The Supreme Court is Dead

When the Bush vs. Gore election happened and Bush won in the initial media reports that night, Newsweek among other media sources reported that O.Connor had an emotional outburst. This was something that struck me at the time I read it and has implications regarding that twisted election. But, in this case I wonder 1) The justices, always with a sesne of legacy, why did she choose to retire now? Who does she want her replacement to be? 2) Why is she immune from her clearly partisan slip up which potentially cost the country its democraitc integrity? ...this is something you don't read ANYWHERE yet easily well heres a summary from a web site:

 

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/010701a.html

Personal Interests

 

Gore had miscalculated O'Connor's interests and her character. Beyond a partisan desire for Bush's election, O'Connor had strong personal reasons to block Gore's apparent victory. According to close friends, she wants to become the first female U.S. chief justice, an ambition that she hopes President Bush will fulfill.

 

As I reported on Dec. 11, O'Connor was visibly upset -- indeed furious -- when on Election Night, Nov. 7, the networks predicted that Gore would take Florida.

 

"This is terrible," she said, as the announcement came from the television in the basement den of former Ambassador Walter Stoessel's widow's Washington home.

 

When O'Connor angrily left to get her dinner from the buffet table upstairs, O'Connor's husband John explained that she was upset because the couple wanted to retire to Arizona, but that his wife would never vacate her seat if Gore won. She would remain on the court to deny Gore the opportunity of replacing her.

 

"I thought John was spinning us a bit to protect her since she had been so indiscreet," said a source who was there. The O'Connors' friends say they believe the O'Connors want to remain in Washington even after retirement.

 

 

 

She did good on the bench, but doing whats right on abortion and other issues does not a saint make...

O'Conner is retiring? I thought it was Renquist who was retiring? As disappointed as I am with '00 election supreme court decision, O'Conner is however the swing vote. If she is retired and Bush puts one of his activist, fundamentalist judges on the dynamics of the Supreme Court will change drastically since most votes come out 5-4. If Renquist retires, there will not be much of a change....

 

*Edit, you are right... O'Conner IS retiring, before Reinquist even...

The future of the Supreme Court is not looking good. And it's looking like 'torture memo, assistant texicutioner' Gonzales is in the running for appointee...

holy shit.

Originally posted by villain@Jul 8 2005, 05:27 AM

O'Conner is retiring? I thought it was Renquist who was retiring? As disappointed as I am with '00 election supreme court decision, O'Conner is however the swing vote. If she is retired and Bush puts one of his activist, fundamentalist judges on the dynamics of the Supreme Court will change drastically since most votes come out 5-4. If Renquist retires, there will not be much of a change....

 

*Edit, you are right... O'Conner IS retiring, before Reinquist even...

The future of the Supreme Court is not looking good. And it's looking like 'torture memo, assistant texicutioner' Gonzales is in the running for appointee...

holy shit.

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I was drunk when I wrote the above so disregard what I said about her timing...though, the story is true. Yeah she is done for, of those being discussed as replacements is our very own

 

1984 is coming to life.

And to think, I was having a bad day. Looks like it might not rain after all.

 

"Today, President Abraham Lincoln Bush appointed the FIRST HISPANIC Supreme Court judge ever! Woo Hoo! What a wonderful fighter for the rights of the Oppressed. And next month, he has a tough decision to make: does he appoint Father Flanagan, who would be the first ordained Roman Catholic priest Supreme Court judge ever; or does he appoint Grand Kleagle Jim Bob Cunningham, only the second Ku Klux Klansman to ever serve on the Supreme Court? It's a toughie! Stay tuned!

 

You gotta love Washington. Never a dull minute.

