The proper role and scope of government

[Lamplighter]

Elsewhere, I posted my concern over Gingrich's intentions for his presidency.
Here are excerpts from the articles I cited.

NY Times Editorial
Dec 10, 2011

Mr. Gingrich’s Attack on the Courts

In any campaign season, voters are bound to hear Republican candidates talk about “activist judges”
— jurists who rule in ways that the right wing does not like.
But Newt Gingrich, who is leading in polls in Iowa,
is taking the normal attack on the justice system to a deep new low.

He is using McCarthyist tactics to smear judges.
His most outrageous scheme, a plan to challenge “judicial supremacy,”
has disturbing racial undertones. If he is serious about his plan,
a President Gingrich would break the balance of power that is
fundamental to our democracy.<snip>

The plan’s centerpiece is an attack on the landmark 1958 ruling in Cooper v. Aaron,
in which the Supreme Court reaffirmed that Arkansas had a duty to follow federal law.
For the first time in the court’s history, all nine justices individually signed the unanimous opinion.

They did so to stress that the “chaos, bedlam and turmoil” caused by
the governor’s refusal to obey the law was “intolerable.”
Unless the court acted as the final arbiter about the Constitution’s meaning,
as Marbury v. Madison instructed, chaos would prevail.

It was one of the court’s most important decisions.

----------------

Here is Gingrich's presentation: - it downloads a pdf file.

21st Century
Contract with America
Bringing the Courts Back Under the Constitution

NEWT 2012 Position Paper Supporting
Item No. 9 of the 21st Century Contract with America:

Restore the proper role of the judicial branch by using the clearly delineated
Constitutional powers available to the president and Congress to correct, limit, or
replace judges who violate the Constitution. <snip>

This NEWT 2012 campaign document serves as political notice to the public and to the
legislative and judicial branches that a Gingrich administration will reject the theory of judicial
supremacy and will reject passivity as a response to Supreme Court rulings that ignore executive
and legislative concerns and which seek to institute policy changes
that more properly rest with Congress.

A Gingrich administration will use any appropriate executive branch powers, by itself
and acting in coordination with the legislative branch, to check and balance any Supreme Court
decision it believes to be fundamentally unconstitutional and to rein in any federal judge(s)
whose rulings exhibit a disregard for the Constitution.<snip>

The rejection of judicial supremacy and the reestablishment of a constitutional balance of power
among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches will be an intense and difficult undertaking.
It is unavoidable if we are going to retain American freedoms and American identity.

Is anyone still willing to say: "Anyone but Obama"

[Lamplighter]

I wonder how Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito is feeling about Newt now.
Has he uttered the phrase: "Dear God, what have I wrought"

It was Alito, while working in the Reagan administration,
that expanded the concept of "Signing Statements" which in effect
allowed US Presidents to ignore parts of new legislation the President (by himself) deemed as unconstitutional.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

I wonder how Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito is feeling about Newt now.
Has he uttered the phrase: "Dear God, what have I wrought"

It was Alito, while working in the Reagan administration,
that expanded the concept of "Signing Statements" which in effect
allowed US Presidents to ignore parts of new legislation the President (by himself) deemed as unconstitutional.

Obama has been doing a pretty good job of that.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Obama has been doing a pretty good job of that.

He has?

here's a list of Obama's 17 signing statements.
http://www.coherentbabble.com/listBHOall.htm

And here's a list of Bush's signing statements - 85 in his first three years.
http://www.coherentbabble.com/listGWBall.htm

Regardless of how you perceive the egregiousness of some - any - of the statements, that's a HUGE gap. What are your problems with Obama's?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Elsewhere, I posted my concern over Gingrich's intentions for his presidency.
Here are excerpts from the articles I cited.

NY Times Editorial
Dec 10, 2011

Mr. Gingrich’s Attack on the Courts

----------------

Here is Gingrich's presentation: - it downloads a pdf file.

21st Century
Contract with America
Bringing the Courts Back Under the Constitution



Is anyone still willing to say: "Anyone but Obama"

Why does Newt hate the Constitution?