The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

[burd]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I would describe it as "confused".

You call it liberal, I'll conclude you're a Bircher. You call it confused, you've got me interested. How?

[joecct]

You call it liberal, I'll conclude you're a Bircher. You call it confused, you've got me interested. How?

You can't predict the outcomes. The Warren Court was predictable. The Rehnquist court was fairly predictable. The Roberts court is all over the place.

I thought the PPACA decision was a tap dance to justify a very poorly written law. DOMA, while correct, (Prop 8 OTOH) blew up state control of marriage by citing equal protection and opened a can of worms that nobody knows what will be the final result.

Citizens United is constitutionally correct. Just that a segment of the population either does not understand it or is woefully ignorant.

We're in interesting times. We're trying to determine if the Constitution means exactly what it says or is it a document that is open to interpretation. Its nothing new, but the penumbra seems to be getting larger.

EDIT: I have no wish to bring back wooden toilet seats. No way I'm a bircher.

[unofan]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Are you describing our current SC as liberal?

All judges are liberal, didn't you know that?

Bob thinks Roberts is a liberal because his vote upheld the ACA by a 5-4 margin.
He thinks Kennedy is a liberal because he upholds gay rights.
He thinks Scalia is a liberal because he upholds the first amendment in obscenity cases and flips with Breyer on many criminal cases.

I'm guessing he thinks Alito and Thomas are also liberals.

Never mind that the conservative wing wins roughly two out of every three 5-4 decisions that split along ideological lines and that the court hasn't been this conservative since before the Warren Court.

[unofan]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

You can't predict the outcomes.

Yeah you can. The only significant curveball from the Roberts court was the ACA decision, and that only came because Roberts switched his vote at the last minute.

Gay marriage, Hobby Lobby, voting rights act, affirmative action, first amendment cases, none of them were all that shocking.

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I'm no legal beagle, but I think this court is conservative on 1) money in politics and 2) guns. Its liberal on social issues for the most part in line with the country as a whole. Frankly it hasn't had to make too many game changing decisions in its time. The ACA ruling was merely to uphold an existing law, not make a new one. Probably the gay marriage ruling will be its lasting legacy. Because of this every small decison is blown up to be the next Brown v Board of Education in the media.

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Probably the gay marriage ruling will be its lasting legacy

I disagree. I think its legacy will be its deference to money in politics. At a time when everybody not wearing a SCOTUS robe recognizes that campaign contributions are by their very nature quid pro quo bribes and everybody not drawing a paycheck from the Koch Brothers or George Soros recognizes that wealth inequality is the most damaging and destabilizing problem we face, this Court majority is rehashing the Stephen J. Field gilded age decisions. The Court minority does not yet have its Harlan to restore sanity. Presumably, if Hillary wins two terms we'll see the Court finally stop propping up the robber barons and dramatically reverse course with decisions strictly limiting so-called corporate "personhood" and finally taking serious steps to stamp out the institutional bribery of K Street. Whichever justice leads that charge will be remembered as a great jurist. The current batch, at least the majority, will be remembered as a lackey running interference for just long enough so the plutocrats can sock away all their money in Guernsey.

[joecct]

I disagree. I think its legacy will be its deference to money in politics. At a time when everybody not wearing a SCOTUS robe recognizes that campaign contributions are by their very nature quid pro quo bribes and everybody not drawing a paycheck from the Koch Brothers or George Soros recognizes that wealth inequality is the most damaging and destabilizing problem we face, this Court majority is rehashing the Stephen J. Field gilded age decisions. The Court minority does not yet have its Harlan to restore sanity. Presumably, if Hillary wins two terms we'll see the Court finally stop propping up the robber barons and dramatically reverse course with decisions strictly limiting so-called corporate "personhood" and finally taking serious steps to stamp out the institutional bribery of K Street. Whichever justice leads that charge will be remembered as a great jurist. The current batch, at least the majority, will be remembered as a lackey running interference for just long enough so the plutocrats can sock away all their money in Guernsey.