Its kind of like "make or break" time for the democrtas...they get to take a hard core stand now or I'm going to start voting based on my wallet

It amazes me that as the Republicans bend over backwards to be "inclusive," all they get on 12 oz. is disrespected. The Democrats, who essentially purged the conservative wing of their own party and are now mired in their own lack of foresight, are still getting props from many liberals and minority people. WHY IS THAT? Shit, the obvious thing to do when the conservative Republicans win the White House is send in the conservative Democrat pals of the new President. ("What? They're all Republicans now, because we PURGED them all? What genius thought THAT up?") When the liberal Democrats win the White House, the obvious thing to do is send in the liberalish Republican golf buddies of the new President. But, if both parties kick out all the varying shades of red and blue, respectively, what you get is polarization. Which is why nobody in Washington D.C. can get shit done now. I kind of miss the old days, when drunken Senators cavorted in public fountains with gold-digging strippers on the payroll as "executive assistants." I read a quote from some older Senator bemoaning the loss of the Congressional "collegiate atmosphere." That means they argued in Congress 9-5, then both went for a massage, a blow-job, and a few Scotches after work. Life is so uncivilized now.

I think its crazy how republicans are steadily takeing over the entire government in this country. They already have majority in the House of reps and Senate and now the Supreme Court? Thats all three branches of the United States government. Where are the checks and balances if all party memeber bond together for a common intrest. Granted conservatives can be all over the spectrum on certain intrests but still i think this is somewhat alarming. I agree

1984 is coming to life

Its really not to far away. I was reading about microphones being placed in "in high crime areas" in chicago. Sound reminicent of 1984? I know thats alittle of subject but as far as the supreme court goes get ready for theyre contribution to what seems to me to becoming an all to Republican of the supposed Republican Democracy.

Slim---How is it that you think Republicans are "steadily taking over" the government? They're not "taking over," they're being ELECTED by the people of the United States, most of whom are light-years more conservative than the average teenaged 12 oz.'er The Democrats held both houses of Congress and the White House, on and off, for more than FORTY YEARS. I don't recall any Democrat moaning about "Oh, woe is me, there's no checks and balances anymore." They rammed Democrat legislation down everybody's throat until there was a so-called "Republican revolution" (hah! some revolution) that regained control of Congress.

 

Which is exactly how we wound up with all these laws that most conservative and all ultra-conservatives regard with such animosity. For me, the straw that broke the camel's back was the assault weapons ban. (That fucking Clinton.) That year, as broke as I was, I joined the NRA's Life Member program, and I paid my $36 a quarter until I paid off the $500. Then I joined as a Life Member of the Texas Rifle Association. Then Gun Owners of America. Then I joined Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO--you need not be Jewish to be a member.) After that I started sending money to every conservative political organization that I could find. If you research Bush's political campaign funds, you'll discover that the Republican "war chest" is bursting at the seams, and the reason is that the Democrats finally went too far and pissed off a large portion of the electorate. And if the Dems want to recover, they are going to need to become less radical and unhinged, and more like the rest of us. Or, alternatively, they can continue to lose elections, which is okay too.

Everybody keeping crying about "polarization," well, the Dems started it by marginalizing and expelling the Dixiecrats. What did they think would happen if they turned their backs on Southern whites, that the South would just go off in a corner and cry? There are NO conservative Democrats anymore. So you can lay the Republican sweeps directly at the door of the radical-socialist-left-wing Democratic activists, who high-jacked the Democratic Party and put the Republicans in a position to appoint TWO YOUNG SUPREME COURT JUSTICES.

 

Most of my relatives voted the straight Democratic ticket ever since the Civil War. My grandfather would have been appalled to know his grandson is a Republican. The Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves. If they don't like the results, then perhaps they should change. Or not.

Originally posted by KaBar2@Jul 9 2005, 02:13 PM

Most of my relatives voted the straight Democratic ticket ever since the Civil War. My grandfather would have been appalled to know his grandson is a Republican. The Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves. If they don't like the results, then perhaps they should change. Or not.

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admitting your parents have voted dem since the civil war implies that the civil war changed their views, which i would the assume (yeah i know assumptions) means that your relatives were anti civil war or at least anti results of said war which i suppose isnt that hard to believe if you are of a southern heritage. but being that i am not it is hard for me to get my head around that.

