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The foolish petty Republican response to the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court rules that it has the right to ignore the actual words written in a law so it can provide support to a particular political position. The Republican response? Let’s force the judges to enroll in Obamacare!

The Supreme Court rules that the will of the electorate, which has rejected same-sex marriage in more than thirty elections, should be ignored because it wishes to support a particular political position. The Republican response? So far, a lot of bluster and toothless proposals.

What should they do to answer both rulings? They control Congress. The Constitution gives them the right and the power to impeach and remove judges. It is time for them to show they really oppose these decisions and move to fire the justices who ruled on these two cases.

Any other action will show us that they really do not have the courage to defend the will of the electorate.

I should add that I really do not expect the Republicans in Congress to do what I suggest. They are cowards, and have repeatedly shown that they will not stand up to leftwing attacks. They will fold here as well.

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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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25 comments

  • Cotour

    Judging by the counter intuitive reasoning of the Chief Justice alone on the two issues settled by the court in the last two days, State exchanges for Obamacare and gay marriage, would indicate that beginning with him he should be removed. There is something other than judging the Constitutionality of passed law going on IMO.

    His contorted reasoning on both are disturbing. I can understand the gay marriage argument to a degree but the Obamacare reasoning evades me totally.

    Your last conclusion about removal is correct, it will never happen.

  • pzatchok

    What scares me the most about this decision is the fact that the SC of all legal bodies has now fully taken up the idea that a laws intent matters more than its actual wording.

    Definitions of words can be looked up and do not change. We know what words meant years ago because we have other books explaining their definitions. Like dictionaries,

    But intent is not something that can be nailed down after a period of time passes. It can also change as society changes and or technology changes. It will change the most in accordance with the reader.

    The SC was supposed to stop that from happening.

    But now that they are doing the reinterpreting of law based on intent this leaves ALL laws open for reinterpretation and thus change.

    Without a solid unchanging base for law we stand on the brink of anarchy and thus tyranny will soon form in the hope of keeping order.

    There is no ‘settled’ law anymore.

  • Nick P

    Bob, while I share your feelings, the Senate needs 67 votes to convict on impeachment charges.

    Where are they going to get the votes?

  • pzatchok

    As for gay marriage. (personally I don’t care as long as they NEVER force a religious institution to do something against they will)

    So as for gay marriage. Think of it like that pesky marihuana problem. The feds outlaw it but the states do not have to follow that law. They can make it legal as long as they want.

    So, if thats allowed then a state making gay marriage illegal should be just fine.

    Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

  • Nick P

    pzatchok

    “the SC of all legal bodies has now fully taken up the idea that a laws intent matters more than its actual wording”

    It’s worse than that. According to the person who wrote the section of the law in question, that WAS their intent, not just their wording. So neither the wording or the intent mattered in this case. The SC rewrote the Law to fit their political agenda.

  • pzatchok

    The SC reinterpreted the word state(as in a reference to Texas, Ohio,…) to mean the State as in the federal government.

    They literally came out and said the big S state was what was intended by the law not the individual states of our union.

  • Keith

    … also, if a justice was to be convicts and removed, the current President would be nominating the replacement.

  • D. Messier

    Impeach six members of the Supreme Court? And if Congress doesn’t they’re cowards?

    Hahahahahahahahahahaha….

    That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week. It’s delusional.

  • Cotour

    The next move in this collective fantasy would be for the Congress to not allow this president to nominate anyone and keep the court at what ever number of justices was left. But if the Congress was of that level of commitment then we would not be having this crazy conversation.

    America and the majority of the American people have been usurped. No tin hats being worn here. Everything this administration does is 180 degrees from what any rational (IMO of course) American would think was reasonable and it is being allowed by this administrations supposed opposition. Therefore we can conclude that if they are unwilling to confront and relive the administration of power the Republican leadership in effect is on board with what is going on and support it.

    And that is just the reality of the situation.

  • Cotour

    What can you say about a Chief Justice who writes something like this on the gay marriage issue:

    “Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.”

    And the day before writes 21 pages of twisting and turning convoluted justification for disregarding the Constitution and the words and the definitions of words that comprise it?

  • Cotour

    And this is where it leaves the American people, news papers banning any further conversation about the issue.

    http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/26/the-silencing-paper-will-limit-anti-gay-marriage-op-eds/

    Constitution? What is the Constitution now?

  • That has been the logic of the Republican leadership now for a decade: “We can’t win so let’s not even try.”

