V O T E

 Elections: 2012, Presidency, Supreme Court  Comments Off
Nov 062012
 

Charlie Pierce at Esquire:

It had been a long time since I was around a presidential campaign when I picked this one up in Iowa a little more than a year ago. The first story that hit me was the money. It still seems to me that the money is the only story in this whole campaign. It has deformed the process almost to unrecognizability. It has created a new normal that seems insulated on all sides from the people who are supposed to matter the most. If the president manages to hang on, it will be seen as a triumph of participatory democracy over legalized bribery, and we will all be encouraged to feel very good about ourselves because things turned out that way. But, seriously, were it not for the new political universe created by the Big Bang of the Citizens United decision, and were it not for the swiftly established metric that he who has the most money wins, the candidacy of Willard Romney would be an almost impossible burlesque. Four years after the titans of the financial-services industry nearly ate the entire world, the Republicans nominate a plutocratic maladroit who can barely wrestle a coherent sentence to a draw — “We start a new tomorrow tomorrow,” was yesterday’s gem — and who is entirely a creature of the very industry that had caused the misery in the first place. It is exactly the same as if the Republicans in 1932 had replaced Herbert Hoover at the top of their ticket with Andrew Mellon.

But the election is still within an eyelash, one way or the other, because Romney’s money, and all the other money that lined up behind it, made him credible. Exactly forty years after anonymous corporate cash became the first loose thread that would lead to the unravelling of Richard Nixon’s presidency, anonymous corporate cash is the coin of the realm. It is the measure by which we determine the fitness to lead the nation, to command the armed forces, to who gets their hands on the nuclear codes. It used to be popular to complain that we had turned politics into an advertising design competition, that we sold our candidates “like soap.” Now, we’ve turned the elections into investment opportunities, and we sell our candidates like beachfront condos or cattle futures. I am not at all sure this is an improvement.

But, recently, watching things on the ground here in Florida, I’ve come to think that there is an even bigger story than the money, that the money is merely the only story within the only story. I have watched at close range how very far politicians will go to use their institutional power as elected officials to deaden the instincts of self-government. It is the money that got them into place to do it, but what they’re doing is something far more insidious and dangerous. Actively keeping people from exercising the franchise is bad enough. But to continue, over and over and over again, to make the process harder and harder until a critical mass of people decides that self-government is not worth the bother, I think, is far, far worse.
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 Posted by at 12:45 am

Keyes v. Bowen: SCOTUS

 Birthers, Lawsuits, Right Wing Nutzoids, Supreme Court  Comments Off
May 302011
 

Originally filed in 2008 soon after the presidential election, the case was dismissed by the Superior Court of Sacramento County and appealed in July 2009 in the 3rd Appellate District Court. Last October, the judicial panel on the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, issued a Published Opinion in Keyes v. Bowen, Affirming in Full the lower court’s dismissal of the case, and saying:

In plaintiffs’ view, there is “a triable issue of material fact as to which branch of government, and what office within that branch, has the duty to ensure that all candidates on a California ballot meet the eligibility requirements to hold office.”

Plaintiffs’ contentions lack merit. Among other things, we conclude that the Secretary of State does not have a duty to investigate and determine whether a presidential candidate meets eligibility requirements of the United States Constitution.

A petition for review by the California Supreme Court was denied in February, 2011.

In May, 2011, Gary Kreep petitioned SCOTUS for a writ of certiorari. On May 25, Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State, waived the right to respond.

If Keyes v. Bowen is distributed tomorrow, it will be for the conference of June 16. (If it is distributed next week, the conference date will be June 23.) Unless one of the Justices requests a response from Bowen in the meantime, a “cert denied” order can be expected by June 20, before this SCOTUS term ends following the June 23 conference.

 Posted by at 12:46 am

SCOTUS Not Your Cash Cow, Clarence

 Ethics, Supreme Court  Comments Off
Mar 072011
 

From the beginning, it was tough respecting Clarence Thomas as a member of the highest court in the land, it seemed we were stuck with him, but the Justice and his wife have made any bit of respect unreachable for the past year by their unethical behavior. The worst thing is nothing will happen to him.

University of Colorado at Boulder, law professor Paul Campos explains:

It’s unlikely that Thomas will be disbarred, and even less likely that he’ll be prosecuted, even though his conduct has been outrageous. That Thomas failed to disclose his wife’s sources of income is not a trivial technicality: His wife’s employment created excellent grounds for requiring him to excuse himself from hearing the Citizens United case, which overturned federal campaign-finance laws—much to the delight of Ginni Thomas’ right-wing paymasters, who are now freer than ever before to purchase the best laws money can buy. (Federal judges are required to recuse themselves from hearing any case in which they or their spouses have any financial interest.)

And it only cost them $700,000 to Mrs. Justice Thomas, which was concealed by the Justice himself.