 

i also have no doubt that the general image of the parties has changed since then.

a modern republican claiming any lineage to a republican abe lincoln is hard for me to accept.

but again perhaps i am simply not thinking hard enough.

 

no disrespect kabar.

me for supreme court justice.

tell the prez to gimme a call.

peace.

 

ps-- party politics destroyed democracy. ask james madison.

Originally posted by KaBar2@Jul 9 2005, 03:13 PM

For me, the straw that broke the camel's back was the assault weapons ban.

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But KaBaR2, I'm afraid of getting shot with a black dangerous looking rifle with a 30 round clip, in .223 caliber. I'd feel much more comfortable getting shot by a nice, polished wooden gun like my grandpa used to have, in .30-06 caliber!

The Democratic Party was the Party of the South, and it supported the Southern Cause, i.e. state's rights, etc. It had both liberal, conservative and very conservative wings well into the post-WWII period. I've heard it said that the Dixiecrats began to lose their place in 1948, when Truman was elected. (I first wrote "re-elected," but Truman became president when FDR died in office.) I'm not a political scientist, but this seems substantially correct.

 

Most of my family were conservative Democrats (Dixiecrats.) My father's generation was the first to begin to vote Republican, and he did so to vote for Barry Goldwater, who was very conservative by the standards of the day, but pretty much a liberal Republican by today's standards. It was the middle of the Cold War. Even the liberals were extremely patriotic, and ready to fight the Communists at the drop of a hat. Jack Kennedy was a WWII war hero, and he was an anti-communist, but he wasn't as fanatical an anti-communist as the men that had him assassinated.

 

When control of the Democratic Party was attained by the Left, in the early '70s, the younger conservative Democrats and the expelled older Dixiecrats had nowhere to go but the Republicans. The Democrats essentially sent the new wave of Republican radicals from their own party to the Republicans, who welcomed them with open arms. Until this occurred, the Republicans were the smaller, "minority" party in Congress. Today, the Republicans have a slight edge, but if they go too far, they will begin to lose the liberal wing, and guess to whom they will lose them? The Democrats, of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lost part of this post, dammit.

Yo Kabar you fucking idiot the republicans were NOT elected, they literally took over. It's called a coupe. You dickheads can lie all you want about how a minority of redneck retards out voted the rest of the country but anybody with half a brain (espescially if they left their house on election day) knows it's just that. A Fucking lie.

:rolleyes:

 

Why don't you stop insulting peoples inteligence with your bullshit Republican propoganda.

It was almost funny how the republicans were cumming in their pants trying to impeach Clinton for getting a fucking blowjob from a horny slut.

 

Where is the movement to impeach Bush and fam for stealing the presidency, destroying our country, and taking us to war for a LIE???

Does he have to get laid to get impeached??? :rolleyes:

Kabar, you might be proud of your Dixiecrat heritage and you and your families shift to the Republicans, in the '60s I'm guessing, but I sure as hell wouldn't be. The Dixiecrats weren't forced out... They left on their own.

 

1948 presidential election

 

The States' Rights Democratic Party was a short-lived splinter group that broke from the Democratic Party in 1948. The States' Rights Democratic Party opposed racial integration and wanted to retain Jim Crow laws and racial segregation. The party slogan was "Segregation Forever!" Members of the States' Rights Democratic Party, were often known as Dixiecrats.

 

The party was formed after thirty-five delegates from Mississippi and Alabama walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention. Even before the convention started, the Southern delegates were upset by President Harry S. Truman's executive order to racially integrate the armed forces. The walkout was prompted by a controversial speech by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota urging the party to adopt an anti-segregationist plank in the platform.

