The Blog of toussaint

You have heard it said many times before, Elections have consequences.  Never has that truism been illustrated more clearly than with the election of Bush.  The 2 Justices that he appointed to the court are clear examples.  i hate to admit what a true political junkie i am, but i watched every second of the conformation hearings of Roberts and Alito.  Alito made it clear that he was a far right-leaning conservative so it has not been a surprise the way he has voted every time with the 2 fools of the court, Thomas and Scalia.  But Roberts, i must say, has been a shocker.  He sat before the American people and lied his butt off.  i was sure that he would be a true replacement of O'Connor;  voting about 60/40 for the right but being fair to the left.  He promised me and you that he would not seek to overturn long standing precedents that have become cornerstones of law taught all across this land in law schools.  Boy, how wrong i was to believe him. 

It states clearly in the Constitution that the Supreme Court is not to be the finder of facts; that duty would be left to the lower courts and that the Supreme Court's job would be interpreting the law for constitutionality.  In the "Partial Birth" Abortion case they found that the procedure was never a medical necessity so the law did not have to have an exception for the health of the mother.  Sounds like finding facts to me.  The lower courts found the exact opposite facts and the high court threw out their findings to substitute their own.  This abuse is exactly what the founding fathers were trying to prevent.  They wanted jurisdictions around the country to be independent and to pass whatever laws they wanted as long as they were constitutional.  That is the only job of the court. 

Republicans often talk about activist judges and how much they don't like them, that is until the are advocating something they agree with.  They have tried to kill free speech. . . unless you are a corporation with lots of money , then you can speak as freely as you like.  In the Bong hits for Jesus case they said that the speech was illegal because it advocated something illegal at a school function.  What exactly was that?  i can't tell, because many people use bongs to smoke legal tobacco.  Also, much of free speech is about advocating illegal things, like when desegregation was illegal in the south, people were arguing that it should become legal.   Under this court, Martin L King would have been breaking the law if he spoke about this social injustice at a school instead of in front of the Capitol. 

So what do we do about it?  i suggest that he next President, if it is a Democrat, should do what F.D.R did when the Justices he didn't like were running the good name of the court into the ground. It was called "Court Packing", he appointed 2 more Justices to the Court that tilted the balance in a way he would agree with.  This is totally legal because the Constitution does not specify how many Justices there should be one the court; that is left up to the President.  Now, some of you might not like this idea but to you i say tough.  Elections have consequences.