Sandra Day O'Connor

[codebuster11]

Hey everyone,

In a few days i'll be able to ask former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor a question, but i am having the single hardest time thinking up a good, well formulated question.

Obviously, id like it to focus around Bush v. Gore (2000), but, i just cant think of the right question to ask. I hope i can get some help here!

Thank you all so very much.


Oh, and I should probably add that I will definitely share my experiences tomorrow with you all. Expect a nice written description of what she said, etc.!

[satya]

1. What a wonderful opportunity!

I haven't come up with a good question myself, but I wanted to kick this back up so it wouldn't get lost in the shuffle.

[Bluebear]

2. "Your personal legacy to many is the Bush v Gore decision. How do you feel about that?"

:)

[codebuster11]

3. that aint half bad

thats a pretty good one, thats now definitely up there in my choice list!

[tk2kewl]

4. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?

how's that?

[codebuster11]

5. lol

i'll tag that on at the end of the other one

[badgerpup]

6. What were you promised...and was the payoff worth it?

How do you reconcile your conscience with your decision now?

I know there's been no indication of duckhunting trips bribery- at least for Sandra Day O'Conner...but still...:nuke::grr:

[Alcibiades]

18. except for the fact that she got to retire

and have a Republican name her successor.

[CrispyQ]

7. Did you vote for Nader in 2000? --nt

:shrug:

[Horse with no Name]

8. You can ask her

(she used to be one of my heroes when I was a kid)
Why she felt the need to circumvent the Democratic process and overreach in a decision that the SCOTUS had no business deciding? And if she is proud of the legacy that brought us the outing of a CIA Agent and an idealogical war.

[calimary]

11. All these are good. She needs to know it's being hung around her

neck for the rest of her life. I want her to feel terrible about it. Because she did a terrible thing. She enabled MANY terrible things. And she should be reminded of that. Again and again.

I really like the one upthread that puts it in terms of her "legacy," because that's exactly what it is. Just as ralph nader's spoiler status in 2000 will forever trump ANYTHING else he tried to do for the little guy, the worker, or consumer protection in general - not to mention how it wiped out everything he'd worked for, over his entire lifetime. Her vote in bush versus Gore trumps ANYTHING else she may have done, and erased whatever good her earlier rulings may have accomplished.

She needs to understand, and to be reminded, of the magnitude of that ruling, and her role in it. And what it did to our nation. And how we still hurt because of it. How the ENTIRE WORLD suffers because of it. In fact, I hope her nose is rubbed in it for the rest of her life.

[aquart]

9. How does it feel to commit treason and get away with it?

When you look down can you see the blood dripping from your hands?

Do you ever take responsibility for the results of your treasonous decision to appoint Bush as president?

Are you bothered by the alliteration in Filthy Five?

Would you say Hi! to Rehnquist for me, when you meet him in Hell?

[orleans]

19. all those are great fucking questions! i wish someone would ask her those! n/t

[wakemeupwhenitsover]

10. Is it true that when Florida was announced for Gore that

you turned to your husband & said "this is awful"? If that is true (& was widely reported) shouldn't you have recused yourself when the case went to the Supreme Court?

[mitchum]

12. How do you sleep?

[tinfoilinfor2005]

13. What's the capital of North Dakota?

In other words, what does it matter now? You would probably be putting your time to better use if you went out and saw a good movie instead.

[PsN2Wind]

14. You could ask if it is true

that she and Rehnquist had both expressed that they wanted to retire but not while a Democrat could appoint their successor and, if true, would not her decision appear to be biased in the 2000 election.

[MonkeyFunk]

15. I'd go with the

Bush v Gore legacy question.

Start out with a nice, respectful recitation of her accomplishments - x many years on the federal bench, x years on the Supreme Court as the first woman justice, etc. etc.

How do you feel, knowing that after all that, your historic legacy will be eclipsed by your decision in Bush v. Gore?

[LouisianaLiberal]

16. I can think of a few:

1) Why was it necessary to issue the ruling "per curiam", which is almost always issued for unanimous opinions, effectively allowing the majority to remain anonymous?

2)How can counting every vote legally constitute "irreparable harm" to Bush? Shouldn't every vote be counted?

3)Admittedly, there is no statue making it a crime to steal a presidential election, but if what you did isn't morally reprehensible and a wrong against society, what exactly in your mind constitutes a wrong against society?

4)"The proof that the court itself knew its equal protection argument had no merit whatsoever is that when Bush first asked the Court, on November 22, to consider three objections of his to the earlier, more limited Florida recount then taking place, the Court, on November 24, only denied review on his third objection that the lack of a uniform standard to determine the voter's intent violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." From Bugliosi's "The Betrayal of America".

5)Why didn't they remand the case back to Florida with instructions to establish a uniform, statewide standard and continue the recount, since the electors of the fifty states weren't scheduled to meet for another six days?

6)Why did the court write that its ruling was "limited to the present circumstances"?

Most of these come from reading Bugliosi's book. On second thought, don't ask question four. Really confusing. Looking forward to hearing how it went.

[kath]

21. Highly recommend Bugliosi's book, for anyone who hasn't read it.

[HughBeaumont]

17. "What did you do with the cloths?"

