The American Dictatorship of the Radical Right

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 10:24am

Food for thought from another website.

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The American dictatorship of the radical right includes the very committee members who could act with impartiality. It can’t happen now. Unless and until this unelected gang of outlaws is removed from office, nothing can possibly be done to stop them. If one did desire to thwart their machinations, where would one sensibly begin? Our far-right federal judiciary? The far-right House of Representatives? The far-right Senate? The dictator in the White House? The CIA he appointed? The EPA he directs? That nice Republican representative you meekly allowed to steal office to help effect the agenda of the Neo-Cons? Do you imagine all this is some crazy, disorganized happenstance?

America is now as far right as Chile ever was. And, as in Chile and every other dictatorship, the ruling party is deliberately gutting its own nation’s economy to destabilize and hopefully destroy the middle class. Only a healthy middle class boasts enough educational and economic leverage to thwart the far right’s agenda. However, the right has fought for decades to weaken labor unions, as well as the educational and health care systems in America. A poorly educated populace will follow the right more readily than a well-educated populace, which recognizes the radical right exists solely to enrich its own leadership at the expense of everyone else, period.

Now, with tort reform (to drain the wealth from lawyers), a crippled Social Security system (to limit the wealth of individuals in their later years), more far-right judicial appointments (to restrict and turn back social progress and enforce the whims of its political base, the so-called Christian evangelical community), control of the nation’s media (to prevent identifiable dissenters from being cast in a positive light, while streaming propaganda to the masses) and a seemingly endless stream of middle class-bashing legislation this White House is parading before congress, the radical right’s dominance for decades to come is all but guaranteed.

So late in the game, are there any Patrick Henrys out there? The REAL people need you.

[paradox_error]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 11:28am

Scary thoughts, yet not shocking...

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 11:47am

And now the Republicans turn their attention to the Judicial branch, threatening that if the courts "Legislate from the bench" they will strip the judiciary of it's power. Tom DeLay openly threatened judges after the Terri Schiavo case and now efforts are underway to place certain issues "Off-limits" to the courts: A law was introduced that would prohibit federal courts from hearing ANY case that involved the ten commandements in any way. Similar laws are being drafted that would stop courts from ruling on any issue regarding smae-sex marriage.

And let's not forget, "Dr." Bill Frist is threatening to rule the filibuster "out of order" allowing no way for democrats to stop Bush from appointing anyone he likes to the federal courts.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:07pm

I hear their renaming the Constitution as the "New Testament 2K".

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:10pm

It's funny how history repeats itself. The Republican party was formed because the Democrats were too far to the right. The Republicans were, originally, the liberal party!

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:21pm

Lincoln would be ashamed of the current make-up of the party.

The NYT had a great Editorial on the tactics of DeLay and cohorts:

"The low point in the politicking over Terri Schiavo came last week when the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, threatened the judges who ruled in her case. Saying they had "thumbed their nose at Congress and the president," Mr. DeLay announced that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today." Coming so close to the fatal shooting of one judge in his courtroom and the killing of two family members of another, those words were at best an appalling example of irresponsibility in pursuit of political gain. But they were not an angry, off-the-cuff reaction. Mr. DeLay's ominous statements were a calculated part of a growing assault on the judiciary." - New York Times

Updated On: 4/5/05 at 12:21 PM

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:22pm

And isn't that scary, Feodor? It's weird how a party could stray so far from its ideological base, yet that's what has happened.
The problem is that the Republican party likes to harken back to those days in its rhetoric. And it's frightening.
While they're turning back decades of progress, they're continuing to label themselves as a progressive bunch of people.
Yep, a progressive bunch of upper-class white men.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:26pm

And Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn said yesterday that violence against judges is understandable. This is similar to the thinking that violence against a Planned Parenthood clinic is understandble.

If there were any accountability in the US government any more, this man would be asked to resign.

SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: "I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence." [Senate Floor, 4/4/05]

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:32pm

Although, at this moment, I am in agreement with those who think the Judicial Branch of the government weilds too much power. It's suppose to be three heads with equal power. It doesn't appear to be so. I understand (and agree) how judges shouldn't have to be worried about politics, so they can rule, based solely on law; but they have too much power, and citizens are powerless to do anyhing about them. This is wrong, to me. I'm still investigating it, though, because I find it fascinating.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:34pm

How do you define "too much power"?

Aren't there built-in "checks and balances"?

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:49pm

Well, it would take too much time and typing to post what I investigated; but, regardless of how you feel about the Terri Schiavo case, the Constitution does not grant the judiciary authority to ignore duly passed congressional legislation, and the courts' decision to ignore Congress' legislative directive for a full, fresh "de novo" review (which is an in-depth review)constitutes judicial tyranny. No judge did a de novo review. Of course, to do so, would have warranted the reconnection of her feeding tube. If the courst can just ignore the other two branches (and by doing so, supercede them), then there is an imbalance of power. To my way of thinking, at least. But, like I said, I'm still researching.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 12:55pm

It was the legislative and executive branches that overstepped their bounds in this case. Even the president and Florida governor realized that.

