THE SUPREMES SING AGAIN
The
Constitution we all purport to love and support and cherish sets up a
Supreme Court and arranges that it be an uneven number of Justices so
that tie votes are unlikely.
Then it was arranged that only the president could appoint a new
justice. And just to be certain he did not get carried away his
appointment requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate to ensure really
potentially great jurists rise to that coveted spot.
You do not have to hold a graduate degree in political science to
understand that when a liberal president appoints a liberal judge and
gets the appointment approved in a liberal Senate there is great joy in
the hearts of those Americans of the liberal persuasion.
When a conservative president appoints a conservative judge who is
confirmed by a conservative Senate there is great joy in the hearts of
those Americans of the conservative persuasion.
Since a president
as well as everyone of the Senators are elected by the people of The
United States of America to represent their own political philosophies
it is an essential truth that the court typically represents the
philosophical feeling of the American voters. History shows us that this
swings back and forth over time.
This was intended and those with a long view of American history
understand that essentially the conservative or liberal philosophy of
the court represents traditionally the prevailing philosophy of the
voters.
An appointment to the court is for life. So depending on the longevity
of any particular appointee to the court it is possible for the court to
lean liberal or conservative until a vacancy occurs. This permits the
court for a short period of time not to reflect the philosophy of any
sitting president who has failed to have a chance to make appointments.
This situation occurs equally often between presidencies so in the end
it tends to continue to guarantee overall fairness.
There have been occasions when a judge has been elevated to the
Supreme Court by a president who thinks the judge is liberal (or a
conservative president who thinks the judge is conservative) and after
getting the approval of the Senate for their lifetime appointment their
views change. Personally, I think this is not related to subterfuge but
rather to experiencing the high level of intellectual and judicial
argument that occurs among the nine Justices and finding one’s own
philosophy changing over time. This might be viewed as “growth.”
There is no way to guard against these occasional hiccups in the process the Founders envisioned.
Why
then when a court reaches a judgment on an issue a petitioner brings
before it do people get so outraged. Many Americans simply do not
understand that the court cannot broaden the issue brought to them for a
decision. There is a petition brought to the court, often quite narrow
and specific, and they rule on that. They do not offer a ruling with
reference to peripheral issues that might be impacted. If an American
wishes a ruling on peripheral issues they must bring their own brief to
the court.
Regarding the two most recent and seemingly controversial rulings,
only one of them deserves any attention at all and that is the one known
as the Hobby decision. The court split 5-4 on this ruling.
Obviously,
there were different views. Since there was a majority, albeit a one
vote majority, the decision is the settled law of the land. Since this
case involved moral issues it was interesting to me that the three women
of the court were in the minority and the five Catholic justices were
in the majority. That was of interest to me personally because it
suggests that the Catholic church’s position may have influenced the
Catholic Justices and the impact on women probably influenced the three
female Justices. Conversely, I have no idea what motivated the single
Protestant Justice!
Lots of people are writing about this as a liberal vs conservative
thing with the swing Justice siding this time with the conservatives. He
often sides with the liberals so I can not get to upset over this one.
Of greater interest to me was the unanimous decision of the Supremes
that President Obama overstepped his constitutional authority in his
recess appointments. Rarely is the court unanimous on anything. So it is
fair to say that this decision had nothing to do with liberal vs
conservative. Even the justices appointed by the sitting president voted
against him.
So at the end of the day there are controversial decisions and non-controversial decisions and it will ever be thus.
I think the greatest liberal Justice is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
I think the greatest conservative Justice is Antonin Scalia.
One can only imagine the verbal maneuvering between the two of them
when the Justices sit together to discuss their decisions. But since the
Ginsburgs and Scalias are reported to be very close socially, they are
clearly able to see a difference between political philosophy built over
a lifetime of experience and social camaraderie. They can, and do,
respect each others intellect and probably enjoy the verbal sparring.
Neither find it necessary to demonize the other because of differences
in philosophy.
Would it be that the rest of us could be like them.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
TANT PIS
TANT PIS
The French came up with this wonderful expression.
Merriam Webster defines it as:
“so much the worse : too bad”
I don’t know when or how the French use this word, but my guess is that it would in their situation relate to bad food or drink! They may have used it when the Germans came in to occupy France during the world war. I imagine they used it when they learned their president had a mistress and a spare a couple months ago.
I think it has perfect applicability to the situation in which we Americans find ourselves today. So I write to suggest that we take it up as sort of a rallying cry every time we are treated to yet another ridiculous government decision.
Not too long ago I wrote a piece on the word KERFUFFLE. Many readers enjoyed that and emailed me. So today I decided to offer up another word to add to your vocabulary.