 

After President Truman's endorsement of the civil rights plank, Strom Thurmond, governor of South Carolina, helped organize the walkout delegates into a separate party, whose platform was ostensibly concerned with states' rights. The Dixiecrats held their convention in Birmingham, Alabama, where they nominated Thurmond for president and Fielding L. Wright, governor of Mississippi, for vice president. Dixiecrat leaders worked to have Thurmond-Wright declared the "official" Democratic Party ticket in Southern states. They succeeded only in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina; in other states, they were forced to run as a third-party ticket. These included Arkansas, whose governor-elect, Sid McMath, a young prosecutor and decorated World War II Marine veteran, vigorously supported Truman in speeches across the region, much to the consternation of the sitting governor, Ben Laney, an ardent Thurmond supporter. Laney later used McMath's pro-Truman stance against him during his 1950 re-election bid which McMath won handily. Efforts to paint other Truman loyalists as "turncoats" generally failed, although the seeds of discontent were planted which in years to come took their toll on Southern moderates, among them Congressman Brooks Hays of the Second (central) District of Arkansas, whose efforts at reconciliation during the 1957 Little Rock School Crisis made him vulnerable to defeat in 1958 by a segregationist surrogate fielded by forces loyal to then-Governor Orval Faubus, whose justification for using the national guard to bar entry to black pupils in defiance of a federal court order echoed much of the 1948 Dixiecrat platform.

 

On election day 1948, the Thurmond-Wright ticket carried the previously solid Democratic states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, receiving 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 electoral votes. The split in the Democratic party in the 1948 election was seen as virtually guaranteeing a victory by the Republican nominee, Thomas E. Dewey of New York, yet Truman won re-election in an upset.

 

 

Subsequent Elections

 

The Dixiecrat Party largely dissolved after the 1948 election. Senators Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms switched parties and joined the Republicans. Serveral others remained in the Democratic Party and went on to become prominent Democratic Senators. These former Dixiecrats, turned Senators, went on to serve multiple terms in the service of their respective states. These long careers in the Senate elevated their seniority putting them in positions of power and prestige. Today, one original member of the Dixiecrat Party remains in public service as a Senator, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia.

 

None of these Representatives and Senators who bucked the Democratic party ever suffered punishment from their caucuses by expulsion or demotion of seniority or removal from prized committee chairmanships.

 

Regardless of the power struggle within the Democratic Party, concerning segregation policy, the south remained a strongly Democratic voting block for local, state and federal Congressional elections. This was not true of Presidential elections.

 

In the 1960s, the courting of white Southern Democratic voters was the basis of the "southern strategy" of the Republican Party's Presidential Campaigns. Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater carried the Deep South in 1964, despite losing in a landslide in the rest of the nation to President Lyndon B Johnson of Texas. Johnson surmised that his advocacy behind passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act would lose the South for the Democratic party. The only Democratic presidential candidate after 1956 to solidly carry the Deep South was President Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election. Into the twenty-first century, the South has changed from a Democratic monolith to a majority Republican sector of the country with GOP gains in state legislatures.

 

*emphasis added by ME.

 

I just don't understand it. Clinton has always been considered a moderate democrat. BUSH is the one polarizing this country. This country is being torn apart. Hell, even p-ditty is fucking political now. That's got to tell you something. I don't even think the motherfuckers were elected and I've seen plenty of evidence to support that. All of this bullshit. Countless mountains of bullshit. Bush has commited all of these crimes, IN THE OPEN even for some of them... Yet Clinton gets canned for a blowjob? Bush is arguably the worst president IN HISTORY, he is at least in the TOP THREE.

Clinton did plenty of things I didn't like... hell, all his welfare reform (a very conservative measure) nearly killed my family, but this motherfucker Bush is a danger to the entire UNIVERSE!

For real, this dude must think he is fulfilling gods prophesy by being the antichrist or something.

Originally posted by SF1@Jul 10 2005, 12:15 AM

It was almost funny how the republicans were cumming in their pants trying to impeach Clinton for getting a fucking blowjob from a horny slut.