    Instead, they should push hard and make the damn Democrats support these corrupt judges. The result will be election victories, and larger majority, and the real opportunity to depose them.

  • Gee, Mr. Messier, that is an interesting debate technique you use there. Rather than discuss this rationally, you immediately go to ridicule and insults.

    Note that I admitted in my post itself that impeaching and removing these guys is unlikely. I guess you don’t read too good.

  • Edward

    Just as Chief Justice John Marshall redefined the role of the Supreme Court as one of judicial review of congressional legislation, Chief Justice John Roberts has again redefined its role as one of whimsical rewriting of congressional legislation.

    But this is hardly unexpected, considering that the Supreme Court has allowed the president to whimsically rewrite the very legislation that he has signed into law.

    “Judicial review” no longer has to rely upon the Constitution, the law as written, the law as intended, or any other legal factor. It now may modify laws and the Constitution in any way that they feel that day (e.g. the Fourteenth Amendment, which neither says nor intended what Roberts wrote that it does). Maybe even the way that they feel that hour.

    The rationale for a decision no longer need be consistent with any existing law or precedent or even with any simultaneous ruling. Perhaps it only needs to be consistent with how lunch is agreeing with them that afternoon.

    The reason that these Justices are not elected officials was to prevent them from being political or emotional beings, but this has failed in spectacular fashion. They have forsaken the concept of a nation of laws applied equally (as explicitly stated in the Fourteenth Amendment) in favor of a nation of men, where laws are applied at a man’s momentary whim (not stated, implied, or intended anywhere in US legal documentation).

    It does not help, though, that the laws, and even our treaties, are now written in a whimsical manner. Now that Congress has to pass them in order for the rest of us to find out what is in them is not a reassuring way to run a republic. We cannot inform our representatives of our opinion of such secretive legislation, so how can they properly represent us?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To (6 seconds)

    That hardly matters, anyway, as the law that is passed and signed into law is not the law that is enforced. Nor is it the law that the courts misinterpret.

    But that is OK, because they care.

    For what, we may never know, but I am sure that they care.

    The fundamental destruction of the America that we grew up in is complete. Now it is only a matter of breaking up the remaining shards of the Bill of Rights.

  • Edward

    I have to agree with Robert on this one. No one is putting any fear into the tyrants ruling this country. This is why they are doing whatever they wish — without consequence.

    The Republican party was handed control of Congress with a mandate from We the People to finally get a backbone and stand up to the tyrants. Instead, they wimped out and sided with the tyrants, even at the expense of their own power, their biggest threat being to put the SCOTUS under the thumb of Obamacare — like the president would not pretend that the law allows him to make sure they get special treatment for supporting him (rewarding his friends, like a good crony dictator). They fund every heinous law that Obama mis-implements, and they go along with his tyrannical ideas.

    The Supreme Court is just the latest to wimp out and leave us hanging. They seem to have given themselves a new power of judicial activism, to make up their own unreviewed, unchecked, unbalanced laws as they please, which may or may not be enforced by a tyrannical president who likewise does as he pleases unchecked and unbalanced.

    Our elected and unelected national officials have turned on us, treating us as the servants, rather than acting as the public servants that they are supposed to be and behaving like the tyrants that this country is supposed to stand against. The Tea Party protests seem few and far between, these days, and the states are taking their sweet time putting together an Article Five convention to put the fear of the people into these tyrants and fix the atrocious federal behavior.

    With a dictatorial president like this one, it would not take long for the United States to look like North Korea.

    However, I disagree with Robert in that I do not think the Republican leadership has the wherewithal to take advantage of showing the population the true nature of the modern Democratic Party. They didn’t when the Democrats tried to change the First Amendment. How many people remember or know about that Democratic treachery? The Republicans should have been loud and clear about that event.

    Even when the law, the truth, and the power are on their side, the Republican leaders do not have the gonads to make good public relations happen. They are not good at making election victories, preferring to destroy fellow Republicans rather than let conservatives win elections (whose side are they on, anyway?); nor are they good at enlarging their majority; and they squander every opportunity that is presented to them, explaining that they will wimp out this time but be braver next time — and when next time comes again they prove themselves to still be wimps. Or treacherous.

    What a pack of (worse than) useless ninnies.

    What a cluster.

    The question is, can We the People develop our own backbone and protest en masse to put the necessary fear into our tyrannical leadership, or has the government put sufficient fear into the population to prevent us from doing so?