It is a nice, short response.
It is fun to say.
It catches a listener off guard.
Readers, we have a chance to start a groundswell movement in our reaction to what we have caused in today’s world. Let us give it a try.
When you are out and about the next few weeks and someone relates to you yet another unfortunate world situation in which our country seems to have played her hand badly, respond “tant pis!” For instance...
We will not send boots on the ground to Iraq. We will send advisors. I saw a picture of three of the advisors we sent in a leading newspaper the other day. I expected Brooks Brothers suits, round intellectual-like glasses, and wing tip shoes. These three were in camouflage outfits and carrying serious-looking weapons, wearing helmets, and carefully searching the street around them. And they certainly were wearing boots that were, in fact, touching the ground!
TANT PIS
We encouraged those Syrian rebels to overthrow their leader. We said if the leader didn’t step down, we had a “red line” in the sand, and he would be sorry. Well, the red line disappeared, the leader is still very much in power, and the other day the president committed millions to aid the rebels. Most pundits think it is too little, too late.
TANT PIS
I read a report in a newspaper recently demonstrating that most of the new jobs created over the last many years actually went to illegals.
TANT PIS
The President couldn’t get the advice and consent of the Congress, which is required by law, so he appointed the folks he wanted to government positions in what are called “recess” appointments. Now, recess appointments are permitted under some strict guidelines. Evidently the President constructed his own guidelines. The matter went to the Supreme Court, and the verdict announced this week was unanimous. The appointments violated the Constitution and were null and void. The president said he would continue to make recess appointments because Congress doesn’t play well with him.
TANT PIS
Well let’s cut the “Prez” some slack and move into some other areas deserving of tant pis responses. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a moment of unclear thinking made the statement that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left The White House. Technically, she may well have been right, but they did leave with multi-million dollar book writing contracts, and they both signed with speaking bureaus (the speaking fees alone of the former President exceed one hundred million dollars in a decade.) So it was difficult for normal Americans to find sympathy for Hill and Bill. She has spent the best part of the last week trying to back pedal on that statement.
TANT PIS
Evidently no one wants to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars to hear what George W. Bush might want to say so he has taken up painting. One of his first oils was of himself in the bathtub. I don’t think Sotheby's or the Louvre have shown much interest in his painting talent.
TANT PIS
Speaking of Bushes, the 90 year-old Parkinson's sufferer confined mostly to a wheel chair these days, George H.W. Bush, decided to celebrate by sky diving. He jumped out of a plane, opened his parachute, and landed safely. At his age, I don’t think he was looking for publicity; I think he actually likes that kind of stuff. He was well known both to the Secret Service and visiting heads of state to rev up his cigarette boat on the waters off Walker’s Point in Maine and slice through the ocean at breakneck speed. Yet somehow, his political opponents tagged him with the “wimp factor.”
TANT PIS
A Tea Party candidate down in Mississippi, attempting to unseat the incumbent Republican Senator in the Republican primary found that some of his supporters read up on Nixon’s reported “dirty tricks squad” and sent a guy with a camera into a nursing home to photograph the Senator's seriously ailing wife. That backfired, probably cost the Tea Party a win over the Senator, and led to the photographer taking his own life, probably as a result of the worldwide backlash that greeted such egregious behavior. Then the Tea Party candidate, in a show of zero class, refused to concede the election and promised to fight on, proving the people of Mississippi probably made the right decision in that primary.
TANT PIS
Valerie Jarrett, Special Assistant to the President and the Chicago woman who gave Michelle Obama her first job, is the real ghost of The White House. Although she is not in the cabinet, is not well known to the American people, rarely is covered by the press, she occupies the office in the West Wing previously occupied by Karl Rove. And she has a staff reputed to be around 27 people. She regularly is a guest in the family quarters, and she has survived four Chiefs of Staff during the Obama reign. Want to get the president’s attention? Best get Valerie on it.
TANT PIS
I have to stop writing now and head out to introduce this new word to my circle of friends.
TANT PIS
The French came up with this wonderful expression.
Merriam Webster defines it as:
“so much the worse : too bad”
I don’t know when or how the French use this word, but my guess is that it would in their situation relate to bad food or drink! They may have used it when the Germans came in to occupy France during the world war. I imagine they used it when they learned their president had a mistress and a spare a couple months ago.
I think it has perfect applicability to the situation in which we Americans find ourselves today. So I write to suggest that we take it up as sort of a rallying cry every time we are treated to yet another ridiculous government decision.
Not too long ago I wrote a piece on the word KERFUFFLE. Many readers enjoyed that and emailed me. So today I decided to offer up another word to add to your vocabulary.
It is a nice, short response.
It is fun to say.
