Time for a new ump
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Time for a new ump
This op-ed by law professor Geoffrey Stone lays out the issues in picking a new Supreme Court justice pretty well:
Rulings by conservative justices in the past decade make it perfectly clear that they do not “apply the law” in a neutral and detached manner. Consider, for example, their decisions holding that corporations have the same right of free speech as individuals, that commercial advertising receives robust protection under the First Amendment, that the Second Amendment prohibits the regulation of guns, that affirmative action is unconstitutional, that the equal protection clause mandated the election of George W. Bush and that the Boy Scouts have a First Amendment right to exclude gay scoutmasters.
Whatever one thinks of these decisions, it should be apparent that conservative judges do not disinterestedly call balls and strikes. Rather, fueled by their own political and ideological convictions, they make value judgments, often in an aggressively activist manner that goes well beyond anything the framers themselves envisioned. There is nothing simple, neutral, objective or restrained about such decisions. For too long, conservatives have set the terms of the debate about judges, and they have done so in a highly misleading way. Americans should see conservative constitutional jurisprudence for what it really is. And liberals must stand up for their vision of the judiciary.
Of course, it doesn't really matter because Obama is going to pick a conservative anyway.
WPE- Worst President Ever............."Under Obama's budget plan, the USA's debt in 2020 would be nearly the size of the entire economy then. Interest costs would be $900 billion, five times today's level................. The White House, Congress, budget experts and typical Americans are growing anxious about the nation's mounting debt, which is helping to fuel the rise of the anti-tax, anti-big government Tea Party movement.................... Yet the only solutions capable of raising enough money are politically dangerous for the president and Congress: tax increases and major reductions in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security."..............................TAX AND SPEND LIBERALS- ARE MORONS.— Manny Trillo- Liberals most illogical people on earth- no wonder they are all teachers, actors, musicians, ditch diggers.....— Manny Trillo
- So, Manny, teachers are useless?— Yersinia Pestis
Does the text of the Constitution differentiate between individuals and other entities regarding freedom of speech? The the text of the second amendment state that the right to bear arms "shall not be infringed". Isn't regulation, by defininton, an infringement? Where exactly in the text does the Constitution provide for "affirmative action"? Did the equal protection clause mandate the election of George Bush, or did it protect a citizens vote from being invalidated using subjective criteria? I think it's obvious who's really in line with the Constitution here?— jmc
Comment removed.- Quoting without sources again, Manny? There's help for that. Wonder if Beck will raise a stink about the whole boys dressing in women's clothes thing in Jersey. That seems like a major conservative issue in this day and time, plus the woman is a tea partier.— HandNik
- jmc, for your edification, here's the exact FULL text of the second amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."— Yersinia Pestis
I liked Manny Trillo the baseball player. Manny Trillo the commenter, not so much.— potus- potus, maybe we can trade him for Cliff Lee...:-)— Yersinia Pestis
- Yersinia: I understand the full text of the 2nd Amendment which is why I came to the conclusion I did in my previous post. My omission was to keep the post length short.— jmc
Manny, your complete and total ignorance is showing once again.— Les Ismore- jmc, the point was that the text CONTAINS the word "regulated". How can regulation be an infringement when a well-regulated militia is the purpose of the amendment? My own reading of it is that there is a right to keep and bear arms ONLY for members of a recognized, regulated militia, but apparently all the wise conservative judges understand plain English much better and with more subtlety than I do.— Yersinia Pestis
- Pleae dont bother Manny's beautiful mind with facts. He is living in another world.— Les Ismore
- Oh Cicero. Umm, Bush passed the middle class tax cuts that Obama extened. The mortgage relief program is a diaster, and Obama's first. trillion dollar deficit has not increased health care coverage.— RG
- Comment removed.
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