Kepler

Call me cynical. How can Congress legislate K Street when they are the beneficiaries of their largesse? And, frankly, it's nothing new. The robber barons owned Congress back in the late 1800's and into the early 1900's.

It's the culture. How do you break the culture?

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Kepler

Call me cynical. How can Congress legislate K Street when they are the beneficiaries of their largesse? And, frankly, it's nothing new. The robber barons owned Congress back in the late 1800's and into the early 1900's.

It's the culture. How do you break the culture?

Cynical.

Congress won't legislate restrictions on their own bribes; that's why the Judiciary has to. This is a classic check and balance. The "culture" of Congress will never be broken, in the same way that the culture of criminality will never be redeemed. The best we can do, as the Federalists pointed out, is oppose force for force -- in this case, oppose the self-interest of the elites with the national interest.

Our most serious problems are caused by failure to fully apply checks and balances. Congress shirks its responsibilities so the Executive becomes over-powerful. Both Congress and the President owe their positions to big money; the President appoints FIFA-esque jurists who look the other way on bribery, so there is a vicious cycle of super-wealthy interests owning and operating the country for their self-interest at the expense of the vast majority of voters. This has happened before, and the Progressive Movement fixed many of the abuses. As long as the electorate has not been tranquilized by corporate media and entertainment and divided/distracted by campaign-tactic culture wars, that can happen again. And if it doesn't, frankly, we don't deserve our democracy anyway.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

I think its legacy will be its deference to money in politics.

In today's world, how can anyone exercise their First Amendment rights without money? The Roberts Court takes the First Amendment seriously. Lots of progressives today are openly advocating restrictions on free speech rights, and we can see in college campuses across the nation that progressives are quite content to restrict the right of peacable free association as well.

There is always money in politics. If you go back through our entire history, even before the Revolutionary War, publishing pamphlets and distributing them was a very common and popular way to express political opinion. No one printed those pamphlets for free, someone always paid for them somehow.

The alternative you implicitly endorse can easily be called the "incumbent job security act" and given the woeful track record of most incumbents, that would be worse.

Do you want "lousy" or "even worse than that"?


This whole "money in politics" nonsense is just a smokescreen for a more sinister underlying agenda that really creeps me out big time.


it is a far better choice to allow the money to flow openly along with full disclosure about where it came from, for both incumbents and challengers. I am even slightly leery about the "full disclosure" part because of the threat of "tyranny by the mob" it would allow.

[joecct]

Cynical.

Congress won't legislate restrictions on their own bribes; that's why the Judiciary has to. This is a classic check and balance. The "culture" of Congress will never be broken, in the same way that the culture of criminality will never be redeemed. The best we can do, as the Federalists pointed out, is oppose force for force -- in this case, oppose the self-interest of the elites with the national interest.

Our most serious problems are caused by failure to fully apply checks and balances. Congress shirks its responsibilities so the Executive becomes over-powerful. Both Congress and the President owe their positions to big money; the President appoints FIFA-esque jurists who look the other way on bribery, so there is a vicious cycle of super-wealthy interests owning and operating the country for their self-interest at the expense of the vast majority of voters. This has happened before, and the Progressive Movement fixed many of the abuses. As long as the electorate has not been tranquilized by corporate media and entertainment and divided/distracted by campaign-tactic culture wars, that can happen again. And if it doesn't, frankly, we don't deserve our democracy anyway.

The courts cannot create law. And they are extremely loathe to overturn precedent that stretches back to before the founding of the Republic.

The Roberts Court had it right - it is not the court's responsibility to overturn or fix a badly written law. Your choice is either (carefully!!!) amend the Constitution or craft a law that meets Constitutional muster. Good luck.

Or vote new people into Congress that do not become beholden to the lobbyists. Again, good luck.

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

This whole "Money in politics" schtick ignores the notion that it all just cancels each other out.

If you ever read the whiners at Daily Kos, you'll hear nothing but complaints about corporate donations. Great, but since the Dems outraise the Republicans I'm not sure what the issue is. A lot of corporations give money to both sides in order to hedge their bets, which you might expect.