It catches a listener off guard.
Readers, we have a chance to start a groundswell movement in our reaction to what we have caused in today’s world. Let us give it a try.
When you are out and about the next few weeks and someone relates to you yet another unfortunate world situation in which our country seems to have played her hand badly, respond “tant pis!” For instance...
We will not send boots on the ground to Iraq. We will send advisors. I saw a picture of three of the advisors we sent in a leading newspaper the other day. I expected Brooks Brothers suits, round intellectual-like glasses, and wing tip shoes. These three were in camouflage outfits and carrying serious-looking weapons, wearing helmets, and carefully searching the street around them. And they certainly were wearing boots that were, in fact, touching the ground!
TANT PIS
We encouraged those Syrian rebels to overthrow their leader. We said if the leader didn’t step down, we had a “red line” in the sand, and he would be sorry. Well, the red line disappeared, the leader is still very much in power, and the other day the president committed millions to aid the rebels. Most pundits think it is too little, too late.
TANT PIS
I read a report in a newspaper recently demonstrating that most of the new jobs created over the last many years actually went to illegals.
TANT PIS
The President couldn’t get the advice and consent of the Congress, which is required by law, so he appointed the folks he wanted to government positions in what are called “recess” appointments. Now, recess appointments are permitted under some strict guidelines. Evidently the President constructed his own guidelines. The matter went to the Supreme Court, and the verdict announced this week was unanimous. The appointments violated the Constitution and were null and void. The president said he would continue to make recess appointments because Congress doesn’t play well with him.
TANT PIS
Well let’s cut the “Prez” some slack and move into some other areas deserving of tant pis responses. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a moment of unclear thinking made the statement that she and Bill Clinton were “dead broke” when they left The White House. Technically, she may well have been right, but they did leave with multi-million dollar book writing contracts, and they both signed with speaking bureaus (the speaking fees alone of the former President exceed one hundred million dollars in a decade.) So it was difficult for normal Americans to find sympathy for Hill and Bill. She has spent the best part of the last week trying to back pedal on that statement.
TANT PIS
Evidently no one wants to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars to hear what George W. Bush might want to say so he has taken up painting. One of his first oils was of himself in the bathtub. I don’t think Sotheby's or the Louvre have shown much interest in his painting talent.
TANT PIS
Speaking of Bushes, the 90 year-old Parkinson's sufferer confined mostly to a wheel chair these days, George H.W. Bush, decided to celebrate by sky diving. He jumped out of a plane, opened his parachute, and landed safely. At his age, I don’t think he was looking for publicity; I think he actually likes that kind of stuff. He was well known both to the Secret Service and visiting heads of state to rev up his cigarette boat on the waters off Walker’s Point in Maine and slice through the ocean at breakneck speed. Yet somehow, his political opponents tagged him with the “wimp factor.”
TANT PIS
A Tea Party candidate down in Mississippi, attempting to unseat the incumbent Republican Senator in the Republican primary found that some of his supporters read up on Nixon’s reported “dirty tricks squad” and sent a guy with a camera into a nursing home to photograph the Senator's seriously ailing wife. That backfired, probably cost the Tea Party a win over the Senator, and led to the photographer taking his own life, probably as a result of the worldwide backlash that greeted such egregious behavior. Then the Tea Party candidate, in a show of zero class, refused to concede the election and promised to fight on, proving the people of Mississippi probably made the right decision in that primary.
TANT PIS
Valerie Jarrett, Special Assistant to the President and the Chicago woman who gave Michelle Obama her first job, is the real ghost of The White House. Although she is not in the cabinet, is not well known to the American people, rarely is covered by the press, she occupies the office in the West Wing previously occupied by Karl Rove. And she has a staff reputed to be around 27 people. She regularly is a guest in the family quarters, and she has survived four Chiefs of Staff during the Obama reign. Want to get the president’s attention? Best get Valerie on it.
TANT PIS
I have to stop writing now and head out to introduce this new word to my circle of friends.
TANT PIS
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Reallocation of Population
Reallocation of Population
The good ole US of A has become very popular of late with tourists from the slums of Mexico and the wrong sides of towns in South and Latin America.
We must be doing something right.
They are pouring in. Some run across a border that it appears the President has decided not to defend. Others are arriving in box cars attached to trains.
Border guards are angry and confused.
We are talking thousands of illegals here, friends. Some of them, in fact recently most of them, are young children.
If the news reports are to be believed, our government--out of the kindness of our tax paying hearts--is providing these folks a box lunch, a change of clothes, and I suppose some other sort of “welcome to America.” Then the newbies are left on their own. News reports have them sleeping at bus terminals, camping out, sharing a combination of being grateful to be here and wondering what is next.
