Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Reality: No Balanced Budget For Long Time, And National Debt Will Continue To Rise!

Ronald Leave a comment

In the midst of all the debates about who is “better” for the country, the team of Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden, or the team of Republicans Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, something is being forgotten or ignored!

There will be no balanced budget for a long time, and the national debt will continue to rise!

There is no magic potion to bring about a balanced budget, or to prevent the national debt from rising!

So whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is elected, one will see both the budget issue and the national debt issue continue to be a center of heated debate!

The difference is who will “benefit” from what government does–the middle class and the poor, if Obama wins; or the wealthy top two percent if Romney wins!

But it is more than that!

It is also which man will cause the national defense budget and foreign interventions to grow, adding to our burden, and it is clear that Mitt Romney, with his loose, reckless rhetoric toward Iran, Russia and China, will cause us a lot more financial burden and many more lost American military lives than Barack Obama!

And it is also what direction do we want the nation to go regarding constitutional law! Do we want more Antonin Scalias, Clarence Thomases, and Samuel Alitos? Or do we want more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs, Stephen Breyers, Sonia Sotomayors, and Elena Kagans? This will determine more of the future, economically and socially, than anything else!

It is foreign policy and constitutional law, two areas most people are ignoring, that will have a greater impact on our future than the false argument that, somehow, one or the other candidate for President will, magically, balance the budget, or stop the rise in the national debt, when neither will be able to do anything about either of those matters!

America In 2012: African American President, Irish Catholic Vice President, Mormon Presidential Candidate, Supreme Court Of Catholics, Jews, Women, African American And Hispanic, And The Third Woman Secretary Of State!

Ronald 2 Comments

In the midst of all the turmoil we are going through politically, America should sit back and marvel at how far this nation has come by 2012.

We have an African American President, Barack Obama!

We have an Irish Catholic Vice President, Joe Biden, the only Catholic since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

We have a Mormon Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.

We have a Supreme Court consisting of six Catholics (Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor) and three Jews (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan), and also an African American (Clarence Thomas), an Hispanic, (Sonia Sotomayor) and three women (Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) on the Court.

And we have the third woman Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, after two earlier ones (Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice (one with Jewish heritage and one African American).

So we have a lot to be proud of in 2012, with the tremendous amount of diversity!

Despite Health Care Ruling, Supreme Court Is Still Out Of Control, And Presidential Election Will Decide If It Regains Confidence Of The American People!

Ronald Leave a comment

The Supreme Court came through by the barest of margins on the issue of “ObamaCare” last week, but when one looks at the Court’s radical swing to the right in so many other ways, it is clear that the future reputation of the Court and the long term future of the nation requires the victory of Barack Obama for a second term as President.

By confirming their Citizens United decision again in a case involving Montana state law, and by actions against labor unions and their rights in another case, and in the solidity most of the time of the Republican appointees in rejecting past precedent and tradition, the Court has gained an image of being extremist and confrontational, and lost American public opinion and respect, which is dangerous for our democracy.

Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush effectively moved the Court away from the political center to the extreme right, and we are suffering the effects of this extremist rightward tilt.

We cannot afford to base the future on Anthony Kennedy SOMETIMES going with the liberal side of the Court, or Chief Justice John Roberts seemingly being concerned about the reputation of the Court. Neither is reliable to keep the Court in the political center, and protect the rights of the powerless.

The only answer is to insure that when the older members of the Supreme Court retire or die while in service on the Court, that we replace them with Justices who have a vision of the country more in line with the reality of the 21st century than the 19th century Gilded Age!

With Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to be over 80 before the next Presidential term ends, the likelihood is that whoever is President in the next four years will have a transformative effect on the Supreme Court and constitutional law.

The thought of Mitt Romney making those choices is truly terrifying, and will make the Court a right wing extremist influence into the 2040s, totally unacceptable!

Barack Obama will be able to make the Court shift more into the mainstream, preserving the brilliant times of the Warren Court in the 1950s and 1960s, when America advanced constitutionally in so many ways!

One Dark Part Of The Supreme Court Decision On “Obamacare”: Commerce Clause Limited For First Time Since New Deal, Thrilling Libertarians!