Disclosure is important, and if some reclusive billionaires want to self fund a political party, no problem but don't complain if you yourself become a campaign issue. I personally thought the campaign rulings are stupid by the SCOTUS, but they've had minimal impact except to separate billionaires from their money with very little to show for it. I mean, if corporations were all powerful, wouldn't we be talking about President Romney right now? You don't get much more corporate than that guy.

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

This whole "Money in politics" schtick ignores the notion that it all just cancels each other out.

This is incorrect. It cancels out left vs right, but it doesn't cancel out cui bono. It is entirely possible to have a Democratic-controlled government that is as plutocratic and a GOP-controlled government (Hillary is about to give us all a lesson in just how possible).

The Dems use inequality the way the GOP uses abortion. "Oh yes, we're against it, and if it weren't for those terrible so-and-sos on the other side we'd pass effective legislation tomorrow, so vote for us!" But at the same time, every nice Dem congressman sends his daughter to Andover and Princeton, and every nice GOP congressman makes sure his daughter has a quick, discrete termination if she should happen to get into "trouble."

I vote Dem because I want to see Dem policies in place, but the larger problem of lifting the dead weight of the plutocratic parasite off our back is not going to get solved by the current party configuration. That's going to have to boil up from below, and it will probably be a populist movement that is as much right as left and brings with it as many problems as it solves.

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

This is incorrect. It cancels out left vs right, but it doesn't cancel out cui bono. It is entirely possible to have a Democratic-controlled government that is as plutocratic and a GOP-controlled government (Hillary is about to give us all a lesson in just how possible).

The Dems use inequality the way the GOP uses abortion. "Oh yes, we're against it, and if it weren't for those terrible so-and-sos on the other side we'd pass effective legislation tomorrow, so vote for us!" But at the same time, every nice Dem congressman sends his daughter to Andover and Princeton, and every nice GOP congressman makes sure his daughter has a quick, discrete termination if she should happen to get into "trouble."

I vote Dem because I want to see Dem policies in place, but the larger problem of lifting the dead weight of the plutocratic parasite off our back is not going to get solved by the current party configuration. That's going to have to boil up from below, and it will probably be a populist movement that is as much right as left and brings with it as many problems as it solves.

Kep you're a rebel without a cause. FDR sent his kids to Harvard. Did he not care about the poor? Wanting your kids to go to the best universities instead of Beer Can Community College doesn't lessen your committment to making sure everybody gets a fair shake in life.

If we had such a plutocratic gubmint no matter who's on power, 1) the Consumer Protection Bureau wouldn't exist, and 2) Tax hikes on the rich wouldn't have been enacted last year. Somebody is putting these laws into place. How 'bout giving credit where credit is due.

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

Kep you're a rebel without a cause. FDR sent his kids to Harvard. Did he not care about the poor? Wanting your kids to go to the best universities instead of Beer Can Community College doesn't lessen your committment to making sure everybody gets a fair shake in life.

If we had such a plutocratic gubmint no matter who's on power, 1) the Consumer Protection Bureau wouldn't exist, and 2) Tax hikes on the rich wouldn't have been enacted last year. Somebody is putting these laws into place. How 'bout giving credit where credit is due.

As I have always said, the Dems are better, as long as we keep an eye on them. That's why I'm not running around Dupont Circle with my Occupy bongo drum and my Green Party tin foil Mao beret (it really catches the foliage).

But at the end of the day, it's because center-right beats far-right.

[Rover]

Re: The Power of SCOTUS V: The Final Frontier

As I have always said, the Dems are better, as long as we keep an eye on them. That's why I'm not running around Dupont Circle with my Occupy bongo drum and my Green Party tin foil Mao beret (it really catches the foliage).

But at the end of the day, it's because center-right beats far-right.

Gay marriage. $1.5B cuts in defense spending. $700M tax hikes on the wealthy. PPACA. Dodd-Frank. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

We live in a center-left country. We have been for at least the last 22 years.