable harm to Bush (huh? in a Presidential election, we don't allow recounts because they might give a result we don't like?), and such as their very definite statement that this decision was not to be used as a precedent for any other decision, thus acknowledging that it was not on a firm legal foundation.

And look what that decision has wrought, MY GOD!#$@!!!

[VP505]

12. I don't think their decision

had anything to do with a "conspiracy", what I do believe is that the Supremes saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. We would all like to think that they (SCOTUS) would be disciplined enough to be above what the statement below suggests, but fact is they are human, subject to the same flaws, weaknesses and strengths we all share.

"the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law."

[Fumesucker]

13. I don't think their decision had anything to do with a "conspiracy"

Then you maintain that the five justices who voted for Bush in Bush v Gore never discussed the case either with each other or with anyone else outside the SCOTUS?

[newspeak]

15. but, wasn't two of the justices' family

involved with *'s campaign. Wasn't Thomas' wife on the board of selection (choosing *'s cabinet) and Scalia's son an attorney for *. Because of a conflict, wouldn't Scalia and Thomas have to recuse themselves?

[Fumesucker]

16. Excellent point

I had forgotten about that.

So many outrages.

[struggle4progress]

17. Jackasses can demonstrate their utter lack of integrity without any conspiracy

[Fumesucker]

20. So you maintain that they did not speak either to each other or to anyone else

About what they were going to do?

[Zynx]

19. That one makes perfect sense. The justices voted along ideological lines.

5 wanted a Republican president, 4 wanted a Democratic president. I reall think it is as simple as that.

[Uncle Joe]

22. I'm sure that's a natural urge, on the other hand

disregarding the Constitution for the sole purpose of benefiting your idealogical whims sounds like malpractice to me and if more than one person confided with one another in order to do so, wouldn't that be a conspiracy?

[Zynx]

30. Justices vote their politics all the time. It comes with the territory.

If this was a "conspiracy" it was out in the open for all to see.

[Fumesucker]

33. That is exactly my point, thank you for making it..

The conspiracy that is easiest to hide is that which no one wants to see.

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a story, "The Purloined Letter" which pointed out that the very best place to hide something is in plain view.

People do not see that which is directly under their noses.

[Fumesucker]

23. But the five had to contort law into a Mobius strip

To get what they wanted..

Read the piece I linked to, the five found an "equal protection" case where they alway been very resistant to finding such a case before.

What most people don't realize is that the bar to something becoming a "conspiracy" is set very low in the law.

[Zynx]

29. The legal argument against the recount as it was being conducted wasn't all that weak.

I think Gore won Florida, but the argument they made wasn't such a stretch. It happened to be against their normal ideological leanings, but it wasn't really a weak argument.

[Fumesucker]

32. Perhaps you can point out a Florida voter who brought suit

Claiming an equal protection violation that caused them harm?

If Bush was harmed by the equal protection violation then Gore was equally so.

[kster]

27. A LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN BUSH V. GORE by Mark H. Levine, Attorney at Law.

http://www.iknowwhatyoudidlastelection.com/bush-supreme-court.htm


K&R