Ronald Leave a comment

As one analyzes the Supreme Court decision on “ObamaCare” written by Chief Justice John Roberts, in the midst of the celebration, one has to pause and be concerned about Roberts’ assertion that the “commerce clause”, utilized regularly since the New Deal to permit expansion of federal power, was declared limited by a 5-4 vote of Roberts and all four Republican and conservative appointments on the Court—Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito–and vigorously opposed by the four Democratic and liberal appointments—Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Instead, Roberts said the law was constitutional based on the “mandate” being a tax.

LIbertarians are cheered by this aspect of the case, but it COULD effectively limit federal power, and restore states rights back to the pre 1930s view, which would indeed be tragic in so many ways!

So the battle over the future of government, and over what the Roberts majority opinion means for the long term, will be the subject of much discussion, debate, and cases over the coming years!

A Reminder: The Supreme Court Determines The Future!

Ronald Leave a comment

WIth the Supreme Court term about to end on Thursday, and all of the tumult about the upcoming decision on the Affordable Care Act, and the decisions today on immigration, corporate spending in campaigns, and juvenile sentencing for life terms for murder fresh on one’s mind, it is again important to remember what most Americans don’t even know or realize: The Supreme Court determines the future, more than any part of American government!

A lifetime job, with total freedom to say and do what one wants, is a great power, and we are now suffering from the reality that Ronald Reagan may be dead for eight years, but two of his appointments to the Court (Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy) are still dictating much of what happens in America; George H. W. Bush’s appointee, Clarence Thomas, is not going away anytime soon; and George W. Bush’s two appointments, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, will be around for at least two more decades on the Court, assuming good health!

And now with Scalia and Kennedy being 76, and Clinton appointees Ruth Bader Ginsberg being 79 and Stephen Breyer being 73, it is certain that one to four appointments are likely to be made by the winner of the 2012 election.

Can we afford President Romney shaping a Court that will be to the “right of Attila the Hun?”

It would destroy the chance for fairness, equity, humanity on the Court, and would continue the corporate conquest of American government going on with the Citizens United case, and the new Montana case just decided, that reaffirmed that earlier, disgraceful, decision!

It cannot be emphasized enough that NOTHING matters more than the Supreme Court and the federal circuit judges in this upcoming Presidential election! Economic policy and foreign policy are much less significant than constitutional law!

Obama and his supporters NEED to bring up this issue regularly, and never stop referring to it, with the hope that it will penetrate the brains of the American people!

Barack Obama On The Attack Against Republicans And Conservatives: Critical Of The Supreme Court And The Paul Ryan Budget Plan

Ronald Leave a comment

Barack Obama has gone on the offensive against conservative and Republican philosophy, both on the Supreme Court and in Congress.

Already throwing down the gauntlet to the Supreme Court yesterday, Obama pointed out that the commerce clause and Supreme Court case history and two Circuit Court Judges (Laurence Silberman and Jeffrey Sutton) are a call for backing the Obama Health Care law, and it is clear that IF the Court declares it unconstitutional, the Court itself will be an issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign of 2012. And it is certain that the KEY issue of 2012, no matter what happens, is to realize that the future judicial appointments to the Supreme Court and the lower courts matter more than ANYTHING economic or foreign policy related, because the judiciary is a lifetime appointment!

If we are upset over a 5-4 Court to the right, imagine a 7-2 Court under a Republican President when and if Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, both in their 70s, leave the Court over the next four to eight years!

But today, President Obama is also mounting a full scale assault on the Paul Ryan budget plan adopted by the House Republican majority for the second year in a row, which includes massive tax cuts to the rich beyond the Bush tax cuts, and major cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and all other domestic spending programs that benefit the poor and the struggling middle class, as well as the elderly.

Obama is calling it today’s “Social Darwinism”, the prevalent philosophy of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, a period being matched and surpassed with the growing concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the population in the past ten years, and now threatening to be even more concentrated under the budget plan of the House Budget Committee Chairman.

And with the growing possibility that Ryan might be the Vice Presidential running mate of Mitt Romney, the future of the nation is at stake on the Supreme Court and lower courts, and also on the Presidential and Vice Presidential level, along with the Congressional actions in future years.

