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By Michael Paul Mason
$16.50
Jane M. Hightower
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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By Stanley Kutler — It is somewhat late in the day to lament the politicization of the judiciary, a condition that has always existed, but extravagant campaign contributions have now perilously altered the landscape.
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Stephen Colbert is on a serious tear in this “Colbert Report” clip from Tuesday night’s show, tackling religious symbology, reptilian champion of atheism Christopher Hitchens, canary-eating Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise all in one go—and that’s before he busts into the Apostles’ Creed.
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fulldisclosure.net
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The chief justice of the California Supreme Court has a choice word for the state’s method of operation: dysfunctional. At a speech in Massachusetts, Ronald M. George chastised the referendum process that prohibits amending or repealing of laws without voter approval.
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Flickr/dbking
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Sometimes when making a legal argument, it’s useful to go to hyperbolic extremes to illustrate the ideological flaws or possible outcomes associated with a potential ruling, which is why the conversation in the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday ranged from dog-fighting videos to a (hypothetical) cable channel for human sacrifice enthusiasts.
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By Marie Cocco — If it wins an upcoming battle in the Supreme Court, the gun lobby is prepared to challenge every gun control law enacted at any level of government.
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CIA / JFK Presidential Library
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How about that Eric Holder? The Justice Department plans to make it harder for the government to hide behind “national security” in legal cases—a process that has been abused since a highly flawed Supreme Court decision first allowed wide latitude in such matters.
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Illustration courtesy of Adbusters
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Radical is too small a word to describe the extent to which the Supreme Court will turn our political system upside down if it decides to let corporations directly fund campaigns.
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State Department / Michael Gross
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The Honduran Supreme Court just stuck its tongue out at the rest of the world, which has been waiting patiently for the country’s coup leaders to restore lawfully elected and promptly ousted Manuel Zalaya to the presidency. A carefully negotiated deal would have hit the reset button and called for early elections, but the court wasn’t interested. It doesn’t help that the U.S. has softened its position.
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Flickr / blmurch
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By Amy Goodman — Remarkably, the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether it is unconstitutional to execute an innocent person.
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blogs.creativeloafing.com
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Death row inmate Troy Davis might get a chance to clear his name in the 1989 murder of a Savannah, Ga., police officer, now that the Supreme Court has ordered a federal judge to grant him a new hearing.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has made history after successfully navigating the grueling confirmation process by finally being sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts at a ceremony at the court’s headquarters Saturday. However, the partisan politics that played out during the grilling phase are just a taste of things to come, according to The Christian Science Monitor’s Brad Knickerbocker.
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AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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By T.L. Caswell — In Washington, a Supreme Court nomination usually sets off a flood of political accusations, and in this case the GOP certainly upheld the grand old tradition of seeing sin where none existed.
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AP / Ron Edmonds
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The U.S. Supreme Court just got a little wiser. On Thursday, the Senate voted 68-31—split largely along party lines—to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the first Latina Supreme Court justice and only the third woman to serve on America’s top court.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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By Marcia Alesan Dawkins — The struggle over Sonia Sotomayor’s viewpoint and voice has important ramifications for legislative politics and identity politics in our country.
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Flickr / soggydan
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Republicans are so against the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court that even John McCain, a self-proclaimed maverick with plenty of Latino constituents, says he will vote against her. Thing is, there just aren’t enough Republicans in the Senate for party unity to make a difference.
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By Ruth Marcus — The Supreme Court may soon allow an unlimited amount of corporate money into the political process. Imagine drug companies and banks running their own ads against legislators who vote against their interests.
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This week’s show includes two Republicans filling in for Tony Blankley—Mike Murphy and John Henke—making this episode more like “Left, Right, Right & Center,” if you will. Robert Scheer joins them to weigh in about the Sotomayor hearings, the future of the GOP and what to do about the health care conundrum, among other lively topics.
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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor avoided a “total meltdown” during her confirmation hearings, even as she underwent a grilling by the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who trotted out a series of scathing anonymous evaluations of Sotomayor by unimpressed attorneys. Clearly, Sen. Graham hasn’t Googled himself lately.
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By Ellen Goodman — The would-be first Latina justice faces a committee with only two women members in order to get confirmed by a Senate with only 17 women for a seat on a court with only one woman. And yet Sotomayor has to prove that she isn’t biased.
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By Ruth Marcus — Republican senators are asking themselves why they should give President Obama more leeway to name justices to his liking than then-Sen. Obama was willing to accord President Bush when he voted against both Bush nominees.
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senate.gov
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Supreme Court confirmation hearings are as much about politicians grabbing a little face time as they are about probing a nominee’s legal philosophy. Amid all the posturing and finger-wagging Monday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse spoke rather eloquently about what the court has become, and what it should be: “ ... A place ... where the comfortable can be afflicted and the afflicted find some comfort. ... ”
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Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons —
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AP photo / Win McNamee, pool
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By Eugene Robinson — For the Republicans outraged at “wise Latina” Sonia Sotomayor, being white and male is seen as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any “identity”—black, brown, female, gay, whatever—has to be judged against this supposedly “objective” standard.
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By Marie Cocco — Unless Sotomayor suffers a “complete meltdown,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted, she will be confirmed. The price, though, is barely coded race baiting that has been part of the assault on Sotomayor since her nomination was announced.