I have lived long enough to know that each of us American taxpayers has a growing family to care for and feed. Whatever you now spend on your natural family, your taxes have to be used to care for thousands more than last year. And, of course, if this continues, thousands more for the remainder of the administration’s time in office.
You may be living in a state far from the border, and you may feel insulated from this. Well, get yourself a strong cup of coffee and get ready. Sure, the first waves went to Texas and Arizona and all the usual vacation spots for illegals. But the feds are preparing to distribute them more evenly amongst us. I read the other day that some were expected to win a free trip to Massachusetts. Maine, NH, and Vermont cannot be far behind.
Given the circumstances these folks find themselves in, they will work for next to nothing, and this will remove thousands of jobs as possibilities for currently down-on-their-luck, real U.S. citizens. Our current unemployed survive on food stamps and unemployment payments and the good will of their fellow citizens. Whatever the size of the Federal honey pot is these days, it is now going to have to cover the needs of so many more ,and that, my friends, means less for the legal citizens currently without work in our country. The only other alternative is to raise taxes and have the rest of us cover the vacationing downtrodden. Now there is a viable idea during the huge downturn we have experienced in this country lately!
It boggles the mind that we are tolerating this. I do not understand it. For some reason, America seems tired, complacent, and ready to accept almost any government policy regardless of the wisdom or lack thereof behind it.
I was dreaming the other day in my hammock. America started with immigrants, our ancestors. They worked hard and built a pretty fine place. Maybe too fine. Everyone else wants to come here now. The current government policies, or executive actions, are turning our land into something very unfamiliar.
Maybe the answer is that we should all just take a vacation ourselves. I don’t know about you but I think Switzerland would be nice. Lets just all arrive on the shores of Europe and see if they can match the generosity we have shown our more recent visitors.
This would then leave this country to those who have newly arrived. If they wanted to survive, they would have to do what our ancestors did: work, contribute, build, and pay taxes,
I call this the Blair Project for the Reallocation of Population.
Some might call it The Blair Witch Project
The good ole US of A has become very popular of late with tourists from the slums of Mexico and the wrong sides of towns in South and Latin America.
We must be doing something right.
They are pouring in. Some run across a border that it appears the President has decided not to defend. Others are arriving in box cars attached to trains.
Border guards are angry and confused.
We are talking thousands of illegals here, friends. Some of them, in fact recently most of them, are young children.
If the news reports are to be believed, our government--out of the kindness of our tax paying hearts--is providing these folks a box lunch, a change of clothes, and I suppose some other sort of “welcome to America.” Then the newbies are left on their own. News reports have them sleeping at bus terminals, camping out, sharing a combination of being grateful to be here and wondering what is next.
I have lived long enough to know that each of us American taxpayers has a growing family to care for and feed. Whatever you now spend on your natural family, your taxes have to be used to care for thousands more than last year. And, of course, if this continues, thousands more for the remainder of the administration’s time in office.
You may be living in a state far from the border, and you may feel insulated from this. Well, get yourself a strong cup of coffee and get ready. Sure, the first waves went to Texas and Arizona and all the usual vacation spots for illegals. But the feds are preparing to distribute them more evenly amongst us. I read the other day that some were expected to win a free trip to Massachusetts. Maine, NH, and Vermont cannot be far behind.
Given the circumstances these folks find themselves in, they will work for next to nothing, and this will remove thousands of jobs as possibilities for currently down-on-their-luck, real U.S. citizens. Our current unemployed survive on food stamps and unemployment payments and the good will of their fellow citizens. Whatever the size of the Federal honey pot is these days, it is now going to have to cover the needs of so many more ,and that, my friends, means less for the legal citizens currently without work in our country. The only other alternative is to raise taxes and have the rest of us cover the vacationing downtrodden. Now there is a viable idea during the huge downturn we have experienced in this country lately!
It boggles the mind that we are tolerating this. I do not understand it. For some reason, America seems tired, complacent, and ready to accept almost any government policy regardless of the wisdom or lack thereof behind it.
I was dreaming the other day in my hammock. America started with immigrants, our ancestors. They worked hard and built a pretty fine place. Maybe too fine. Everyone else wants to come here now. The current government policies, or executive actions, are turning our land into something very unfamiliar.
Maybe the answer is that we should all just take a vacation ourselves. I don’t know about you but I think Switzerland would be nice. Lets just all arrive on the shores of Europe and see if they can match the generosity we have shown our more recent visitors.
This would then leave this country to those who have newly arrived. If they wanted to survive, they would have to do what our ancestors did: work, contribute, build, and pay taxes,
I call this the Blair Project for the Reallocation of Population.
Some might call it The Blair Witch Project
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