Assault on the Judiciary
 

Here's DeLay's latest salvo in the neo/theocon war on judicial review:
If judges don't interpret the, whatever, the Constitution of the United States in a way you like, impeach them or take away their jurisdiction! We can't have people running around thinking they have any right to privacy.

Per the constitution, we don't. No matter how ridiculous it sounds, it's not specifically enumerated.

The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">Ninth Amendment</a> covers a lot of ground without much specific enumeration.

Even considering who he was talking to (the Moonie Times), I'm still shaking my head at this excerpt. (Most of the rest of the interview was wonkspeak.) If Democratic campaign wonks aren't busy hammering out ads _right now_ that say:

<i>"...The Republicans don't think church and state SHOULD be separated.
...The Republicans don't think that two-hundred-year-old legal principles should still apply.
...The Republicans don't think YOU SHOULD HAVE a right to privacy.

What do YOU think about that?"</i>

then the lot of them should be fired.

Just a clarification, when he's talking about "the right to privacy" in this context I'm certain he's talking about abortion. Roe v. Wade centered on a rather liberal (dictionary-definition, not political-definition) interpretation of what constituted an invasion of privacy, specifically that abortion could not be outlawed because it was an invasion of privacy. A woman's right to privacy = her right to have an abortion.

Honestly, I'm pro-choice. But I've read a lot on the subject and it was a biiiiiiig stretch to interpret the clauses they did in the way that they did. I still think they should have done it because it was the right thing to do, but it doesn't have a legitimate Constitutional basis.

And sodomy. Don't imagine that they've forgotten that.

From my (probably ill-informed) point of view, privacy is at the root of the concept of "presumed innocent until proven guilty". Think about it...we are all supposed to be law-abiding citizens who are doing nothing wrong until we are suspected, investigated and a probable cause is discovered, right? Well, in the name of national security, that whole presumption of innocence thing is being slowly turned on its head. You pretty much have to prove at every turn that you *aren't* doing anything wrong before you can actually *do* anything.

Give up the right to privacy, and you are under the thumb of your government, all in the name of security, or morality, or finance, or whatever. A controlled population makes it easy to keep things running smoothly, and the money flowing into the right people's pockets.

I'm pretty disillusioned with the current administration by now. A greedier, more controlling bunch of powermongers I have never seen.

Except for the last bunch of greedy, controlling, powermongers.

No, this group is worse on all fronts, with the possible exception of white house nookie.

One group wants my guns and my cigarettes, the other wants my soul and my money.

Decisions, decisions...how about we kick all of the useless SOBs out of government and elect some freaking unaffiliated moderates who actually care about the country and their electorate, and not their political donors and special-interest cronies?

Short of a nuclear bombardment I don't see that happening.

ok, TS - you work on the nuclear solution and Els and I will start looking for suitable replacements for the asshat brigade.

Well, according to here, here, here, here and a few other places we're going to be having a new program and new weapons on hand, so we should be able to pick up a few of the older weapons relatively easily.

Blowjobs. Illegal wars, nuclear weapons, trying to ban contraceptives, destroying the Atlantic alliance. Yea, about even. Delay is one of those people who you can say unequivocally say the world would be better off if they were taken to a remote desert location and made to dig their own shallow graves.

You could probably add John Bolton to the list. He's pretty damn scary. Check him out in his own inimimimimitable fashion here.

Bolton is just a halfwit. He has the political nouse of a grapefruit on a good day but he makes for a good laugh, delay is a slimy piece of shit.

i don't disagree that he's a touch slimy, but no more so than anyone else in congress.

what kind of disturbs me is taht the supposedly kind, caring liberals are the ones who say things like "<politician> should be forced to dig their own shallow grave in the desert". That's a kinda evil notion, isn't it? What if I said "I wish Hilary Clinton would get raped in an alley and her throat cut"?

I think libs hate more deeply than conservatives. odd, considering they accuse us of hate constantly.

I believe you're right. The current breed of conservative doesn't do "nuance". If you're not wavin the right color flag/motto/dittohead/goosestep, then you're "hated". With us or against us. 'member that winner?

Think about this administration's famous consistency, the ability to stay on topic, to toe the party line. The world I live in isn't so binary. It's more gray in the middle, the wide middle. There are easily recognized extremes at each end, but I see time and time again a tendency to oversimplification and that leads to stereotyping, prejudice and shallowness. Match the situation to a label, if there isn't one handy that fits, then it must be the enemy. Lazy thinking.

I'm a liberal. I do hate *some* things the conservatives talk about, hate deeply. In contrast, I see the "red team" as shallow, with the "hate" you describe spread "thinly" to follow your illustration. But spread w-i-d-e-l-y. Yeah, shallow.

I think that if we got rid of the two party system and all people who label themselves as conservative or liberal we would live in a great place. Really - if those of us who don't give a damn ran the world...

You should check out some of the Federalist Papers. Some of them were quite adamantly against the party system because they were afraid it would turn out the way it has.

I have read some of them... I just can't remember which ones. And you're quite right - many of the founding fathers are tossing in their graves.

You should check the Humor thread, and count the number of conservative jokes that involve death or torture of liberals, and compare it to the opposite. And you wouldn't have to search very long for someone who wished rape and murder on Hillary Clinton, though it would be even faster to find someone accusing Bill Clinton of rape and murder.
</politician>

Well, if she weren't so hot on banning guns, that wouldn't be an issue.

A favorite quote: GUN CONTROL: The notion that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is morally superior to the a woman in the same alley, explaining to a police officer how her attacker died of fatal bullet wounds.

http://prodtn.cafepress.com/7/20593987_F_tn.jpg

Comparison Exhibit number One.