 

Where is the movement to impeach Bush and fam for stealing the presidency, destroying our country, and taking us to war for a LIE???

Does he have to get laid to get impeached??? :rolleyes:

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Thank you, Im not saying Clinton was a perfect president by anymeans. He bombed that aspirn factorys and killed innocent civilians in sudan or libya. But Clinton as I think Cracked ass said some where along the lines was a "Do nothing president" Be that as it may i think alot of people think of Clinton like that. But atleast with Clinton you didnt have to worry about huge invasions of privacy and the clockwork world domination plot starting with the middle east. Theyre are no more conservative democrates because Democrates cant afford to be conservative anymore theyres too many republicans in majority and higher places. Kabar are you honestly saying you are happy that assualt weapons bann was lifted? Jeez if you want to go around on a rampage im sure theyre a vast amount of other guns to do so which is horricly terrifying to me. Either way we both have our opinions whether how valid you think mine is beckons your call. Im just saying that the fault for all the consertive seats in all three branches lies in a all to nieve public and a public that is ignorance to the truth and doesnt search for the means to a perveal end in these years.

Originally posted by villain@Jul 10 2005, 07:25 AM

For real, this dude must think he is fulfilling gods prophesy by being the antichrist or something.

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Holy shit! I think you hit the nail on the head. :yuck:

Originally posted by Slim Pickens@Jul 10 2005, 10:33 AM

"Do nothing president" Be that as it may i think alot of people think of Clinton like that.

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He wasn't really a do nothing president. We had the longest economic boom in history under Clinton. Maybe do-nothing as in nothing majorly bad happened under him. Bush was literally a "do-nothing" president before 9-11. I think I liked him better back then.

Ya Villian that is how i interpretated it "Do nothing". Remeber those days when people unemployment was the lowest since many people on social secuirty could remember?

Welfare to work.

Yeah it was great if you are ablebodied.

For people stuck on welfare it was not so good.

Villian---

I wasn't referring so much to the elected politicians as I was to the rank-and-file conservative Democrats. The Democratic State's Rights Party was before my time, and so far as I know, none of my relatives ever voted for them. In using the term "Dixiecrats" perhaps I was being inaccurate, because in Texas, the term "Dixiecrats" was often used to describe Democrats who were generally opposed to the Johnson Democratic machine, and prone to crossing over and voting for Goldwater.

 

The big upset came in the 1960's, when the political Left gained control of the Democratic Party, and the Dems began systematically eliminating conservatives from precinct positions and local and state Democratic Party organizations. Texas was SOLIDLY Democratic for more than a hundred years, from 1876 until 1978, when Republican Bill Clements was elected Governor. The Democrats in Texas have never recovered from the ascendancy of the Left within their party, and from the looks of things, they are not likely to ever do so. The Democratic Party rejected the mostly white, conservative, working class people who formed the base of their party, and have formed a much smaller party of extreme liberals, socialists, minorities and homosexuals. This is why they are marginalized in the South. The Republicans had very limited success in the South until this occurred. Now, the South is solidly Republican.

 

I don't believe the Republicans stole the election in 2004. It was a very close race, and could have gone the other way. As is required by the Constitution, it went to the Supreme Court, and the rest is history. I think Mr. Gore did the correct thing by conceding. It is a testament to the strength of the American spirit of democracy that the matter was resolved without any undue disturbances. In many foreign countries, there would have been riots, demonstrations, general strikes and all manner of conflict.

 

And as for the assault weapons ban, in my opinion, it is unconstitutional to begin with, not to mention ineffective and unenforceable. I hated it, but it never stopped me from legally purchasing assault rifles. All Bill Clinton accomplished by "banning" assault rifles was to sell more assault rifles and ammunition to American civilians than in ALL HISTORY, including WWII. Everybody that I knew was buying them as fast as they could raise the money. In my militia unit the standard set was "four rifles per member." Many of our guys surpassed even that number, plus all the magazines, magazine pouches, bayonets, etc., etc. that went with them. One of my friends estimated he now owns about $10,000 worth of AR-15 rifles. Many of these rifles are either cached, buried, or walled up in basements and places like that, along with all their collateral equipment and a 1,000 round case of ammunition per rifle. I should thank Bill Clinton for the AWB. It has served the right wing very well.

