in the wrong era. Soundly refuting
liberals online since 2000. NOTE: That is NOT
me pictured at left. :)
| ABC News | New Tone: Obama Camp Says Clyburn’s ‘Raping’ Comment Is Inappropriate |
0 |
| Biz Insider | Intriguing: EXCLUSIVE: Here’s The Inside Story Of What Happened On The FB IPO |
0 |
| Lee Stranahan | This: Friday, May 25th Is “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day” |
0 |
| Gallup | 0 | |
| The Hill | Whoa: 4 in 10 Democrats desert Obama in Arkansas, Kentucky primaries |
0 |
Audacity of Truth
"Diplomacy":
"People are saying what in the world is going on with North Carolina, we look like Mississippi." - NC Gov. Bev Perdue (D) on the passage of Amendment One, 5-11-12
Double dis on SCOTUS justices from Democrats in the same week
There’s something in the water in DC more so than there usually is, because twice in one week, a leader in each house of Congress has come out and strongly insulted two current SCOTUS justices, one of them the Chief Justice.
The first time around was House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank, who described Justice Antonin Scalia “a homophobe.” He explained why he felt that way here.
The latest attack is even worse. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went on record today as suggesting that Chief Justice John Roberts was a liar:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that John Roberts misled the Senate during his confirmation hearings by pretending to be a moderate — and that the United States is now “stuck” with him as chief justice.
“Roberts didn’t tell us the truth. At least Alito told us who he was,” Reid said, referring to Samuel Alito, the second Supreme Court justice nominated by President George W. Bush. “But we’re stuck with those two young men, and we’ll try to change by having some moderates in the federal courts system as time goes on — I think that will happen.”
Reid’s comments, which came during a wide-ranging discussion hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, reflect Democratic concerns that Roberts presented himself as a neutral arbiter of the law but has wielded a relentlessly conservative agenda. Republicans reject the attacks, saying Roberts has been a fair judge and has been consistent in his opinions.
A couple of things: First, what’s Reid saying here? That it’s ok after all to apply a philsophical litmus test to prospective judges and justices? The rule of thumb – or so I thought – is that justices and judges were supposed to be confirmed or denied not based on their personal philosphical beliefs but instead on their Constitutional knowledge and whether or not they could make their rulings based on a strict reading and understanding of Constitutional law. Reid’s comments confirm what conservatives have believed about the left all along, in that liberals indeed do believe philosphical litmus tests should be applied to prospective benchers.
Secondly, is it just me, or are both Frank and Reid exceptionally out of line with their remarks about sitting justices? It’s one thing for a political figure to make a general comment about the court by suggesting they want to see more strict constructionists on the bench, or to criticize a ruling, but it’s another thing altogether to attack the integrity of the court itself by suggesting without basis that not only were there “liars” on the court but also that there are justices on the court who hate entire groups of people. And Ed Whelan reminds us that this isn’t the first time Reid has lashed out at a SCOTUS justice:
Unfortunately, Reid has a long history of reckless and irresponsible statements. Recall Reid’s baseless assertion that Justice Thomas is an “embarrassment” to the Court because his opinions are supposedly “poorly written.”
Reid’s comments then and now, along with Frank’s, are shameful and embarassing – especially since both Frank and reid are prominent leaders in the Dem party – and would lead the casual follower of politics to believe that they should have little to no confidence in the Supreme Court due to alleged “liars” and “homophobes” serving on it. So far, neither one has backed up their remarks about Roberts, Thomas, and Scalia with definitive proof (although in Frank’s case he attempted – and failed badly – to explain himself via a post published at the HuffPo, which I noted earlier). Both of them need to either get specific and show strong evidence to prove their assertions, or apologize.
Yeah, I know – I won’t hold my breath.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
In an recent interview with Hoover Institution, elaborating on his earlier statement that “devotees of The Living Constitution do not seek to facilitate social change but to prevent it”[1], Justice Scalia said:
1. Scalia, A., & Gutmann, A. (1998). A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton University Press.
That’s actually not the case. The traditional standard has been much looser: unless a nominee is obviously incompetent or corrupt, the practice has been to approve nominees. If what you describe was true, ST, then progressive justices such as Brandeis, Frankfurter, or Ginsburg would never have been confirmed; their jurisprudence involves a lot that goes beyond a strict interpretation of the Constitution.
In fact, the process of judicial confirmation has been so pro forma through most of our history that nominees to the SCOTUS didn’t even start appearing before the Judiciary Committee before the 1920s.
Anyway, Republicans held to this principle of giving the president his choice for longer than the Democrats: most Republicans voted for Ginsburg, but the Democrats treated Judge Bork shamefully.
As for Reid, it’s all too easy to say a politician one doesn’t like is “stupid,” but, in his case, I think it may be apt. He says far too many stupid things for me not to question his basic intelligence.
Gahahahlly, Sarge, if ya feel that strongly about it, why don’tcha try to remove him? Maybe ’cause ya know that 1) you’d lose and 2) it’d show the entire world what an idiot ya are and how poorly ya understand the Constitution and 3) it’d let the world know ya don’t give two hoots and a holler ’bout what the judiciary is supposed to do, ya just want them ta rule the Constitution unconstitutional?
We all know Frank’s a pig, but I wouldn’t disparage pigs by calling Reid one. Pigs are too intelligent for that.
The point in both cases is actually to try to tear down the very perspective of “Justices operate within rules that work” – which is turn just another large step further down the path of destroying the concept of “There are rules that work.”
If the Left can just complete this attack/operation, that began decades ago, then ‘We The People’ will be left without an acceptably objective structure of ‘Right & Wrong’ from which to base a resistance to whatever depredations against our country, freedoms & persons they find personally enriching or expedient in their continuing quest to be in-charge-of-absolutely-everything.
– MuscleDaddy
And what about the case of David Souter or the fellow appointed by Gerald Ford, both of whom veered sharply leftward after testifying as centrists in the hearings by the Judicial Cte.
I guess for the double-standard moron which Dingy Harry ["The War is Lost"] represents, that doesn’t count. It is simply amazing what this pathetic quiver-voiced victim of senile dementia gets away with in the MSM, without any notice by the so-called guardians of democracy in the Fourth Estate.
Reid represents the corrupt sleaze of DC more even than his counterpart in the House of Rep, as his sons toil away working as lobbyists in the basement of his home on Capitol Hill [at least he isn't running a prostitution for perverts operation as Elmer Barney Fudd Frank was doing while his "husband" was running Fan/Fred and pushing the economy into a Community Reinvestment Act Mortgage catastrophe.
Reid is simply a total fool ["There's no fool like an old fool, Ben Franklin said"] devoted to collecting pictures of Ben on $100 bills.
What a silly old man.
Dirty Harry Reid is an embrassment, to all the democrats in the Senate. Reid is the best leader the Senate democrats can find. Pathetic.
I hope Alito,Scalia and Roberts live to be 110 !!
I just hope we all survive the next 4 years!
I pray that the NV GOP will field a strong candidate to challenge Reid. Every time he opens his yap he embarrasses me.