Ginsburg calls out Roberts

[bigtree]

Talking Points Memo ?@TPM 2m
Ginsburg calls out Roberts: "One of the most activist courts in history": http://bit.ly/17gqwHo

She__ opened up the current court under Chief Justice John Roberts, who led the majority in striking down a crucial part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in June.

Ginsburg said “if it’s measured in terms of readiness to overturn legislation, this is one of the most activist courts in history.”

In a fiery dissent, Ginsburg blasted the court's voting rights decision, saying it could "hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decision making."


read: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ginsburg-calls-out-roberts-one-of-most-activist

[PDittie]

1. Love the pic.

[Supersedeas]

3. at least one thousand words

[Octafish]

2. Ginsburg stands up to the BFEE.

Unlike a lot of people, she has the guts to do so in public.

And to think more than a few DUers want her to step down.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3531149

[elleng]

4. Yup, she has guts,

and brains, and memory, and heart.

[Octafish]

7. I *respectfully* agree.

She made clear traitors were running the show, 5-4, in 2000.

[elleng]

14. Damn right!

Concurrence Rehnquist, joined by Scalia, Thomas

Dissent Stevens, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer
Dissent Souter, joined by Breyer; Stevens, Ginsburg (all but part C)
Dissent Ginsburg, joined by Stevens; Souter, Breyer (part I)
Dissent Breyer, joined by Stevens, Ginsburg (except part I-A-1); Souter (part I)

edit:

“I don’t water-ski anymore,” Justice Ginsburg said. “I haven’t gone horseback riding in four years. I haven’t ruled that out entirely. But water-skiing, those days are over.”

[connecticut yankee]

16. We want her to step down

so that Pres. Obama can appoint another Liberal to the court.

If there's a Repuke majority in the Senate after the 2014 election, he'll never have a chance to do so. In fact anyone he nominates will probably be filibustered or overruled.

And that's the only reason.

She's 80 years old.

[Octafish]

20. Right. Why not focus on getting Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito to step down?

Better yet, impeach them. The grounds are there.

[madinmaryland]

45. *snort* Thanks for the laugh! I can just imagine Boner's gang writing up articals of impeachment

for Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito!!!



That was a fucking classic!!!

[Octafish]

53. It is funny...

...that the truth about those gangsters can't get them impeached, let alone investigated by the Department of Just-Us, let alone Congress.

BTW: How's Gov. Don Siegelman doing?

[drynberg]

55. THAT'S WHAT I'M A'TALKIN' 'BOUT!

Time for Truth, no?

[merrily]

23. Another liberal? What makes you think he'll appoint even one liberal?

Kagan and Sotomayor are not liberals, except maybe on some cultural issues.

Judging by some of his appointment in his Cabinet and administration, we'll be lucky if he appoints DLCer Sunstein instead of a Republican.

[bvar22]

33. President Obama does NOT appoint "Liberals" to anything.

His two appointments to the Supreme Court has moved the overall make up of the Court Even Further to The Right (More Conservative),

Especially painful to Liberals was replacing Unashamed Liberal JP Stevens
with "moderate" Elena Kagan who has demonstrated an alarming tendency to agree with Scalia on too many issues.

[Lasher]

37. I share this frustration. But to be fair, Kagan might be about as liberal as Stevens.

I have compared their analyses at the OnTheIssues website:

John Paul Stevens

Elena Kagan

If you scroll to the bottom there, you will see the following chart for each person:



There is no need to post both their charts here, because they look exactly the same. But Sotomayor is more clearly a moderate:

Sonia Sotomayor

Old DU thread on the subject

None of these is as liberal as Ginsburg, however. I hope she doesn't step down.

[awoke_in_2003]

52. +1000. nt

[Bake]

36. Even assuming he DID appoint a liberal to the Court (of which I'm skeptical)

That nominee would be filibustered TODAY, TOMORROW, and until the end of time.

Bake

[Katashi_itto]

49. Smoking old tennis shoes? Like the President would put another liberal on SCOTUS

look at his track record.

[toby jo]

5. Pic is a keeper. Thanks, Ruth.

[Orrex]

6. It seems like just yesterday that DU was hating on Justice Ginsberg

I need to double-check the schedule, because I sure as hell can't keep it straight.

[Hekate]

35. They have arrived in this thread. nt

[Paladin]

8. Those of you calling for Ginsburg's retirement need to fuck off. (nt)

[demwing]

18. Ginsberg should retire

and you should deal with your own fuck, and leave everybody else's fuck alone.

