The Daily Planet, Vol. 2

Two stories about the Supremes. Studies have shown that the SCOTUS in NOT immune to public opinion.

From the SCOTUS own website:

“Hamilton had written that through the practice of judicial review the Court ensured that the will of the whole people, as expressed in their Constituti­on, would be supreme over the will of a legislatur­e, whose statutes might express only the temporary will of part of the people.

And Madison had written that constituti­onal interpreta­tion must be left to the reasoned judgment of independen­t judges, rather than to the tumult and conflict of the political process. If every constituti­onal question were to be decided by public political bargaining­, Madison argued, the Constituti­on would be reduced to a battlegrou­nd of competing factions, political passion and partisan spirit.”

The Bigger Clarence Thomas Scandal

It would be comforting to think that Thomas’ shady behavior was an anomaly, but it’s actually just the most egregious example of trends that have made Supreme Court justices seem more like hypocritical and partisan politicians than disinterested jurists. If left unchecked, the court will seriously damage its public image.

The problem has two roots: changing social norms and lax ethical rules governing the Supremes. The former is beyond the scope of our government but the latter isn’t, and Congress should act.

…

There’s some reason to be optimistic. This past week, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill to create an inspector general for the judiciary who would have authority over the Supreme Court. That — combined with a law that would impose the important elements of the Code of Judicial Conduct on the Supreme Court and create a mechanism to enforce it — could help save the Court from itself.

Gaming the System

At the Supreme Court, could legal precedent be less important than popular opinion?

[J]ust nine months ago, it was an article of faith among court watchers that President Obama’s health care reform plan would be upheld at the Supreme Court by a margin of 7-2 or 8-1. Today it is an equally powerful article of faith that everything rests in the hands of Justice Anthony Kennedy in what will surely be a 5-4 decision. What changed between last March and last Monday?

…

To those in the business of making predictions about the Supreme Court justices, one thing that did change was a smoke signal sent up by Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia last month in a passionate dissent from the court’s refusal to hear a case from the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals. Alderman v. United States involved the right of the federal government to criminalize a violent felon’s purchase of body armor. And as Andrew Cohen explained it, the two justices weren’t obligated to publish a lengthy dissent, spelling out…their view that the Commerce Clause does not allow the federal government to make such a regulation. Their small treatise on the limits of the Commerce Clause’s power, Cohen wrote, “confirms to the world that no more than seven votes on the Supreme Court are still in play over the constitutionality of the federal health care measure.”

***

I am feeling that the abortion issue is too far off most people’s radar, and that worries me. This was settled law, yet we are re-litigating it.

Culture Shock

How the GOP’s abortion-mania caught Washington off guard.

Many Beltway insiders seem to have convinced themselves that abortion doesn’t matter anymore. Just look at the press clippings from CPAC, where Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels wowed his D.C. cheerleaders with a speech doubling down on his earlier call for a “truce” over culture-war issues like abortion. Chris Christie came into town a few days later, and excited a lot of the same people with a speech focused almost exclusively on the idea that entitlement-spending cuts are the nation’s top priority. Big-time conservative strategists like Michael Barone have opined that a truce over abortion policy—as reflected in a structure of legalized abortion with “reasonable” state restrictions—is already in place. And we are told incessantly that the driving force in Republican politics, the Tea Party movement, is basically libertarian in its orientation and wildly uninterested in cultural issues.

How out of touch could they be? It’s rare to see the Washington zeitgeist so disconnected from the reality of what conservative activists and their representatives are doing and saying on the ground in Iowa, in state capitals across the country, and next door in the House of Representatives. Far from being a sideshow, the Right-to-Life movement’s priorities have been front-and-center for conservatives across the country.

…

Why are Republicans are still fixated on abortion, at a time when they seem to be slowly drifting toward tolerance, or at least relative indifference, on other culture-war issues such as LGBT rights? For one thing, public opinion on abortion seems frozen in amber: Notably, in sharp contrast with issues like gay marriage, there’s no evidence of generational change. But the main reason for the GOP’s focus on restricting and ultimately outlawing abortion is simply that the Right-to-Life movement has worked very hard for many years to make itself perhaps the most impossible-to-ignore, dangerous-to-diss faction in Republican politics, particularly at the presidential level. Its strength was most recently illustrated when it stopped John McCain from choosing Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge as his 2008 running mate, and had its poster pol, Sarah Palin, placed on the ticket instead. That’s power.

***

Just some good news we never hear. There were many more protests from the Left and they didn’t only involve students. IMO, we need to point those out to ALL news outlets. I think it would be energizing if we knew just how many Progressives are taking to the streets.

The Top 14 Student Activism Stories of The Year

A core mission of StudentNation is to highlight the frequent but often overlooked instances of student and youth engagement with critical political, economic and cultural questions. This round-up below offers an incomplete but illustrative survey of the scope and breadth of student activism currently.

Related:

Indignez-vous!

***

Oh, great. Another treasonous hate group to pay attention to:

Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason

Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing “patriot” group that’s recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.

***

Oh, great. It’s not only the Kochs. Another disgusting RW big-money group.

How John Birch Society Extremism Never Dies: The Fortune Behind Scott Walker’s Union-Busting Campaign

Much of Walker’s critical political support can be credited to a network of right-wing fronts and astroturf groups in Wisconsin supported largely by a single foundation in Milwaukee: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, a $460 million conservative honey pot dedicated to crushing the labor movement.

Walker has deeply entwined his administration with the Bradley Foundation. The Bradley Foundation’s CEO, former state GOP chairman Michele Grebe, chaired Walker’s campaign and headed his transition. But more importantly, the organizations lining up to support Walker are financed by Bradley cash…

Media Transparency’s profile of the Bradley Foundation sheds light on its founder:

Robert Welch, who founded the Society in 1958, was a regular speaker at Allen-Bradley sales meetings. Harry distributed Birchite literature, as did Fred Loock, another key figure at the company. They also supported the Australian doctor Fred Schwarz, founder of the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade; William F. Buckley, Jr.’s National Review; and a right-wing Midwest radio program produced by anti-communist producer Bob Siegrist. Harry’s main political targets were “World Communism” and the U.S. federal government, not necessarily in that order. His political philosophy was laissez-faire capitalism, and he was strongly opposed to anything that might restrict his freedom to conduct his business as he saw fit.

***

And finally, this is why I am in such strong support of the US Uncut protest on Feb 26^th. If they can do it with all their corporate backing, we MUST do it too!

The Tea Party Is Winning

Washington – Take five steps back and consider the nature of the political conversation in our nation’s capital. You would never know that it’s taking place at a moment when unemployment is still at 9 percent, when wages for so many people are stagnating at best, and when the United States faces unprecedented challenges to its economic dominance.

No, we are acting here as if the only real problem the United States confronts is the budget deficit; the only test of leadership is whether a president is willing to make big cuts in programs that protect the elderly; and the largest threat to our prosperity comes from public employees.

…

The media are full of commentary on President Obama’s “failure of leadership.” There is some truth to the critique but not in the way the charge is typically made.

Obama is not at fault for his budget proposals. But any fair examination of the news suggests that he is in danger of losing control of the national narrative again, just as he did during the stimulus and health care battles.

In his State of the Union address, Obama made a good case that budget cutting is too small an agenda and that this is also a time for more government — yes, more government — in areas that would expand opportunities and strengthen the economy. That argument has been entirely drowned out. If politics is reduced to a crabbed and crabby accountants’ war, Obama loses. The country will, too.