Originally posted by KaBar2@Jul 9 2005, 03:14 PM

When control of the Democratic Party was attained by the Left, in the early '70s, the younger conservative Democrats and the expelled older Dixiecrats had nowhere to go but the Republicans.

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the left has never controlled the democratic party.

the two presidents i can call to mind that even resembled

anything close to leftist were FDR for his econ policies

and LBJ for his social/civil rights/poverty policies.

otherwise i would advise continuing to use liberal,

although that term has been bought and sold so many times,

to describe the "left-leaning," read centrist, wing of the dems.

but whatever. somantics.

 

i get your point kabar and i concur.

however i do not believe that parties

ought to be fighting over constituencies.

parties ought to represent platforms,

possibly the biggest problem with the dems

being that they do not have one currently.

at no time should a candidate be selecting constituents;

constituents ought to elect candidates.

careerism is ruining party politics, which already ruined democracy.

 

whatever, it feels good to be cool headed about all this

and not really care whether or not i convince kabar to agree with me.

i guess it is the difference between being a seventeen year old leftist

and a twenty three year old leftist, things get a little clearer.

some of you ought to relax.

one love. ;)

Originally posted by oh so modern@Jul 11 2005, 07:07 AM

the left has never controlled the democratic party.

the two presidents i can call to mind that even resembled

anything close to leftist were FDR for his econ policies

and LBJ for his social/civil rights/poverty policies.

Quoted post

 

Word the fuck up on that!.

The only "left" party I can think of right now would be Libertarians.

if anything the Democrats fall somewhere in the middle.

Am I the only one that see's the irony in the fact that the only people stockpileing weapons (presumably for a revolution) are the people that vote Republican???

Meanwhile these so called "left" democrats are trying to ban guns at the same time the Republicans are staging a coupe to turn this country into a facist police state.

What the fuck!?!? Am I in the twilight zone?

Or is this whole Republican-vs-Democrat soap opera just a smokescreen???

SF1--

I'm beginning to see the problem here. The Libertarian Party in NOT LEFT WING AT ALL. It is RIGHT WING, VERY, VERY FAR RIGHT WING.

 

If you look at politics as a chart in the form of a wheel, if you go far enough Right, you become Left. If you go far enough Left, you become Right. The "left" Anarchists are on one side of the line, and immediately on the other side is the "right" Libertarians. When I was a full-blown anarchist revolutionary, we used to go party with the Libertarians and talk shit about the communists and socialists. We had great, loud arguments with the Libertarians, but when the shit hit the fan at demonstrations, we stood with them against the Trotskyists and the Maoists. The Libertarians were just like us, but they came from the Young Americans for Freedom, and we came from SDS. The difference between us was something called "The Water Hole Theory." They were family, but they were like that brother-in-law that always pissed you off at Thanksgiving. You love the guy, but half the time you want to beat his ass.

 

Today, I am no longer any sort of anarchist, but I still have a soft spot for the Libertarians. Google for a Las Vegas newspaper columnist named Vin Suprynowicz. He is the Ultimate Libertarian Hero, and I really, really love his columns. I don't always agree with him, but he is most def "the man."

 

 

Originally posted by SF1@Jul 11 2005, 08:02 AM

Am I the only one that see's the irony in the fact that the only people stockpileing weapons (presumably for a revolution) are the people that vote Republican???

Meanwhile these so called "left" democrats are trying to ban guns at the same time the Republicans are staging a coupe to turn this country into a facist police state.

What the fuck!?!? Am I in the twilight zone?

Or is this whole Republican-vs-Democrat soap opera just a smokescreen???

Quoted post