Well I don't consider myself a liberal, certainly not in the US sense. It's not so much hatred, it's not something I can be bothered getting worked up about, after all it doesn't really affect me. It's simply that on the balance he seems distinctly a net loss to humanity in general. Just one of those people, like Karl Rove or Mark Textor who the world would be a better place without.

We don't need replacements. Democracy got us into this problem it won't get us out. We really need a movement of inaction, getting folks to ignore these pocket tyrants and their dictates.

I find it amusing that the party of FDR would be concerned about an assault on the judiciary. Both of these evil parties are more than willing to abuse the system to please their masters or herd their sheep.

Preview of the next step?
 

So a couple of thousand people banging pots in the streets is enough justification to dissolve the Supreme Court with a simple majority vote of Congress. Add to this that the protestors were shouting to remove the President, not the court.

This sounds like Tom Delay's wet dream. I can almost see the GOP e-mails going out.

Clinton might have liked this strategy during his impeachment, except that professionally, he had more ethics than our current crop.

For the T-Shirt they should add "P.S. I'd settle for a persistive vegetative state."

Looks like the Democrats won a victory today on that front. After what was reportedly an extremely heated debate, Voynovich (R-Ohio) crossed party lines and caused a 3 week delay on the nomination. In that time, evidence is supposed to be released relating to Bolton using the NSA to spy on colleagues, which will probably figure heavily in the vote when it comes up.

Or at least it will make the Republicans look even worse when they vote party line - except perhaps for Voynovich.

This was a big enough deal that I was glued to C-SPAN's online feed to watch the hearing, especially after Frist pulled a parliamentary maneuver to make sure that the hearing would go through yesterday. GREAT political theater.

The Dems were hoping that either Hagel or Chafee would turn, and neither seemed primed to do so; when Hagel said "I'm not saying that I'd vote for him on the floor, but I _will_ vote for him today to get out of Committee," it seemed all but over. Then Voinovich popped up and said "Well, _I'll_ be voting with the Democrats" and you could almost see Lugar AND the Dems do a spit-take simultaneously. Lugar's "Ha, ha, I have the ten votes I need so STFU" grin vanished abruptly, while Biden and Kerry and Boxer had this "Did he just say what I THOUGHT he said?" expression.

Chafee's "Um... um... me too, sort of, though I don't want to say it" afterwards was anticlimactic.

And then that slick-looking guy from Virginia had no idea what would happen if there was a 9-9 tie, which led to Lugar giving 3 options, and Biden saying that actually none of those three options were correct.

I think the Virginia guy was legitimately ignorant, but Lugar was trying to pull something. At least, I'd hope that the committee chairman would know the rules.

Allen's about as sharp as a rubber spatula. Of course, he's representing a state that nearly elected Oliver Fucking North to the Senate, so I shouldn't expect much.

DeLay takes on Kennedy

The (Reagan-appointed) Supreme Court Justice, not the Senator.
Ah, yes. DeLay isn't aware that treaties are on the same level as the Constitution when it comes to force of law. I'm not too shocked at that, given the disdain his type has for the rest of the world. He also seems to think that the Internet is nothing more than FARK or the Free Republic, and is blissfully unaware of Lexis Nexis and the many repositories of law on the Internet. Or is he objecting to Kennedy doing his own research rather than relying on clerks? Are the Republicans involved in selecting Supreme Court clerks?
Good behavior is deciding in favor of Republicans, apparently.

Delay kind of reminds me of somebody but I can't quite put my finger on it.

http://members.cox.net/xycof/delayAdolph.gif

From Seattle's

JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

Please read his article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connel...11_joel15.html

Where is this crisis of minority rule? What evidence is there that the filibuster in Democratic hands is pissing on the Constitution?

Only Tom "Chicken Little" DeLay says so.

I call him a hypocrite because it's true. I expect to have my serious charge answered because I could not let stand any such assault on my legitimacy, but DeLay revels in it.

you expect Tom Delay to answer you? sorry, but not gonna happen, we don't have nearly enough cameras and microphones in the cellar.

On the Bolton hearing - Apparently Condi Rice has ordered the State Department not to release any negative information about him to the committee.

I so sincerely hope that Voinovich has the balls to say "No information, no chance I'll switch my vote."

I doubt it... but hope springs eternal.

Here's a summary of what's happened so far.

If you can't impeach them, defund them!
And DeLay thinks that would be just grand:

An NYT editorial on "Justice Sunday"

Now that some conservatives are in a tizzy about federal judges, here is something for them to ponder: The liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court just took a stand in favor of gun-ownership rights, while the conservatives on the court took a stand against them.

Just a little more prooffrom Charlie Reese that there is nothing conservative about modern American conservatism. He makes a great point about the "any court" issue. Let's sat you pick up a felony gum chewing conviction in Singapore, sorry no handgun for you you're too dangerous. You rode in the front seat in Saudi Arabia? No gun. Any felony in any little criminal state on the planet. Nice. This from the won't cooperate with the UN crowd.

I'm still reading the decision. I'll get back to you on exactly what I think later. But without a thorough review, I do think the court ruled the wrong way on this particular case.

The guy was not convicted in a foreign court of gum chewing. He was convicted of firearms smuggling.

Here's another article explaining why the conservatives aren't. :(

Worse than the Nazis!

xoB, Thanks very much for the the link to an excellent article. It artfully expresses many of the problems I have with the blanket term conservative in use today. What a thought provoking article.

Second observation--I wish I could write like that. :admiring: