The Nature of Things

So, this just happened. Justices Back Federal Health Care Subsidy - New York Times headline The Supreme Court has spoken. Does that mean that the opponents of the Affordable Care Act will finally accept reality and beat their swords into plowshares? Not likely. Just read the statements of the Republican candidates for the presidency in response to the decision. They've spent years enflaming their base with hatred for this law. To give up now would be to disappoint that base that the candidates need for a primary win. So, no doubt the fiery, intemperate rhetoric will continue.  But, for now, the health care of millions of Americans is safe. And that is a good thing.

On the last day of the Supreme Court's session, a poll was released which reflects the American people's trust and confidence in the institution .  That confidence rate stands at 30% - or at least it did before the court announced decisions on its last two cases yesterday. I suspect that rate may be even lower today. This is sad. I can remember when the court was held in high esteem, but it is now at its lowest ebb since polls started being taken on the issue in 1973. If it continues on its present path of rewriting the Constitution as a strictly right-wing instrument, confidence in the court is most likely destined to fall into the single digits. That is not good for the country, but that's what you get when the court is peopled by mediocrities like Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Anthony Kennedy,  intolerant religious warriors like Antonin Scalia, and arch conservatives bent on furthering their political philosophy like John Roberts. It is perhaps telling that all of t...

So, yesterday the Supreme Court overturned on a vote of 5-4 the heart of the Voting Rights Act, in spite of the fact that the Act had been reauthorized by an overwhelming vote of Congress - the Senate passed it unanimously and the House passed it 390 to 33 - in 2006, and subsequently signed by President Bush who professed to be extremely happy to do so.  This near-unanimous support in the Legislative and Executive branches of government was completely overlooked and held to be worthless by the Supreme Court in its decision. The majority - the usual suspects: Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and, in this case, Kennedy - essentially found that racism no longer is a barrier to voting in the United States.  And I look around the state of Texas and most of the states of the old Confederacy, as well as Arizona, and I have to wonder: Exactly what country are these guys looking at?   So, today, the Supreme Court strikes down on a 5-4 vote - this time Kennedy joined the other side ...

The Supreme Court of the United States has appeared less and less supreme in recent years. Not that its power to interpret the Constitution has been impaired but that its interpretations have seemed more and more politically partisan and less and less actually based on the rule of law. Two high points of this politically partisan court are usually cited by its critics as evidence of its right-wing bias. The first, of course, was the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 that stopped the count of votes in Florida and substituted the Court's own vote for the popular vote of the people in that year's presidential election. The reasoning behind this decision was so flawed and convoluted that even those who wrote it (Scalia) stipulated that it could not be cited as precedent in any other case. The second was the notorious Citizens United decision which declared that corporations have the same rights as people! In fact, in the view of the Court, they have even more rights than people becaus...

There was a time in my memory when our Supreme Court was held in high esteem and citizens could be generally assured that decisions made by the court were made on the basis of the cases' merits and in accordance with the Constitution.  No more. The Supreme Court under the Chief Justiceship of John Roberts has become a hotbed of political activity where it seems that cases are decided primarily based on what would advantage the court's favorite political party.  From the outrageous ruling of the court on the disputed presidential election in 2000 right through the possibly even more laughable finding that corporations are people, too, this court has lost all claim to be considered an objective arbiter of constitutional issues.  The majority's opinions are always informed by the latest talking points of the right-wing. The latest evidence of their bias came on the day that the court decided to take up the case filed against the health care reform bill.  On that very da...

It's funny how one's perspective changes with time and circumstances . For example, when George Bush nominated Harriet Miers, who had zero judicial experience and little other experience except for being a Bush sycophant, for the Supreme Court back in 2005, our own Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison thought it was a great nomination. Hutchison said Miers was a "wonderful choice" in 2005, but today she "has some concerns over Elena Kagan's lack of judicial experience." Likewise, Texas' other esteemed senator, John Cornyn, said of the Miers nomination, "One reason I felt so strongly about Harriet Miers' qualifications is I thought she would fill some very important gaps in the Supreme Court. Because right now you have people who've been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians." But that was then. This is now. Cornyn says of Kagan, "Ms. Kagan is a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience. Most ...

Media outlets around the country are licking their chops and wetting themselves in anticipation of another summer of conflicts and tea parties across the nation now that Justice John Paul Stevens has announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court at age 90. They are hoping for a highly controversial nominee to replace Justice Stevens, someone who will keep the pot of discontent boiling. Conflict is good business for them, and if it doesn't come naturally, outlets like Fox News will do their best to engender it. Of course, the truth is that no matter who President Obama nominates, that person will immediately be controversial to the tea partiers and their Republican allies. There isn't even a nominee yet, but the imaginary nominee is already being denounced by the most rabid of these wack-a-doodles. Unfortunately, for those of us on the opposite of the political poles from the tea partiers, it seems highly unlikely that the president will nominate anyone who can fill J...