Thomas’ behavior raises three obvious questions, the answers to which are all inter-related: Why is it likely that no consequences will be visited on a Supreme Court justice who has committed a series of criminal offenses? Why is this story not a full-blown scandal? And why did Clarence Thomas do what he did? …

Clarence Thomas knows that, as a practical matter, he, like the rest of the power elite that rules America, is largely above the law. Yet he also knows that he will be subjected to harsh criticism for flaunting his legal immunity. These two facts allow him to enjoy the delicious pleasure of exercising tremendous social privilege, while simultaneously complaining that he’s being persecuted by his political enemies. In other words, he gets to be an egregious scofflaw while at the same time claiming to be the victim of, to coin a phrase, a high-tech lynching.

Jonathan Turley, to put a fine point on it:

Virginia Thomas was receiving money from groups that had expressed direct interest in the outcome of cases that came before her husband, including Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, in which the court in 2010 struck down limitations on corporate contributions to elections.

A justice is expressly required by federal law to recuse himself from any case “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” This law specifically requires recusal when he knows that “his spouse … has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

The financial disclosure forms are meant to assist the public in determining conflicts of interest. Though Thomas clearly could argue that his wife’s ties to these organizations were not grounds for recusal, he denied the court and the public the ability to fully evaluate those conflicts at the time. Instead, Thomas misled the public for years on the considerable wealth he and his wife were accumulating from ideological groups.

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 Posted by at 12:28 am

Common Cause: What’s With Justice Thomas, Koch Brothers?

 Ethics, Judiciary, Supreme Court  Comments Off
Feb 152011
 

WASHINGTON — Discrepancies in reports about an appearance by Justice Clarence Thomas at a political retreat for wealthy conservatives three years ago have prompted new questions to the Supreme Court from a group that advocates changing campaign finance laws.

When questions were first raised about the retreat last month, a court spokeswoman said Justice Thomas had made a “brief drop-by” at the event in Palm Springs, Calif., in January 2008 and had given a talk.

In his financial disclosure report for that year, however, Justice Thomas reported that the Federalist Society, a prominent conservative legal group, had reimbursed him an undisclosed amount for four days of “transportation, meals and accommodations” over the weekend of the retreat. The event is organized by Charles and David Koch, brothers who have used millions of dollars from the energy conglomerate they run in Wichita, Kan., to finance conservative causes. …

Common Cause maintains that Justice Thomas should have disqualified himself from last year’s landmark campaign finance ruling in the Citizens United case, partly because of his ties to the Koch brothers.

In a petition filed with the Justice Department last month, the advocacy group said past appearances at the Koch brothers’ retreat by Justice Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia, along with the conservative political work of Justice Thomas’s wife, had created a possible perception of bias in hearing the case.

New York Times

 Posted by at 12:38 am

False Claim Email: Kagan Represented Obama In Eligibility Cases

 Birthers, False Claim Emails, Right Wing Nutzoids, Supreme Court  Comments Off
Dec 092010
 

I thought had convinced my sister-in-law to stop sending me these things, but she is very persistent.

The list of cases in the false claim email came from a World Net Daily article of August 4, which World Net Daily retracted that same day:

Posted: August 04, 2010
10:55 pm Eastern

© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described a series of cases for which Elena Kagan represented the government as eligibility cases. Those cases, in fact, were a series of unrelated disputes pending before the Supreme Court and the references have been removed from this report.

Justice Kagan never defended President Obama in an eligibility case, not at any time, ever. The cases initially cited by World Net Daily were not eligibility cases and repeating them in an email doesn’t make them eligibility cases.

There have been 72 eligibility lawsuits. All 72 cases were lost in trial courts, 37 of those lost on appeal, and 13 were denied by the US Supreme Court. There is one remaining case at the appeal level and two remaining petitions to the Supreme Court.

Obama was defended in three of them as a private citizen. He was represented by private law firms, not Elena Kagan. Once elected, the government is obligated to defend federal officials in lawsuits and did so in nine eligibility cases, not all of which had Obama as a defendant. The nine cases were defended by the US Attorney-General’s office, not the Solicitor-General’s office, therefore, not defended by Elena Kagan.

The reason all Birfer cases will lose in court is the simplest one: Obama is a natural born citizen of the State of Hawaii and the United States of America.

Here is the email I received:

Continue reading »

 Posted by at 12:27 am

Judicial Conservatism, Dead And Gone

 Politics, Supreme Court  Comments Off
Dec 012010
 

Jeffrey Toobin goes back there.

