The Knives Come Out
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Tuesday May 26, 2009
President Obama announced today his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to replace the retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. But not long before the echo had died from the microphones on the White House podium, the Right Wing attack machine was in full gear, led by former Republican presidential candidate turned media attention whore Mitt Romney.
Yes, Mitt Romney.
And while that sinks into your subconscious and haunts your dreams, HTSNBN chimed in as well, calling Ms. Sotomayor a “reverse racist” and a “hack”, having obviously analyzed all of her opinions over her 20-plus year career in order to make such a well-informed judgment call.
But perhaps the most surprising development with regards to Ms. Sotomayor’s announcement was the decidedly civil and respectful tone set by Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC, as well as other Congressional Republicans who have adopted a “wait and see” approach to her nomination.
This is just the beginning, folks. Get ready for wild ride.
Limbaugh slams Sotomayor: ‘Reverse racist’
Steele: GOP must be careful on Sotomayor
Romney: Sotomayor nomination ‘troubling’
Uncertainty
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Saturday August 4, 2007
Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure this past Monday, causing him to fall some ten feet and rendering him unconscious for an undetermined amount of time.
The 52-year old Roberts, the youngest Chief Justice in more than two hundred years, now faces an uncertain future on the court, with many successful treatment options for seizures producing side effects that impair cognitive function and memory.
But while doctors who are not involved in the treatment of Mr. Roberts differ on whether or not treatment is even necessary for his epilepsy — a criteria that the Chief Justice now meets due to having suffered another idiopathic seizure in 1993 — one thing that most neurologists do agree on is that Mr. Roberts will undoubtedly experience additional, if not more frequent, epileptic episodes.
No comment from this Leftwing Nutjob.
Roberts Assures President He’s Fine — CBS News.com
Bye-Bye
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Sunday April 22, 2007
The first nail in the coffin of women’s abortion rights was driven home on Wednesday when the Supreme Court, along ideological lines, ruled 5-4 to uphold a federal ban on the medical procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, or, by its more emotionally manipulative moniker, partial birth abortion.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and signed by Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas — as well as Chief Justice John Roberts — should leave no doubt in anyones’ mind that an ideological agenda spearheaded by Ronald Regan over twenty years ago is finally coming to fruition.
Justice Kennedy, throughout his admonishing majority opinion, often invoked non-secular terms like morality to justify the court’s position and played to the religious base by stating that the ruling “expresses respect for the dignity of human life.”
In writing for the minority however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the sole female member of the court, offered that the decision was “at odds with our jurisprudence” and would place physicians in the “untenable” position of having to parse obtuse legal guidelines before determining a course of treatment for their patient that wouldn’t place them add odds with the law.
As for this Leftwing Nutjob, as I stated at the outset of this piece, there should be no doubt whatsoever that a religious agenda is afoot within the high court of the land, and that Wednesday’s ruling represents the beginning of the end for a woman’s reproductive freedom in this country. For when Right to Life activists and their supporters openly state that their ultimate goal is to outlaw all abortions, you had better believe that this ruling will only embolden that movement and prompt them to move more cases into the judicial system in older to reach that goal.
I only hope that my earlier prediction that President Bush will get to appoint another justice before he leaves office will not come to pass.
Court rejects challenge to abortion ruling — USAToday.com
Another Vacancy?
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Monday September 11, 2006
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy received an arterial stent over the Labor Day weekend after the 69-year old moderate conservative complained of some mild chest pain. The procedure, which was described in a written statement from the court as a “revision” to another stent that was implanted last year, was performed without incident. Justice Kennedy resumed his duties at the Court the following Tuesday.
“This was a revision to a stent procedure performed in November 2005,” the court said in a written statement. “There was no evidence of heart damage. He was discharged from the hospital Sunday morning and has returned to his duties at the court.”
However, the news of the previous stent’s implantation was not known outside of the halls of justice until it was mentioned as an aside in the court’s statement about Justice Kennedy, giving rise, once again, to speculation that some of the Supremes may not be in the best of health.