"Judicial tyranny" is a melodramatic phrase made popular by right-wing radio demagogues. The only thing close to judicial tyranny by activist judges this country experienced was the Supreme Court's appointment of the president.

Other than that, "judicial tyranny" is just a phrase designed to encourage wackos to shoot judges.

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:04pm

I wouldn't know about that. I don't listen to the radio. I did all my investigative stuff on the internet and in the library. There's also a case study about Lincoln, and his ignoring the judicial branch, when he felt it overstepped its bounds. Also, judical tyranny, is used multiple times in lots of other cases. It doesn't appear to be a new term. By the way PalJoey, you appear to spend a lot of time watching and listening to right-wing stuff. I can't imagine anyone doing that (or left-wing for that matter). Why do you? It seems to get under your skin. I always find it much better to avoid behaviors that are negative to my well-being.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:13pm

It's important to see the spin of your opponents, Feodor.
As for judicial tyranny, I also agree it's a spin term, just as culture of life is a spin term. This coming from the party favoring loose gun control (and access to assault weaponry!) and a gleeful hand on the switch to electric chairs.
Just don't remove the feeding tube from a brain-dead woman. That's murder.
As for my take on judicial tyranny, this is the court's power: to interpret law. This is what they do. Again and again, courts said this was NOT their decision to make but, since the parties involved were throwing it in their face, they would make a decision.
This decision (or rather SERIES of decisions) flew in the face of a wacko right-wing lobbying group (the far-right Christians) and they beseeched their master on earth (His Majesty, the Royal Dictator of America, Karl Rove - err, I mean George W. Bush) to intervene. So he did. With disastrous results. The Congressional legislation required review again by Federal Courts who, AGAIN, wanted nothing to do with this case. They saw that this was not their fight.
So, because they refused to issue a ruling that would please the radical Republican agenda, they are activist judges overstepping their bounds. In reality, they're SMART men and women who saw where their power ends. Unfortunately, DeLay, Bush, Frist and Rove don't understand where their power ends.
And they're seeking to extend their own control of this government. Be afraid. The day is going to come when we need Canada to free us. :)

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:15pm

Congress passed a law requiring the federal courts to hear the Schaivo case (After it had been ruled on mearly 20 times in Florida State Courts). The federal courts heard it and sided with Schiavo's husband (and the Florida courts). The federal judge who heard the case even acknowledged the vote was out of line. The congress also attempted to supoena her to testify before congress, which was ruled ()and certainly was) an abuse of their powers.

My big question about Terri Schaivo: Why her? This exact scenario (long term patient, no chance of recovery, taken off what ever life support, dies. Everyone is sad) happens HUNDREDS of times a year. Why her? Why was this one such a big deal?

Anyway, back to your charges Fyodor. Why do you feel the courts wield too much power? Do you really feel that they have wielded too much power since the 1860's? And, Yes, the constitution provides for a Judiciary branch that can "Over Rule" the other two branches. Someone has to have the final word: Hence the name "Supreme Court."

Edited to add: And yes, I read a lot of Right-wing stuff I disagree with, just like PJ (Apparently). While is it not good for my blood pressure (or my sunny disposition) I think it is important to know what they are up to.
Updated On: 4/5/05 at 01:15 PM

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:17pm

Once again, I don't know, or care about all that. I'm doing my research, strictly from the Constitutional and legal aspects of it. Not from who's in office or what their policies are.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:18pm

The really funny thing, Joe, is that this administration wants to stack the Supreme Court with radical right appointees. You won't hear about activist judges then, once abortion rights are rolled back, unions are busted down, child labor is reinstated, the minimum wage drops, health care goes bust...and your only hope of redressing your grievances will come at the hands of judges whose mindset fits in right with the people who caused these rollbacks.
I, for one, won't be in a position to care since I'll be in a death camp, wearing a pink triangle.

[Feodor Sverdlov]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:20pm

All the more reason to ensure a balance of Judicial power!

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:23pm

Yes, exactly. Which is how it is in the Constitution.
Which is why the filibuster is important.
If the Republicans really weren't intending to usurp power, they would be thinking ahead to the day Democrats have control of Congress again and could then use this new legislation to appoint their own judges and pursue their own agendas in all three branches of Congress.
That is truly frightening.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:32pm

Yes Bway singer. The R's were very fond of the right to block Judiciary nominees "By any means necessary" when Clinton was doignt he appointing. There was a preiod of MONTHS when NO federal judges were approved due to R obstructionism. And Clinton appointed fairly moderate judges, to my eye. He'd never have gotten away with Liberal wackos.

And I'll be in the death camp too I'm afraid. When my conservative friends tell me they are voting Republican for "Financial" or "Homeland Security" reasons, I always tell them that I hope I'm still alive when I see them brought into the camps for their particular crime as I know I'm going to need a really good laugh then.

