rachael wrote:What a bitch.
Just a few more years and we would've been ok.
Why now?

I read her husband is in advanced stages of Alzheimer's. Though I think that is a totally understandable personal decision, I am sad she cannot wait out this president's term to do so.

no matter who the president decides to nominate for the bench, he's still swapping a conservative for a conservative. o'connor wasn't a liberal: in fact, she was incredibly pro-business. she was the swing vote for practically every major decision the court made and she did stave off an overturn of roe v. wade, but she was still a moderate conservative reagan appointee.

while the prospects of somebody like crapo or gonzalez being nominated are frightening, here's the really scary part: o'connor (moderate conservative) gets replaced by a neo-con, rehnquist (conservative) gets replaced by a neo-con, john paul stevens (ford appointee who has slanted heavily liberal) is 85 years old and may be replaced by a neo-con. that'll leave ginsburg and breyer holding down the left and kennedy as the meaningless moderate swing vote.

anybody remember during the '04 presidential campaign when bush was railing against activist judges? apparently they're really not that bad, as long as they think the way he does.

In this country, the two most powerful institutions are Big Business/Big Money and the Federal Courts. These two are what really make ultra important things happen. It would be nice to believe that the populace as a whole would be a player in this equation, but with the US so divided on so many things, it just isn't.

While I loathe W, his CIA dad, his Nazi $ grandpa, the only real tangible fear I had about his tenure was him making Supreme Court decisions. I felt all along that the simpleton would get one crack at an appointee, but it looks like he will get two. Once this happens, get ready for a lot of basic freedoms we have come to accept to be assaulted, starting with a women's right to her body, followed by breaks for big business and ultimately an attack on everyone's privacy. Dark things like the Patriot Act will have an almost automatic green light. This is the ultimate power that the Right so desires, and will now have. We are spiraling very close to a theocracy!

As said earlier

congleton wrote:dark days....this is like being the first crewmember in the submarine that notices the crack.

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thedishonestdon wrote: o'connor wasn't a liberal: in fact, she was incredibly pro-business. she was the swing vote for practically every major decision the court made and she did stave off an overturn of roe v. wade, but she was still a moderate conservative reagan appointee.

She may have been a conservative, but she wasn't of the same conservative ilk as W, and she was interested in the particular facts of each individual case, instead of simply painting every case with an ideaological brush. In short, she took her position seriously, and weighed her decisions fairly. And while she may be pro business, she dissented on the eminent domain case didn't she?

How often do Stevens, Ginsberg, Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer vote together? I guess I'm really asking about Kennedy here...isn't he more moderate than Scalia and Thomas?

Pray for the good health of John Paul Stevens, folks.

I am hearing Cornyn. It could be worse and SC judges seldom if ever get more conservative once on the bench. Admittedly, Bush's track record leaves little room for optimism. Bush might easily find himself in a position where following his instincts leads him to appointing someone who requires the Dems to lock shit down The government could gridlock if James Dobson or Ralph Reed gets the last say on this. I guess we'll find out just where those 14 or so moderate senators stand.

This is really unfortunate, because it gives this hideous administration their one legitimate avenue towards tearing the Constitution to shreds. Anyone who has not seen this process underway has been either (a) fortunate enough to be uninformed about current affairs, (b) a consumer of any of corporate America's major news outlets, which amounts to the same thing, or (c) one of those pitiable people who fall into neither of the first two categories, but who refuse to see the most blatant truths because a pretense of hope or optimism is much easier to carry on one's back than the knowledge of certain doom. For these people, let me recommend a reading of Voltaire's "Candide". If one starts with the presumption that we are all fucked, the good things in life become all the more valuable.

The Bush Administration is, HANDS DOWN, the most corrupt, evil, flabbergastingly unconstitutional force to ever preside over these United States, a fact that is all the more disconcerting when one realizes that the arsenal at its disposal (the wealthiest, most militarily mighty juggernaut ever to exist) was unimaginable to those quaint, comical corrupt presidencies of the past, such as those of Harding or Grant. Despite all of the ribaldry justifiably devoted to Bush's lack of grammatical savoir faire, THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT THIS SHIT. The world is teetering on the edge of a horrific chasm of endless war, environmental collapse and shocking acts of Theocratic brutality, an abyss so dark and all-enveloping as to be rendered incomprehensible to the people falling under my above-listed Category (C).

The only thing I can do is refuse to read any news item pertaining to this administration. It is the only way of keeping my sanity in these precious few years we have left. One might see this as escaping the truth, but, by vantage of my already knowing the truth about this administration, I am all too aware of the necessity human beings have of escaping it. Now, back to reading "The Importance of Being Earnest" and remembering how to laugh again.

Best,
Zach

p.s. Fuck Fundamentalist Christians and the Theocracy they have in store for us. That is all.
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tipcat wrote:How often do Stevens, Ginsberg, Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer vote together?

Ask this guy.

I think we all have a right (and almost an obligation!) to be upset by this situation, especially given the current administration's track record. However, I think we need to get some perspective here.

First of all, I think it's ridiculous to say that anyone who thinks there may still be hope here either a) is engaging in wishful thinking, or b) has his/her head of up his/her ass. There are lots of factors in play here ... and while the apocalyptic vision of Dr. Strangelove does seem to loom somewhere in the distance, you can't just run around screaming that the world is going to end/doom and gloom forever/endless war/etc. I mean, that type of thinking is almost as offensive as the Second Coming mentality of the Christian Right.

Not all conservatives are religious conservatives, and there is a HUGE difference between the interests of the big-business conservative and the Jesus freak conservative (and their interests don't always jive). Do you really think a Theocracy would have sustainable support in this country? Come on. The consolidation of governmental power that's going on right now scares the pants off of many truly conservative people, too. Just look at how fractured the conservative congress has become; they often don't even support the President on specific issues.

And let's remember that -- even just after 9/11, when just about every political figure in the country became a war hawk -- sending troops to Iraq was still not a popular move with the American people (remember those marches and petitions?). And now support for the US mideast military involvement is falling rapidly! The American people are not that stupid, and we often vote out Presidents (and congresses) that make bad military decisions. We didn't in 2004, but that was because the democrats didn't set out a platform that was much different than Bush's (and Kerry's stance on the entire Iraq issue was pretty much undefined). So I doubt that we will see an "endless war." We still live in a representative democracy ... if people get upset enough to get off their ass and vote, things do change (at least a little).

Lastly, those of you that are hard-core super-revolutionaries should be jumping for joy. If all the things we are afraid of happening do happen, people are going to start re-reading Marx, and paying attention this time.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all this fretting doesn't get you anywhere, and it is ultimately tired and counter-productive. If things are looking grim, really do something about it -- those of us with musical connections can certainly organize benefit shows for our local women's groups or NARAL or any number of organizations. Encourage your local scenesters to stop singing about their girlfriends and their tight pants; lend them a Dead Kennedys CD. Stop buying products from companies that have outsourced their labor to foreign countries. There are things that we can do here, and as long as those outlets are available, there is hope.

End of motivational speech.

Argh.

That is all.