Stark evidence for why disgusted conservatives like me who don't want to vote McCain this fall might have to bite the bullet and do it: Obama's plans for the Supreme Court and the judiciary, which include the second coming of Earl Warren. From today's NYT:
On March 3, Mr. Obama spoke of what he would look for in a Supreme Court justice and held up Earl Warren, a former governor of California and the former chief justice, as an example.Chief Justice Warren, who led the court in forging its landmark 1954 ruling outlawing school segregation, “had the wisdom to recognize that segregation was wrong less because of precise sociological effects and more so because it was immoral and stigmatized blacks,” Mr. Obama said. “I want people on the bench who have enough empathy, enough feeling, for what ordinary people are going through.”
More from Obama on this point, from his speech last year to the Planned Parenthood convention:
The Constitution can be interpreted in so many ways. And one way is a cramped and narrow way in which the Constitution and the courts essentially become the ruber stamps of the powerful in society. And then there's another vision of the court that says that the courts are the refuge of the powerless. Because often times they may lose in the democratic back and forth. They may be locked out and prevented from fully participating in the democratic process. That's one of the reasons that I opposed Alito, you know, as well as Justice Roberts.Justice Roberts said he saw himself as just an umpire. But the issues that come before the Court are not sport; they're life and death. And we need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges.
A jurisprudence of emotivism. An outcome-based jurisprudence. Don't worry what the law says, openly use it to serve politically favored classes.
We have been warned.
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Don't forget Warren's wonderfully progressive plan to give Japanese-Americans free vacations.
Nor the far right "nonprofit" advocacy groups and the pro-life movement, who focus like a laser on the courts for precisely these reasons.
Yes, but it's usually not the conservatives in discussions like this who peddle the lie that the courts don't really matter one way or another.
Excuse me, Gerry, Hugo Black's court decided Korematsu before Earl Warren had a chance to work his magic.
Connie, I think what Gerry is referring to is the fact that Earl Warren was Governor of California at the time of Korematsu. He was an enthusiastic champion of the internment policy, which chiefly affected his state.
hattio
Third, DavidTC, I suggest you read the opinion. Though I agree with you on the merits, Scalia's (Or was it Roberts?) opinion in the Goodyear case was not as out there as you seem to imply. Once again, this brings us back to the legislature writing shoddy laws. If they would get their act together, it wouldn't leave folks on the court (liberal or conservative) as much wiggle room. Oh, and we have a Democratic majority in both houses...why can't we get this fixed legislatively?
The law was written just fine. And I've read the opinion, went 'huh', and went and read the law itself. Their opinion only works if you parse 'employment practices' as 'decisions made by employers', instead of 'actions by employers'.
Which is incidentally very stupid as, under the law, victims can demonstrate a pattern that doesn't require breaking out each decision, but merely that the entire setup is has a discriminatory effect as a whole. Of course, this would completely fall apart if you had to demonstrate that each decision that was part of this setup (The ones you don't have to individually identify) happened within 180 days.
The real funny joke here is, if the law had been interpreted this way in the past, it couldn't accomplish entire purpose of the law, which was to desegregate existing businesses. You can't tell me there wasn't some discussion on the discussion on the floor of Congress about how current employment practices would have to change, which the Supreme Court completely ignored in determining the intent of this law and what 'employment practices' meant.
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