What made the decision in Bush v. Gore so startling was that it was the work of Justices who were considered, to greater or lesser extents, judicial conservatives. On many occasions, these Justices had said that they believed in the preëminence of states’ rights, in a narrow conception of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, above all, in judicial restraint. Bush v. Gore violated those principles. The Supreme Court stepped into the case even though the Florida Supreme Court had been interpreting Florida law; the majority found a violation of the rights of George W. Bush, a white man, to equal protection when these same Justices were becoming ever more stingy in finding violations of the rights of African-Americans; and the Court stopped the recount even before it was completed, and before the Florida courts had a chance to iron out any problems—a classic example of judicial activism, not judicial restraint, by the majority.

Bush v. Gore would resonate, in any case, because the Court prevented Florida from determining, as best it could, whether Gore or Bush really won. …

The echoes of Bush v. Gore are clearest when it comes to judicial activism. Judicial conservatism was once principally defined as a philosophy of deference to the democratically elected branches of government. But the signature of the Roberts Court has been its willingness, even its eagerness, to overturn the work of legislatures. Brandishing a novel interpretation of the Second Amendment, the Court has either struck down or raised questions about virtually every state and local gun-control law in the nation. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided earlier this year, the Court gutted the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law in service of a legal theory that contradicts about a century of law at the Court. (Citizens United removed limits on corporate expenditures in political campaigns; the decision is, at its core, a boon for Republicans, just as Bush v. Gore was a decade ago.) When the Obama health-care plan reaches the high court for review, as it surely will, one can expect a similar lack of humility from the purported conservatives.

The New Yorker

 Posted by at 12:41 am

Kerchner v. Obama: SCOTUS: Certiorari–DENIED

 Birthers, Lawsuits, Right Wing Nutzoids, Supreme Court  Comments Off
Nov 292010
 

Without comment:

(ORDER LIST: 562 U.S.) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010

CERTIORARI DENIED

10-446 KERCHNER, CHARLES, ET AL. V. OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF U.S., ET AL. The motion of Western Center for Journalism for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

As expected. (The reference to an amicus brief means it met the criteria to be filed and nothing more.) The clue to the outcome was that the government wasn’t asked by the Court to file a response.

From CNN:

The Obama administration did not file, and the high court did not demand, a formal government response to this latest legal claim. The high court will often insist the Justice Department weigh in with its views on a particular constitutional issue, or when it is being sued, and that is a sign the justices are seriously considering accepting the appeal.

Reactions at Free Republic also as expected:

The Supremos should be tried as traitors to the Republic by a Revolutionary Court!

BUT FIRST THE REVOLUTION!!!

20 posted on 11/29/2010 7:52:56 AM PST by Ronbo1948

The communists (Democrats) will continue to rule. The socialists (Republicans) will continue to squeal…and the prospect for elections in 2012 are very slim.

Basically end-game….back to hoarding amo and outfitting defensible space as a short to medium term survival strategy.

TSA will be making housecalls shortly.

21 posted on 11/29/2010 7:53:15 AM PST by The Big Boo

The Constitution is the boss.

At least in the country I’ve known and loved, which is no more.

This was totally predictable. Does signal to me, though, that the reason for SCOTUS “evading” the issue wasn’t in order to have Republicans in control of Congress before deciding the issue. That pretty much leaves the Soros economic threats as the probable reason for evading it, which also explains the military, Congress, Hawaii DOH, federal and state law enforcement systems, and media evading it as well.

It’s a coup. Obama is the puppet of the Soros communist-Islamist cabal. Just watch and see if that doesn’t explain everything you observe.

59 posted on 11/29/2010 9:12:07 AM PST by butterdezillion

Poor babies.

Kerchner is most unhappy, also to be expected:

The “Roberts Court” of the U.S. Supreme Court imo will be known in history as the Neville Chamberlain supreme court, the great Obama appeaser court.

Appeasement due to fear that some immediate small amount of veiled and threatened violence from the far left Saul Alinsky goons and tyrants and bullies and thus not doing the right thing early only to support the rule of law and the Constitution ultimately leads to be much bigger problem later. … The Supreme Court has chosen appeasement and inaction over action and dealing with the issue and questions openly in a court of law under the rules of evidence and law. Our Constitutional Republic and legal system is now compromised and broken. And it will only get worse as our legal system and constitutional republic further deteriorates and the rule of law gives way more and more to appeasement of bullies such as Obama and his far left cronies and puppet masters. Appeasement of the constitutional usurpers will not make it go away. It will only delay the inevitable and fester and in the end be a far worse situation to deal with when the real nature of the tyrant reveals himself in a bolder way and takes away all our liberties. Neville Chamberlain tactics never work with bullies, tyrants, and national socialists.

And here is Dr. Kate, concluding with supreme illogic:

This lack of response to the merits means that Kerchner proved Obama is ineligible.

Ooooh, look at this:

I’ve got lots more to say, and plans are already hatching. To those obots and obamathugs watching this blog, you won’t know of these plans until they hit you.

We Obots are SWEATING BULLETS.

 Posted by at 12:15 pm
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