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AP photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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The confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor began on Monday. Despite a strong partisan divide over her candidacy, she is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate after she has a chance to make her opening statement and answer questions from the Judiciary Committee. If confirmed, she will be the first Latina and only the third woman justice to serve on the nation’s highest court.
Posted on Jul 13, 2009
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — This week’s hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court represent the opening skirmish in a struggle to challenge the escalating activism of an increasingly conservative judiciary.
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AP photo / Ron Edmonds
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Seems like even those Bushies who didn’t manage to make it to the end of the W. age with their political reputations intact are popping up with brand new jobs; take, for example, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who’s slated to teach a political science course at Texas Tech University this fall.
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AP photo / Esteban Felix
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The Supreme Court of Honduras, defying an order of the Organization of American States, is standing by its decision to oust former President Manuel Zelaya. The court repeated its earlier position after a two-hour meeting with OAS head Miguel Insulza on Friday. And now for the international backlash.
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Stephen Colbert gives us his take on some of the latest Supreme Court rulings: White firefighters were vindicated from long, nonexistent oppression; dumping toxic gold waste into lakes rules; and ibuprofen-smuggling teenage girls need to be kept in check. Watch this clip from last night’s “Colbert Report.”
Posted on Jul 2, 2009
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U.S. Air Force / S. Sgt. Maria L. Taylor
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Al Franken won’t officially be a U.S. senator until next week, but he’s set to make a big impact, and not just because he gives his party that 60th seat. Senate Democrats have reserved four committee spots for Franken, two of which will make him a key participant in health care reform and the confirmation of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
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Flickr / Mykl Roventine
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It’s been nearly eight months since Minnesotans went to the polls and they still don’t know who one of their senators is. Norm Coleman trails Al Franken by 312 votes and the case is now in the hands of Minnesota’s Supreme Court, if only it could be bothered to rule.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The United States Supreme Court claims to be above politics, and it sometimes even achieves that aspiration.
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Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum
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The Supreme Court has spared the 1965 Voting Rights Act, agreeing by an 8-1 margin to leave a ruling on its more controversial parts for another day—and perhaps another court. The near-unanimous narrow decision came as a surprise, with justices apparently retreating from earlier divisions that led some court watchers to predict the legislation’s demise.
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By Marie Cocco — The appearance of extreme political impropriety is sometimes just too extreme, according to the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in a case that shines a brutal light on the spiral of campaign contributions that threaten to compromise too many state courts.
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By Ellen Goodman — I can’t help noting that in the Sotomayor drama, the charge of “identity politics” is leveled at relative newcomers. For that matter, identity itself seems to be exclusively a matter of race, gender and minority status.
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Flickr / dok1
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The Supreme Court has put the brakes on President Obama’s plans to bail out the auto industry, ordering a stay of the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Before the ruling, the administration said blocking the deal would have “grave consequences” for Chrysler. Also, it could threaten the government’s plans for the much larger and more complicated GM. Update
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whitehouse.gov
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New Yorkers have a reputation for hyperbole, but this is just going too far. A Manhattan man was arrested after allegedly letting the good people at 911 know about his desire to blow up both the president and his Supreme Court nominee.
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Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com —
Posted on May 31, 2009
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By Eugene Robinson — President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court is a proud and accomplished Latina. This fact apparently drives some prominent Republicans to a state resembling incoherent, sputtering rage.
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By Ellen Goodman — Forget Rush Limbaugh. In Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination, we face the riddle of the wise old man, the wise old woman, and the wise old person.
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By Joe Conason — The same impulses that have long driven the Republican Party toward ethnic polarization and immigrant-bashing seem certain to infect its opposition to Judge Sonia Sotomayor—in ways that can only benefit the Democrats and Mr. Obama in elections to come.
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White House / Pete Souza
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Republicans would be foolish to fight the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court because she is the most conservative choice that President Obama could have made.
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By Marie Cocco — President Obama’s nominee said she hopes Americans “will see that I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.” Ordinary people have had a difficult time of it before the current Supreme Court.
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Flickr / CarbonNYC
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Theodore B. Olson and David Boies were Supreme Court adversaries in the landmark Bush v. Gore case, but the two lawyers have joined forces to take the fight for gay marriage into federal court. Fearing an unfriendly Supreme Court, some prominent gay rights groups are criticizing the shift in strategy.
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inhofe.senate.gov
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The news that known Latina Sonia Sotomayor may soon join the Supreme Court spurred an apparently alarmed Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to hold forth in a statement on Tuesday about the need to make sure that Sotomayor will be able to mete out justice from her vaunted post without her pesky extra X chromosome or her non-Oklahoman ethnic roots mucking things up for everyone.
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So, Rush Limbaugh’s got his knickers in a twist about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, calling President Obama’s pick of a Latina an example of “reverse racism.” This clearly amuses MSNBC’s resident smartypants Rachel Maddow, who’s at the ready with a zinger or two for Limbaugh in this clip from Tuesday morning’s newscast.
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senate.gov
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President Obama has said he wants to nominate someone to the Supreme Court capable of “understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles.” That’s just too much for Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl, who has threatened to filibuster if Obama appoints anyone more empathetic than your garden variety liberal.
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