This is a battle for survival of the middle class, and the continuation of understanding the plight of the poor, as class division and the potential for class warfare grows!

Trying To Fathom The Supreme Court On Health Care: The Court Under The Microscope

Ronald Leave a comment

Yesterday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court led many observers to think that the Court is about to declare the Obama Health Care law unconstitutional this coming June.

Not so fast, ladies and gentlemen! This is hysteria and panic before the fact, with plenty of opportunity after the Court decision, if it is, indeed, negative!

Emphasis was put on Justice Antonin Scalia’s sarcastic comments about mandating broccoli, a totally ridiculous statement! But one must remember that Scalia is a showboat, a maniacal egotist who loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and get everyone’s attention, and one must remember that the Court was issuing an audio of the oral arguments immediately after the event, a very rare circumstance, and that had to be on Scalia’s mind!

Scalia was thought to be a possible vote, but if it is not, so what, as Scalia is, arguably, a hypocrite who is constantly contradictory, utilizing a broad interpretation of the Constitution, when he wishes to, and other times, pontificating on “originalism”, the idea that we must literally follow the Founding Fathers as they saw things in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention.

More importantly, the view of Justice Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts will be the crucial votes, and although Kennedy and Roberts both expressed some reservations about the Obama Health Care bill and the mandate contained within it, there were also key comments by both that indicated a mind open to consideration of the constitutionality of the law.

Kennedy is usually the swing vote, and seemed conflicted, which can be seen as a good sign, and Roberts seemed very evenhanded, and is known to want to be in the majority, and probably write this most important decision of the past decade, and aware that the Supreme Court does not look very good in the eyes of many people based on recent cases, particularly the Citizens United Case of 2010, on top of the Bush V. Gore case of 2000.

The argument is that if Kennedy goes to the majority, then Roberts will join, and the vote would be 6-3.

And one must point out that the four defenders of the legislation were excellent in their arguments supporting the legislation, with Justice Stephen Breyer, a true intellectual, particularly outstanding in his arguments, but joined by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

So, with one more day of oral arguments, it is not time to give up on support of the legislation, and also realize that one cannot always judge how members of the Court will vote, based on oral argument alone, as often, what is being done is to test both sides in the case, and sometimes, purposely mislead on intentions, in the process of asking the lawyers in the case to defend their side.

This decision is far from certain, but progressives should feel optimistic about it at this point, and simply wait patiently to see the result, knowing that the cause is just and compassionate, and that those of us who support it are on the right side of history with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society!

75th Anniversary Of Supreme Court “Packing” Plan Of FDR: Its Significance Today

Ronald 1 Comment

Seventy five years ago on this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced his plan to reorganize the Supreme Court, becoming known as an attempt to “pack” the Court, which became a turning point in many ways, including the fact that it was repudiated by the Senate in July 1937; weakened the power and clout of FDR shortly after his landslide victory in 1936; and led rapidly to a transformation of the Court, and FDR replacing, over the next five years, all but two members of the Court he was challenging.

The Supreme Court had stood in the way of change and progress during the Great Depression, declaring many New Deal laws unconstitutional, and FDR brought the Justices under attack as a result. Bitterly criticized as acting dictatorial, FDR was put on the defensive, but the long range was the Court adapting to an expansive view of the Constitution within a short time, and leading to a Court which dealt with the expansion of federal power and greater support of civil liberties and civil rights.

Today, three quarters of a century later, the Republican dominated Supreme Court has opened up the gates of campaign spending abuse in election campaigns, by its Citizens United decision of 2010. Additionally, crucial cases, including the Obama Health Care Plan, are to be decided by June, which will determine the fate of much of what Barack Obama has done and wishes to do as part of his agenda as President. Obama already made clear his criticism of the direction of the Court two years ago, with the Justices sitting there at the State of the Union Address. And three of the nine Justices–Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito–have boycotted the past two State of the Union Addresses, and represent the major challenge to the Obama Presidency, more than any other members of the Court.

No one is saying or predicting that Obama will attempt such a bold act as FDR did, and were he to do so, it would certainly cause the biggest controversy and split possible to imagine, greater than any issue so far in his administration.