And before someone tells me I'm being Melodramatic: There are prisons RIGHT NOW in YOUR NAME holding people indefinitely, who have been charged with no crime, with no access to lawyers or appeals. I never thought I'd see that day.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 1:33pm

Sorry to get off track, and I know this post is long

FS – start with

GRISWOLD et al. v. CONNECTICUT

….The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy…..381 U.S. at 484

Then Roe V. Wade:
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, in the Ninth Amendment, id., at 486 (or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment,). These decisions make it clear that only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right has some extension to activities relating to marriage,); family relationships, and child rearing and education.
This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. 410 U.S. 113 (cites and references removed

Blackmun’s DISSENT in Webster:

Today, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and the fundamental constitutional right of women to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, survive but are not secure. Although the Court extricates itself from this case without making a single, even incremental, change in the law of abortion, the plurality and JUSTICE SCALIA would overrule Roe (the first silently, the other explicitly) and would return to the States [492 U.S. 490, 538] virtually unfettered authority to control the quintessentially intimate, personal, and life-directing decision whether to carry a fetus to term. Although today, no less than yesterday, the Constitution and the decisions of this Court prohibit a State from enacting laws that inhibit women from the meaningful exercise of that right, a plurality of this Court implicitly invites every state legislature to enact more and more restrictive abortion regulations in order to provoke more and more test cases, in the hope that sometime down the line the Court will return the law of procreative freedom to the severe limitations that generally prevailed in this country before January 22, 1973. Never in my memory has a plurality announced a judgment of this Court that so foments disregard for the law and for our standing decisions.
Nor in my memory has a plurality gone about its business in such a deceptive fashion. At every level of its review, from its effort to read the real meaning out of the Missouri statute, to its intended evisceration of precedents and its deafening silence about the constitutional protections that it would jettison, the plurality obscures the portent of its analysis. With feigned restraint, the plurality announces that its analysis leaves Roe "undisturbed," albeit "modif[ied] and narrow[ed]." Ante, at 521. But this disclaimer is totally meaningless. The plurality opinion is filled with winks, and nods, and knowing glances to those who would do away with Roe explicitly, but turns a stone face to anyone in search of what the plurality conceives as the scope of a woman's right under the Due Process Clause to terminate a pregnancy free from the coercive and brooding influence of the State. The simple truth is that Roe would not survive the plurality's analysis, and that the plurality provides no substitute for Roe's protective umbrella.
I fear for the future. I fear for the liberty and equality of the millions of women who have lived and come of age in the 16 years since Roe was decided. I fear for the integrity of, and public esteem for, this Court. I Dissent. 492 U.S. 490, 539]

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/5/05 at 4:44pm

Here's Bill Frist, a Republican for you, Fyodor: THE COURTS ACTED PROPERLY

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Frist Says Courts in Schiavo Case Acted Fairly

Tue Apr 5, 2005 03:18 PM ET

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican leader Bill Frist said on Tuesday that courts had acted fairly in the Terri Schiavo "right-to-die" case, differing sharply from a vow of retribution by his House of Representatives counterpart, Tom DeLay.

"I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," said Frist, now trying to resolve a battle with Democrats over judicial nominations that threatens to tie his chamber into knots. "I respect that."

Frist and DeLay, as the Senate and House majority leaders, had led a charge for legislation calling on the federal courts to review the Schiavo case.

But the federal courts refused to intervene and let stand a Florida state court order to remove a feeding tube from the brain-damaged woman. Schiavo's husband had said she would not have wanted to live in her condition, but her parents fought against the tube's removal.

Schiavo died last week after spending 15 years in what courts had ruled was a persistent vegetative state.

DeLay, a Texas Republican, vowed shortly afterward: "We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at the Congress and president when given jurisdiction to hear this case anew."

In a written statement, DeLay said: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Frist, asked about the furor over the case, told reporters, "I will let members (of Congress) ... speak for themselves."

But the Tennessee Republican said he believed the courts "acted in a fair and independent way."

The Schiavo case was unique, Frist said. "Our bill said, 'let's let the courts take another look,"' he said.

President Bush signed the bill into law.

Polls showed most Americans opposed congressional intervention, and a federal appeals court judge criticized Congress and Bush for acting "at odds" with the Constitution.

The Schiavo case has further stirred passions that have built in a more than 4-year-old battle over Bush's judicial nominations.

Christian conservatives say the case underscores the need to put more conservatives on the federal bench, but others from across the political spectrum say the case shows the courts are needed as a check on legislative excess.

A White House spokesman last week, asked about DeLay quote, said that in a nation of laws, "we have to adhere to the rulings of our courts."

Frist said on Tuesday he is still trying to reach a compromise with Democrats over their use of a procedural hurdle known as a filibuster that has been used to block 10 of Bush's most-controversial judicial nominees.

Frist has threatened to change Senate rules to ban filibusters if no compromise is found. Democrats have vowed to retaliate by tying the chamber into procedural knots.

Republicans control the Senate, holding 55 of 100 seats. Yet is unclear if Frist can muster the 51 votes needed to change the rules. Many Republicans have voiced concerns.
Frist Says Courts in Schiavo Case Acted Fairly