Bloodthirsty Liberal

Uh, Mr. President, didn’t you swear “to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”?

I coulda sworn you did.

But this week, the United States Supreme Court handed a huge victory to the special interests and their lobbyists – and a powerful blow to our efforts to rein in corporate influence. This ruling strikes at our democracy itself. By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned more than a century of law – including a bipartisan campaign finance law written by Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold that had barred corporations from using their financial clout to directly interfere with elections by running advertisements for or against candidates in the crucial closing weeks.

This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way – or to punish those who don’t. That means that any public servant who has the courage to stand up to the special interests and stand up for the American people can find himself or herself under assault come election time. Even foreign corporations may now get into the act.

I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest. The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.

This from a guy who—oh, let Ed Morrissey tell it:

It’s worth pointing out that Barack Obama had an opportunity to limit that influence in the 2008 election simply by remaining in the public matching fund program that every major Presidential candidate had used since Watergate. In fact, Obama himself pledged to do just that in 2007 and again in early 2008, but changed his mind in June when he discovered that he could raise a lot more money than his opponent — by currying favor with Wall Street and the unions, as well as ethanol companies and a host of corporate-sponsored, lobbyist-run PACs. Obama raised over $600 million in 2008 for his eventual victory.

Now he wants to limit the power of politicians to raise that kind of money, which is mighty convenient for incumbents such as himself — and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill.

Talk about your chutzpah! He’s like the guy who murders his parents and then pleads for leniency from the court because he’s an orphan.

I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the new playing field because it’s been so long since we’ve had a level one. McCain-Feingold was clearly unconstitutional in the case of Citizens United v FEC, and therefore it had to go. There has been no shortage of lobbying money in elections all along, just through fronts and shells. This may actually bring transparency to the game.

I still think Justice Thomas’s dissenting argument (in a concurring opinion) about transparency leading to harassment needs more attention. My campaign contributions turn up in a simple Google search of my name. In a case as contentious as Prop 8 in California, the right of free speech comes under direct attack:

The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday issued an order indefinitely blocking the broadcasting of the high-profile California Proposition 8 case, handing a victory to Prop 8 supporters who feared witnesses would be harassed if the trial was shown around the world.

In a 5-4 order, the court’s five most conservative justices ruled that U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker did not follow federal law by not allowing for a sufficient opportunity for public comment when he announced that video of the trial could be posted on Internet sites such as YouTube. Walker provided only about a week for comment and should have allowed 30 days or more, the court said.

Attorneys with ProtectMarriage.com, the organization that promoted Prop 8, filed the appeal with the Supreme Court, which had issued a temporary stay Monday.

“The District Court attempted to change its rules at the eleventh hour to treat this case differently than other trials in the district,” the majority ruled. “Not only did it ignore the federal statute that establishes the procedures by which its rules may be amended, its express purpose was to broadcast a high-profile trial that would include witness testimony about a contentious issue. If courts are to require that others follow regular procedures, courts must do so as well.”

…

The court cited evidence from ProtectMarriage.com where supporters of Prop 8 have:

– “received confrontational phone calls and e-mail messages from opponents of Proposition 8.

– “been forced to resign their jobs after it became public that they had donated to groups supporting” Prop 8.

– been put on “Internet blacklists” where businesses who supported Prop 8 were boycotted.

– “received death threats and envelopes containing a powdery white substance.

Thomas cited these examples in his dissent, and asked if complete transparency is all it’s cracked up to be.

The Supreme Court allowed New London, Connecticut to take the homes of several citizens because they wanted an office park

They took the land and bull-dozed the residences.

The Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London stands as one of the worst in recent years, handing local governments carte blanche to seize private property in the name of economic development. Now, four years after that decision gave Susette Kelo’s land to private developers for a project including a hotel and offices intended to enhance Pfizer Inc.’s nearby corporate facility, the pharmaceutical giant has announced it will close its research and development headquarters in New London, Connecticut.

The aftermath of Kelo is the latest example of the futility of using eminent domain as corporate welfare. While Ms. Kelo and her neighbors lost their homes, the city and the state spent some $78 million to bulldoze private property for high-end condos and other “desirable” elements. Instead, the wrecked and condemned neighborhood still stands vacant, without any of the touted tax benefits or job creation.

That’s especially galling because the five Supreme Court Justices cited the development plan as a major factor in rationalizing their Kelo decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy called the plan “comprehensive,” while Justice John Paul Stevens insisted that “The city has carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue.” So much for that.

Kelo’s silver lining has been that it transformed eminent domain from an arcane government power into a major concern of voters who suddenly wonder if their own homes are at risk. According to the Institute for Justice, which represented Susette Kelo, 43 states have since passed laws that place limits and safeguards on eminent domain, giving property owners greater security in their homes. State courts have also held local development projects to a higher standard than what prevailed against the condemned neighborhood in New London.

I remember the decision because I found it shocking. Typically, the Left claims to side with “the people” against “corporate power”, but it was the liberalson the court that took the homes from those poor people. (In fact, there were conservative groups around the country that tried in protest to get the home states of the Supremes to take their individual homes to use for the common good. In New Hampshire there was a group that lobbied to take David Souter’s home, saying it would be a good tourist attraction.) Now Pfizer and the others have pulled out of the region entirely. Perhaps the only good that will come of this is that it will be more difficult in the future to take homes away because someone has a “comprehensive” plan.

- Aggie

Taxes can go up and down. We can and do change our foreign policy all the time. But the make-up of the Supreme Court has a way of altering society more permanently.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — After more than 18 years on the nation’s highest court, Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring, a source close to Souter told CNN Thursday.

Souter will leave after the current court term recesses in June, the source said.

Filling Souter’s seat would be President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court appointment — and the first since George W. Bush’s picks of Samuel Alito in 2006 and Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005.

Souter, 69, was tapped for the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, but disappointed many conservatives when he turned out to be a typical old-fashioned Yankee Republican — a moderate, with an independent, even quirky streak.

Souter’s departure will leave the two oldest justices — and the most liberal — still on the bench. Retirements for John Paul Stevens, 89, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 76, have been rumored for years, with many expecting that one or the other would be the first to give a new Democratic president a Supreme Court vacancy.

Souter’s decision came as something of a surprise, although he has long been known to prefer the quiet of his New Hampshire farmhouse to the bustle of the nation’s capital.

I refuse to whine about this. Obama won, fair and square. But the deepest structural changes that he will make to our country will probably be through the Supreme Court.

- Aggie

If I put the assertion to you that the Supreme Court should make decisions based on the Constitution, I assume most of you would agree. But then, most of you are not Obama supporters:

“While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree.” Their preferred metric? “the judge’s sense of fairness.”

Actually, let me take you to the original source, because the story gets even more disturbing:

Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.

Half of Obama’s supporters are either profoundly ignorant of the Constitutional foundation of this Republic—or they know, and just don’t give a damn. They hate it when you call them ignorant, so I’m happy to call them traitorous instead. I suppose there’s a third choice, if they prefer: sick in the head.