Tag: Supreme Court

Rally in West Hollywood Celebrates Supreme Court Decisions on DOMA, Prop 8

Jon Ponder

Proposition 8 lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson, along with their clients and West Hollywood and Los Angeles city officials and a crowd of thousands, rallied in West Hollywood last night to celebrate the Supreme Court’s rulings yesterday that overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act and a finding on Prop 8 that could lead to the resumption of same-sex marriage in California.

Unfortunately, the demise of Prop 8 may not be a slam dunk. The foes of marriage equality are not done and the grindingly slow processes of the federal courts may give them a window of opportunity in which to delay the reinstatement of marriage rights in California. The 9th Circuit Court has already announced that due to procedural technicalities there will be at least a 25-day delay before marriage licenses can be issued to same-sex couples in the state — an announcement that essentially countermanded state Attorney General Kamala Harris’ order to county clerks to begin issuing the licenses within two days after the ruling.

Marriage-rights opponents will almost undoubtedly use the delay to litigate against overturning Prop 8:

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During Supreme Court Hearings on the Voting Rights Act, Justice Scalia Signals Alliance with Neo-Confederate Movement

Jon Ponder

Scalia at the inauguration wearing his wife’s hat
During a hearing on the Voting Rights Act at the Supreme Court yesterday, Justice Antonin Scalia, who was last seen in public at Pres. Obama’s inauguration wearing one of his wife’s hats, unmasked himself as a reliable ally to the neo-Confederate movement sweeping the nation.

When confronted with the fact that the Senate had reauthorized the Act unanimously in 2006, at a time when Republicans controlled the White House and the Congress, Scalia opined that members of Congress — presumably including neo-Confederates in the Senate — voted for the reauthorization because they were intimidated by political correctness. Therefore, Scalia suggested, it was proper and fitting for right wingers on the Court to over-rule them:

“I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement,” Scalia said. “Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes … This is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now.”

The conservative justices seemed to have the votes to strike the provision down.

There were audible gasps in the court when Scalia made this clearly racist statement from the bench. It is breathtaking that Scalia would suggest that voting is an entitlement, not a right, and that a unanimous vote in the Senate — which happen about as frequently as men wear women’s hat at official functions — is a dangerous thing that requires Supreme Court action.

Reacting to Scalia’s ugly comment, Michael Moore spoke for millions when he tweeted, “Memo to Tarantino prop dept: Please send one of those poorly sewn hoods from Django to Justice Scalia. Make sure it matches his robes.”

Just make sure the hood fits over Scalia’s wife’s hat.

Fallows: Five Signs That the United States Is Undergoing a Right-Wing Coup

Jon Ponder
Graph showing rise in filibuster abuse by Republicans
Graph showing rise in filibuster abuse by Republicans

Writing last week before the Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, James Fallows at the Atlantic suggested that by subverting one branch of government — the Judiciary, and in particular, the Supreme Court — Republican corporatist radicals are staging a slo-mo coup right before our eyes:

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If Republicans on Supreme Court Kill ‘Obamacare,’ Ranks of the Uninsured Will Rise to 60 Million

Jon Ponder

photos-scotus-aca

When the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate later this year, the Republican-dominated court will either decide the case on its merits or it will play politics and vote to kill the mandate with a party line vote intended to help Mitt Romney, the putative Republican presidential nominee, get elected in the fall.

If the Republican justices rule based on the merits, it’s likely they will find that the mandate is constitutional, just as the GOP-dominated D.C. Court of Appeals did in November.

If the Republican Supremes vote their party line — as they did in Bush v. Gore, in 2000, with disastrous results — they will certainly help Romney get elected, which will achieve their political goal of ensuring a GOP corporatist majority on the court for a generation or more.

But, as with Bush v. Gore, a party line vote against the ACA by the Republican justices will produce dire consequences for the American people. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, if the Affordable Care Act is overturned, it will force another 10 million Americans into the ranks of the uninsured, raising the number of people without health insurance coverage in the United States to 60 million — which is roughly the population of Great Britain.

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Tell Clarence Thomas to Apologize

Trish

clarence_t_apologize_200

We relayed the story of how the deranged tea bagger wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas left a voice mail, out of the blue, for Brandeis University Prof. Anita Hill, asking her to first pray, then apologize for what Hill did WITH said deranged tea bagger wife’s husband.

Now Credo, the socially responsible phone carrier, is hosting a site with a petition asking that Thomas, not Hill, do some apologizing.

While we’re at it, can someone start a petition to add Anita Hill to the Supreme Court?

Twenty years ago, Professor Hill described how the now Supreme Court justice subjected her to descriptions of pornography he had watched, bragged about his own sexual prowess in graphic terms and famously reached for a soft drink in her office and remarked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?”

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Verbatim

Jon Ponder

Ms. Kagan is likewise a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience. Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice.

– Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, May 12, 2010

I mean, one reason I felt so strongly about Harriet Miers’s qualifications is I thought she would fill some very important gaps in the Supreme Court. Because right now you have people who’ve been federal judges, circuit judges most of their lives, or academicians. And what you see is a lack of grounding in reality and common sense that I think would be very beneficial.

– Sen. Cornyn, Oct. 27, 2005