"You know, to wipe up all the BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS!!?!????!?!?!"

I'd start with that one.

Sorry Sandy. Instead of being courageous you cowered to the Cabal. Get your shit correct, that Simian didn't win, you had NO RIGHT to make that decision and you know it.

Oh yeah, here's why:

As a federal court, the five runaway Supreme Court justices had no right to agree to hear the case. Under our system of government, elections--and election disputes--fall under state jurisdiction. Their decision to take the case, the way they fixed the outcome in Bush's favor, and Bush's willingness to assume the presidency extraconstitutionally are outrages that no patriotic American, even if they agree with his policies, can forgive.

[orleans]

20. i've been reading some of these questions and i think they are

great questions for that fucking bitch. why don't you ask one question with a follow up question in three to five parts?

[Hekate]

22. Respectful recognition of her many accomplishments, & then the one thing she'll be remem-

That's it: respectful recognition of her many accomplishments, and then the one thing she'll be remembered for. Knowing that all the good she ever did has been/is being undone by the Bush cabal -- was it worth subverting the mandate to count every vote?

I'd suggest having a backup question, in case someone else asks "yours" before you.

By the way -- what is the event at which you are going to meet the retired Supreme Court Justice?

Hekate

[Alcibiades]

23. The Twelfth Amendment

Given that the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution clearly lays out the process for deciding an election with an indeterminate result, how is it that the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore does not constitute a violation of the prerogatives of Congress, particularly since the decision was timed in such a way that Congress would not be able to challenge it? Also, many people feel that the decision was set an antidemocratic precedent by making the Supreme Court the ultimate arbiter of presidential elections. Millions of Americans have lost faith in impartiality of the Court, and now see it as a wholly arbitrary and partisan political institution. Does she have any regrets about the decision, and did she foresee that it would undermine the faith of Americans in the rule of law?

[tk2kewl]

25. I like this one

I hope codebuster11 is still checking in

[Senator]

31. The second one is good

The first however is just wrong. Nothing stopped Congress from refusing to allow the unlawful Florida electors -- as Justice Breyer instructed them to do in his dissent.

All the Felonious Five really did was truncate, and thus invalidate, the Florida election process. Clearly an act of election theft, but not a usurption of Congressional power.

Had Gore and the DC-Dems stood with the Black Caucus to demand a just result -- as Senator Boxer tried to do over Ohio on January 6th, 2005 -- they may well have prevailed. (Yes, even with a Rep congress.) The same is true for Kerry in 2004/5.

--

[Kahuna]

24. My question: Why did *'s perceived right to equal protection usurp

the equal protection rights of millions of voters, for whom the equal protection clause was written? That's what I want to know.

[ljm2002]

27. Another question:

Why did they grant the original injunction stopping the recounts, pending their ruling, because it could cause "irreparable harm" to Bush??? Usually such an injunction could not be granted if doing so would do equal or greater harm to another party (in this case, Al Gore).

That in itself indicates a bias, before the case was ever heard.

[Felinity]

26. Who do you think is smarter?

You, or Alito?

[Senator]

28. Why would the NY Times report -- not opine, but report -- that...

..."The majority had a conclusion in search of a rationale." (quoted here)

Is that not the opposite of judicial deliberation? Is that not conspiracy to commit election theft?

The last bit of course is optional. (Objection: Argumentative)

---

[rateyes]

29. Ask her

what having the blood of over 20,000 of our military members and hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqi children on her hands feels like? Does she feel like Lady McBeth: "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!!"?

[Buck Turgidson]

30. Ask if she caught any fish with that flyline that Griz sold her.

[midnight]

32. Maybe you could ask her if the Supreme Court is under low

Moral because of perceived injustices in low pay scale? You can inform her that Justice Kennedy is stating this as the reason for Justice Roberts perceived constitutional crisis. Then you can follow up and ask her if she thinks that low moral might stem from the fact that they stopped the peoples right to a re-count, and selected an American President. I would perceive that to be the basis for the Conditional Crisis,and not low pay. But I'm not a lawyer, or Justice.

[Senator]

33. What you might want to do...

...is to write several of these questions out clearly on index cards. Pick the best for yourself. Then offer the rest to others in the audience.

My guess is that if she gets more than 2 probing questions about BvG, she'll crack like a grape and burst into tears.

Consciousness of guilt can be a cruel master.

--

[cascadiance]

34. How about a question on corporate "personhood" or "free speech"?

These are questions that many of our bought and paid for congress people are afraid to ask of nominees, and yet they are so important to make sure that the next congress and president, if they are going to make fundamental changes in rooting out the corporatocracy control, aren't going to have the courts stand in their way.

Perhaps ask her what she feels about these issues, the *judicial activism* that created them to start with, and whether a court with new justices, if they start harping on not being judicial activists will ever revert these WORST examples of judicial activism and why or why not.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

35. How is it possible that Bush v Gore can't be used as a precedent?

How hypocritical was the court's decision that Bush v Gore can't be used as a precedent?

How does it feel to know that you helped put the worst president in US history in power?

Do you feel responsible for the deaths on 9/11 or in Bush's Iraq war?

How does it feel to participate in a coup?