[Paladin]

21. I'll make a fucking deal with you:

As soon as the younger liberal justices start publicly tackling the hyper-conservative, agenda-driven justices on the Court, I'll consider your position as having some merit. Not before.

[Ed Suspicious]

25. hear, hear!

[demwing]

27. I don't give a fuck about what you consider meritorious

not after you tell people to go fuck themselves

[Paladin]

30. Your etiquette lesson has as much value as is your view of Justice Ginsburg. Zero. (nt)

[demwing]

31. Justice Ginsburg is our finest SC Justice

but she is old and sick.

She will be replace by someone. Are you willing to risk having her replacement be chosen by a Republican?

If so, fuck etiquette, you need to upgrade your reasoning skills.

[Paladin]

32. No point in prolonging this discussion. (nt)

[Blanks]

38. She doesn't need to retire yet...

In order to be replaced by an Obama appointee. If it looks like republicans will take the White House in 2016 (toward the end of 2015) it might be prudent for her to retire, but there's no reason for her to step down for at least 2 years.

Besides, she stopped water skiing. Obviously she'll be around for a while.

[demwing]

40. Fine, except for the midterms

There's a chance both houses could flip. Good on us if the House flips, sucks to be us if the Senate flips (and there is a real chance that this will happen).

We cannot get shit done as it is, can you imagine putting through a progressive SC justice if McConnell is the Majority Leader?

[mountain grammy]

9. Thank you, Justice Ginsburg! You have a better mind than the corrupt 5 brains put together.

[kelliekat44]

10. And not just because I agree with her. +1000.

[Squinch]

11. Can you imagine how frustrating it must be for her to have fought all that she needed

to fight to get to where she is, both as a woman and a liberal, to have worked all her life to uphold and improve our laws, and to still, at this late date, have to be fighting against the idiots. And to see that the idiots seem to be gaining ascendancy again?

I am grateful for her, but I also feel for her.

[tblue]

12. Tell it, Sistah Ruth!

She is so right!!! This is a corporatist fascst court. 5/9 of it anyway.

[JNelson6563]

13. About damn time she took a stand!

About time any of them did! It's utterly shameful what has become of the highest court in the land.

Julie

[LuvNewcastle]

15. She's brilliant, the best on the Court, in my opinion.

She really ought to be Chief Justice.

[1-Old-Man]

17. This posting really trivilizes the only sane part of Government

Members of the Court do not "call out" each other either in private, public, or in their opninions. These are not the monkeys tossing shit at each other like in the House of Representatives nor is it the Lords having their spats, al la the Senate. They are civil to one another at the Court and along with it being the only segment of Government where you actually have to have qualifications to fine yourself with a seat is probably what makes it that way. This posting seems to want to put the Court on the same playing field with the House, just a bunch of shit-slingers.

[bigtree]

22. Scalia, sane?

Last edited Mon Aug 26, 2013, 12:32 PM - Edit history (2)

. . . civil?

Thomas?

At the least, the ambition of these two is to deny average Americans the protection of judiciary; to the deliberate benefit of a lopsidedly wealthy 1% or so in this nation. Neither they, nor you, can pretty up the fight against all of that hostility and real-world injury (within and without the Court) by pointing to these lawyers being polite to each other.

Besides, a dissent like the one Justice Ginsberg wrote against the Robert Court's evisceration of the Chapter 4 protections under the Civil Rights Act does, indeed, 'call-out' Roberts and others blatant attempt to block the emerging minority vote from having a decisive effect on elections.

[saidsimplesimon]

39. I agree. Is it rumour or truth; did former Justice O'Connor

meet with her former Republican SCOTUS colleagues to encourage rulings free of political influence or ideology?

Don't flame me for CT, I'm just a doubting soul who gets lots of email spam.

[noiretextatique]

42. not sure about that, but she recently said she regretted her bush v. gore vote

she knew it was the wrong decision then.

[merrily]

26. You obviously have not read a lot of Supreme Court opinions.

Justices call each other in opinions out all the time.

Not ad hominem, of course, but saying how wrong, foolish, etc. the Justices who disagreed with them were and how their decisions will open the door for this catastrophe or that.

If you are quibbling with the term "call out," as opposed to some other label, I think it's a distinction without a difference.

And no one could trivialize the Court if the Justices had not done that to themselves, with all their 5-4 decisions that split along partisan lines over and over. Not to mention Bush v. Gore, which Scalia thinks we should stop mentioning.

Did I mention Bush v. Gore?