But the Supreme Court IS an issue in the upcoming Presidential campaign, as the likelihood of replacements on the Court in the next term are very likely. This is particularly the case with Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who has had bouts with cancer, and would pass 80 years of age at the beginning of the next term. Her liberal vote would be lost if the Republicans win the White House and she leaves the Court. Additionally, based on aging, it is possible to imagine that Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Stephen Breyer could leave the Court before 2017.

So who is elected President, and who controls the majority of the US Senate, which would need to confirm a Court appointment, is very significant, although not much attention is being paid to this issue because of the troubles with the economy.

The Supreme Court: Most Important Issue Of Presidential Campaign Of 2012

Ronald 2 Comments

It is amazing how little this Presidential campaign of 2012 has been connected to foreign policy, and to constitutional law, as if ONLY the economy matters.

As much as the Great Recession and its supposed aftermath has created a major crisis for Americans, to overemphasize it is a dangerous action, as the LONG RANGE problem is much more our relations with the world AND the future of our judiciary.

Regarding the judiciary, the thought that a Republican President would select MORE conservatives to a Court already top heavy with conservatives is absolutely terrifying on issues such as the power and influence of corporations, the rights of women, the rights of gays, the role of religion in government, and the struggle to preserve civil rights and civil liberties.

For instance, if Michael Dukakis had been elected in 1988 instead of George H. W. Bush, we would not have had Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.

If John Kerry had been elected President in 2004, instead of George W. Bush, we would not have had John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

Going further back, if Walter Mondale had defeated Ronald Reagan in 1984, we would not have had Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, and Justice William Rehnquist would not have become Chief Justice.

So the election of the President has LONG TERM consequences in judicial and constitutional interpretation, just as much as foreign policy is not only short term, but long range affecting.

When one realizes that Ruth Bader Ginsberg is 78, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy are 75, it seems realistic to believe that all three COULD be out of office in the next term of office.

So the Court could become more conservative if a Republican is elected to the Presidency, and more moderate if Barack Obama is elected to a second term in the White House.

Therefore, every voter MUST realize that the Presidential election has consequences, not only in foreign policy long term, but also in the future of our legal system and our constitutional rights.

The Troy Davis Case: Capital Punishment On Trial, And The Supreme Court Disgraces Itself!

Ronald 1 Comment

The decision of the US Supreme Court to allow the execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia tonight is a legal travesty, and makes the Supreme Court look more than ever what it is rapidly becoming–a total disgrace!

It is shocking to the author that the decision of the Court was unanimous! How could it be that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan could sit by and allow themselves to be bullied by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, and that Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy could not see the virtue of allowing a lie detector test; would not consider that a number of prison wardens called for clemency because of doubts about the evidence, none of which was physical and with no gun found; would not take into account that seven out of nine witnesses in the trial recanted; would not listen to five jurors in the case who said they regret their decision to convict and give the death penalty; and would not listen to a witness who said one of the other witnesses confessed that he had been the murderer of the police officer in Savannah, Georgia, in 1989!

This execution puts capital punishment on trial, and it is barbaric that a country that prides itself on democratic virtues and values allows the death penalty when there is evidence so often that innocent people are being executed, many of them minorities in Southern states that have always been “excellent” in utilizing the death penalty against the racial minority that they exploited in slavery and segregation! This is an enhanced way to utilize racism and justify it!

One would like to believe that the “Old South” has passed into history, but actually it has NOT in any sense! Not only do Southern states use the death penalty very often, but also they seem to revel in the fact that seven of the “Old South” states–all but Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Texas–joined with border states Kentucky and West Virginia, to be nine of the ten poorest states, according to the US Census of 2010!

The “Old South” is great at executing people, and keeping them ignorant and in poverty, and by no coincidence, they tend to be RED states, those that tend to vote Republican!

Is this something the GOP should be proud of? And is it conscionable that Republican candidates tend to ignore poverty, never mentioning the disgrace of it in 21st century America, and this including millions of poor whites, as well as minorities?

This is a sad moment for America, but hopefully, it will start up the fight to end capital punishment as against American democracy, making us look terrible in the viewpoint of our friends, European countries, that do not allow the death penalty, and do just fine without it!