  • Cotour

    I just realized a bit of a silver lining that goes along with this ruling while reading your post. The Republicans have had some cover created for them, they can now answer when asked about their position on gay marriage, ” that’s settled law, next question “.

    There are few Republicans that can productively answer such a question. The one other deadly question for any Republican is of course “what is your position on abortion? “. This gay marriage ruling has cut by 50% the possibility that any Republican will put his foot in his mouth.

    Now that’s what I call progress! (I will take what I can get these days)

  • D. Messier

    I read the whole post. It’s just the whole idea is beyond unlikely. It’s so absurd I can’t believe you even raised it.

  • Fifteen years ago I heard James Dobson of the Family Research Council warn that same-sex marriage was going to be pushed on the country in the coming years. The whole idea seemed “beyond unlikely” and “so absurd I couldn’t believe he even raised it.” He turned out to be right, y’know.

    Similarly, when Robert Goddard was building the first liquid rocket engines he was considered insane by some for proposing future trips to the Moon, ideas that to most seemed “beyond unlikely.” Who turned out to be right?

    I can give you lots more examples. Just because an idea seems radical and on the edge is not an argument against it. For example, if elections continue to trend right, as they have for the past half decade on all levels of government, impeachment and removal will become increasingly possible.

    It will not become possible, however, if no one has the courage to propose it. In politics, you need to push to get what you want. I am personally tired of Republicans who give up before the battle is even joined. No wonder we are losing our freedoms.

  • Max

    It would seem that all branches of government are interchangeable now. Congress votes on the new bills, then they read the new laws to see what’s in it. The president changes the laws and then signs them into existence. Then the Supreme Court changes the wording of the law to make it constitutional.
    Now that the Supreme Court can rule on the intent of the law rather than the wording, everything is up for interpretation… Did the founding fathers intended for everyone to have free speech, or only those who can pay the advertising costs?
    Every good liberal knows that the founding fathers intended that the right to keep and bear arms was only for the militia.
    Illegal searches and seizures can only be preformed by a thief. Everything the government does with your personal effects is meant for the good of the people therefore cannot be illegal as intended by our founding fathers in the Constitution. (do you have something to hide? I have something to hide, that is why I wear clothes)
    I Think that the founding fathers intended all rich people to give everything they have to the poor. After all how else could we provide for the general welfare? (it worked great in Russia)
    I’m sure Obama has talked to his astrologers and performed the proper rituals to find out the intent of the founding fathers on carbon-based fuels. You know that they would want us to save the planet by banding oil and coal and planting more trees.
    The four-year term limit for president was only intended for the bad presidents, not the good ones.
    That trial by jury is such a nuisance, if the founding fathers knew about drones… Shirley it would’ve been in the Constitution as a suitable replacement.
    Why debate and ratify a new constitution when we can simply interpret the one we have any way we wish? Welcome to the new banana republic of the United States.
    I can hardly wait for the lower courts to interpret the intentions of the Supreme Court…

  • Tom

    Quick ;name the last Associate Justice of SC to face removal by impeachment . The last time a justice was subject to impeachment was in 1801 . Jefferson wanted to rid the country of Samuel Chase’s services. He was impeached for allowing his partisan leanings to affect his decisions . The Senate voted to acquit Chase of all charges . Since then associate justices have had virtual immunity even when there was no doubt about certain justices incompetence.

  • Woody Sprott

    Right on analysis of the Republicans. Cowards, at least!

  • D. Messier

    There are so many reasons that trying to impeach six Supreme Court justices over these two decisions would be a bad idea that I don’t even really know where to start. I’m guessing that most Republicans know this as well.

  • Normally I would agree with those unstated reasons, many of which I am as much aware of as you. (Please don’t take me for an uneducated fool. You know me and my writing well enough to know that isn’t true.) However, we are not in normal times. I come to these thoughts about impeachment and removal realizing that it is becoming increasingly necessary to take strong action or else all our freedoms will vanish.

  • Edward

    Max wrote: “The president changes the laws and then signs them into existence. ”

    Actually, you have this backward, the president signs the law and *then* changes them as he pleases.

    Your point is made, however. The three branches of government are interchangeable, behaving as though they were one branch: the tyranny branch.

  • Darwin Teague

    The Constitution gives Congress the power to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which it has done multiple times in the past. All lower federal courts were created by Congress, which could do away with them or revamp them any way they like. Good luck getting Congress to do it, though.

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