And with Justice Kennedy assuming the mantel of “swing voter” amongst the boys and girls in black since his colleague Sandra Day O’Connor left the bench in January of this year, his ardent support (and vote) for both gay rights and Roe v. Wade are really the only thing standing in the way of the extremes of the conservative religious right.
So what does all this actually mean to you, the loyal readers of the Leftwing Nutjob? Well, it confirms what I have long maintained since the Smirking POTUS was reelected to a second term as president back in November, 2003—that the lasting legacy of President George W. Bush won’t be the war on terror, his no child left behind campaign, or even the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It will be his nomination to the court of justices that will forever change the legal landscape of our nation for decades to come.
This nutjob has long believed that the Smirking POTUS’ influence upon the court wouldn’t end with the appointment of both Alito and Roberts—that, in the end, I still believe that the president will get to appoint yet one more justice to the court before he leaves office in January of 2009.
And the way things are going, I’m really going to lament, once again, having to be right all the time!
Source:
Justice Kennedy Has Stent Implanted—Washington Post
Justice Kennedy has second surgery on artery—CNN.com
No Blank Check
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Friday June 30, 2006
The concept of the unitary executive, something that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito as well as several others in the Bush Administration subscribe to, was essentially rejected Thursday afternoon by the Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Finding that the President of the United States does not have the legal authority to utilize military tribunals to try some 11 suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, the ruling essentially leaves the Smirking POTUS left with only one avenue afforded to him; take hat-in-hand and lobby the boys and girls on Capitol Hill for just such authority.
Senator Bill Frist, never one to miss an opportunity to wax politically, announced that he will introduce just such a bill following the July 4 recess, stating that “to keep America safe in the war on terror, I believe we should try terrorists only before military commissions, not in our civilian courts.”
Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens stated that “the military commission at issue is not expressly authorized by any congressional act,” and went on to add that the proposed tribunals “must be understood to incorporate at least the barest of those trial protections that have been recognized by customary international law.”
“In undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the executive [Bush] is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails.”
The ruling is a blow to the Bush Administration’s assertion that the Smirking POTUS has vested within his office the broad authority to either capture, detain or prosecute suspected terrorists. The Court denied the President that broad interpretation, finding that contrary to the Administration’s beliefs, those that have been defined as “enemy combatants” and are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay are, in fact, entitled to the same rights and privileges afforded to prisoners of war under both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.
But perhaps more importantly, the Supreme Court found that Congress had not given the President a “blank check” to prosecute his War on Terror.
Authoring a concurring opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that “indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here,” but added that “nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.”
Dissenting from the opinion were the Administration’s go-to guys on the court, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, who pulled no punches in voicing their disagreement with the ruling.
Scalia called the court’s reasoning a “mess,” and Thomas wrote that the ruling would “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.”
Chief Justice John Roberts recused himself from the case due to having previously ruled in favor of president’s authority while on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The president struck a conciliatory tone when he met with reporters following the ruling later in the day, promising that “to the extent there is latitude to work with the Congress to determine whether or not the military tribunals will be an avenue in which to give people their day in court, we will do so.”
But it’s doesn’t take a legal analyst to come to the conclusion that we may be witnessing the beginning of end for the Bush Administration’s war on terror, whose policies are now being exposed as the legally bankrupt house of cards that they truly are.
And as for the Republicans in Congress, Thursday’s ruling now means that they will have to starting putting put their money where their mouth is—namely authoring legislation that expressly circumvents their own Constitutional authority—which gives both the Democrats on the Hill as well as those who still believe in the concept of separation of powers, the chance to pin these jokers down for the hypocrites that they really are.
This should be fun.
Sources:
High court blocks Gitmo military tribunals – CNN.com
High Court Rejects Detainee Tribunals – Washington Post
A Governing Philosophy Rebuffed – Washington Post
Podcast #117
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Tuesday April 15, 2008
Leftwing Nutjob Podcast, Episode 117, for Sunday, April 13, 2008
Penn hits the bricks, Iran in the spotlight again, the Obama money machine, al Qaeda’s rising star and more!