P.S. The American Bar Association rated Thomas unqualified, as did Anita Hill. Our blessed Senate confirmed him anyway. So there is now precedent for not having to qualify. They barely qualified O'Connor, but I she did get qualified and is head and shoulders over Thomas in every way.

[1KansasDem]

29. The ABA rated Thomas "qualified", but not it's highest rating of

"well qualified".

[leftyladyfrommo]

19. Oh, I love her. She has grit and spunk. n/t

[merrily]

24. I believe she is holding the New Democrat Justices together. I shudder to think

what will happen when she is no longer on the bench. As it is, Kagan and Breyer already went Republican on the Medicaid part of the Obamacare case. That's the part Democrats rarely talk about, too busy are they cheering the part of the opinion that says that the federal goverment to make us buy whatever it feels like making us buy or pay a "tax."

[cascadiance]

28. I do believe that the Supreme Court is one more reason that Elizabeth Warren needs to run in 2016!

I think if Obama were as progressive as some had hoped, she probably would have retired by now if she had confidence that a good justice would be selected to replace her. Though she's tactful and honorable enough not to say this out loud in public, I think she might be hoping that someone like Warren gets elected in 2016 to make that selection, where she could retire then. I don't think Hillary will work any better than Obama, and she probably knows that. So things could change as primary season starts setting the stage for who's running later.

If Warren has a strong campaign to have Ginsberg feel more hopeful about her chances to win the nomination and the presidency later, then perhaps the rest of the Democratic Party, out of concern that a Republican gets elected and creates a worse situation for replacing Ginsberg, might have to sit down and negotiate with Warren to have her help Obama nominate Ginsberg's replacement in time enough or Obama to select her replacement before he leaves. Perhaps that might help alleviate Ginsberg (as well as the rest of "the left" of the Democratic Party, aka the majority of its grass roots constituents), to feel that a reasonable replacement might be found.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/1265745

[Enthusiast]

34. It was a horrible decision.

On the level of Bush v Gore and Citizens United. She was right to raise hell. That fucking Roberts should be ashamed to show his face in public. But here he is choosing the FISA court.

[Cha]

41. Thank you Justice Ruth Ginsburg!!

Mahalo bigtree~

[noiretextatique]

43. smart, honest, and correct

though they claim otherwise, the conservative majority on the court is activist. and it's pretty clear what their agenda is all about: protecting the 1%.

[Tx4obama]

44. Be sure to read the long detailed article in the New York Times, link below

Court Is ‘One of Most Activist,’ Ginsburg Says, Vowing to Stay

August 24, 2013

WASHINGTON — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 80, vowed in an interview to stay on the Supreme Court as long as her health and intellect remained strong, saying she was fully engaged in her work as the leader of the liberal opposition on what she called “one of the most activist courts in history.”

In wide-ranging remarks in her chambers on Friday that touched on affirmative action, abortion and same-sex marriage, Justice Ginsburg said she had made a mistake in joining a 2009 opinion that laid the groundwork for the court’s decision in June effectively striking down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The recent decision, she said, was “stunning in terms of activism.”

Unless they have a book to sell, Supreme Court justices rarely give interviews. Justice Ginsburg has given several this summer, perhaps in reaction to calls from some liberals that she step down in time for President Obama to name her successor.

On Friday, she said repeatedly that the identity of the president who would appoint her replacement did not figure in her retirement planning.

“There will be a president after this one, and I’m hopeful that that president will be a fine president,” she said.

-snip-

Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/us/court-is-one-of-most-activist-ginsburg-says-vowing-to-stay.html?_r=0

And on DU here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251321035

[Jake2413]

46. She does have guts

I think we will be hearing more from her.

[Overseas]

47. Ginsburg tells truth about Roberts court.

Sad when telling it like it is becomes "calling out". So many people are so afraid of being crushed by corporate money I guess.

[Nye Bevan]

48. Shut up and just quit your job, because we are scared that a Republican will win in 2016,

according to quite a few DUers.

[summer-hazz]

50. I'm not scared

about 2016...

Right now I see this voting rights act as a win for us.
A RWer came out today and said they are fighting along with
some other RWer's to come up with a solution to put it
back into law.

Can you even imagine how this will go over for College
Student's? I can, I live with four of them, one is my daughter and they all vote...
College loans are the next bubble to burst.. College student's
owe trillions of dollars to the gov and they
can't vote?... not to mention the other disenfranchised voters..

A college town that lives for its student's money can't vote?
No way this will ever stand!

Stupid republicans....
They had no ideal what a can of worms they opened when
they did this...

[myrna minx]

51. K&R n/t

[Solly Mack]

54. Love the photo.