Muslim Inmate Wins Court Fight

AP Article - July 27, 2005 - Caspar Wyoming Star Tribune

A federal judge has ordered prison officials to allow a Muslim inmate to be fed an appropriate diet and to wear a headpiece consistent with Islamic teachings.

Note the word appropriate above. The judge will issue a very detailed set of instructions that are unreasonable and dictatorial, so that any transgression by any prison official can become the basis for the judge freeing this criminal from jail.

The obvious concern here is because judges only care about the "rights" of people who prey on society. They never display this kind of concern for victims of crime. This judge might not have ruled this way until Muslims launched a war against America. However judges are most concerned when they have someone in jail who is dedicated to destroying our way of life. These are the people they defend with the greatest fervor. They rarely are concerned with the victims of these evil people's crimes. They are always the most solicitous of the most evil of convicted criminals.

Can there be any reason for this consistent pattern other than complete disdain for our nation and a desire to shove "the rule of judges" down our throats? The courts are corrupt. Judges must be impeached until they respect our form of government and the people's rights. We are not a judicial oligarchy.

It Takes A Village ... Of Property Owners

By Larry Elder - July 21, 2005 - World Net Daily

In Connecticut's Kelo v. City of New London case, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, supported the city's use of eminent domain to force a private property owner to sell to a private developer. While conceding that the properties could not reasonably be called "blighted" ......

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, a corrupt government takes productive farmland and gives it to incompetent cronies and relatives of President Robert Mugabe, leaving 4.5 million of the country's 11.6 million people facing starvation in this once-fruitful South African breadbasket. Mugabe recently implemented "Operation Murambatsvina" (drive out trash), seizing and demolishing homes, market stalls and gardens....[that are blighted perhaps?]

We are not far from similar corruption here in America if the justices of our supreme court continue to flaunt their power. The Kelo ruling still leaves a judge incapable of differentiating between an honest belief in the betterment of society, and a claimed belief based on hidden bribes and corruption. How does the court think it will know?

Is their assumption they will know based on the same belief they recently showed in the "Ten Commandments" cases wherein the judge is to devine what the person was thinking at the time a "Ten Commandments" plaque is posted and deny it if, in the persons heart, he really meant it to further religion? Both rulings depend on the judge being psychic. Do you really think any of our judges are truly psychic and able to read minds?

New Justices Should Respect Constitution

By Trey Dellinger - July 18, 2005 - Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion Ledger

The Supreme Court's job is to strike down laws that violate the constitutional text. But remember, when the Supreme Court strikes down the acts of the people's representatives, it nullifies the votes of the people who elected them. Historically, the court stuck to the Constitution's narrow text, leaving most matters to the people's representatives.

Though it is the power of the courts to strike down laws since Marbury versus Madison, it is not their job, and should not be their right. Certainly not with the current outrageous lack of accountability of the justices we have today. It is possible, though I think not likely, that putting more conservative justices on the Supreme Court could help. It is more likely that it will simply change the type of activist rulings that are issued by a court that is arrogantly out of control.

That first seizure of power in Marbury versus Madison has evolved to the current near death of representative democracy due to the failure to limit this "job" to strike down laws to the example originally set. In that first case, a unanimous Supreme Court struck down one law and wiped it from the books entirely. The questionable power seized by John Marshall in that case has become the uncontrolled power of any judge to strike down a portion of any law that he so feels. As a result democracy is nearly dead.

What we need is a Constitutional Amendment that limits the power of judges to make these rulings. When the legislature is egregious as it was in Marbury versus Madison, and the court is unanimous in its opposition, I believe that the power constrains abuses by the legislature. To allow it when the court is not unanimous, means it is not law, but politics. That should mean it is up to the legislature and not the courts. That is how our social contact was established. No single judge, nor even the supreme court when it is not unanimous, should be allowed to declare a law unconstitutional. Since laws are a compromise, if any portion is struck, the entire law should be struck and a new compromise developed by the political branch of our government, the legislature.

Until this change is made in the power of the courts, changing a couple of judges will have only limited and short term consequences. Unaccountable power is always abused.

For Liberals, High Stakes at High Court

By Thomas B. Edsall and Michael A. Fletcher - Monday, July 11th , 2005 - Washington Post

Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, began the George W. Bush years leading the fight against the president's 2001 tax cut. He lost.

Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, has been a leading voice in opposition to provisions in the USA Patriot Act that he and other civil rights leaders say needlessly restrict civil liberties. So far, the act is unchanged.

Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, has joined coalitions that have opposed what she saw as pro-business proposals to make it more difficult for consumers to file for bankruptcy and to limit plaintiffs' options in class-action lawsuits. Those measures were passed into law earlier this year (despite her opposition).

These liberal lobbyists are a triumvirate now leading the left into what they view as their biggest battle yet: to stop conservatives from replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with a justice firmly aligned with the right.

Our courts have become so politicized that there is a most vicious campaign conducted for every position. Clarence Thomas and Robert Bork were smeared beyond any limits of reasonable behavior. The left has never apologized. They see this as war. As they lose power due to the rejection of their extreme left wing ideology, they keep escalating the hatefulness and viciousness of their attacks.

This politicizing is the basis for the problems we have with our courts. As long as the courts pander to the left wing agenda, the judges have been left alone to stretch the bounds of court power. The result is rulings such as Kelo, which even the left wing extremists think has gone too far.

The question that concerns me is whether we can ever get court integrity back?

Philosophy For A Judge

By Charles Krauthammer - Friday, July 8, 2005 - Washington Post

Unlike a principled conservative such as Antonin Scalia, or a principled liberal such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, O'Connor had no stable ideas about constitutional interpretation. Her idea of jurisprudence was to decide whether legislation produced social "systems" that either worked or did not.

But that, of course, is the job of the elected branches of government.

And that of course is the problem with our court and it's justices. They are eager to subvert representative democracy and force their view of what law should be onto a populace they apparently hold in contempt. They appear equally contemptuous of the elected officials of our nation. An appropriate response is to hold them in contempt.

Restoring appropriate balance within our system of government is a critical necessity. Judges are rapidly destroying respect for the "rule of law", by making the "rule of judges" the subversion of any law they do not agree with. They simply make up some perverted logic to defend their rulings relying on whatver passes for logic to them. If they can't find logic in some former ruling that professes to be an "interpretation" of our Constitution, they simply throw out the Constitution and rule based on a "global consensus" that only they can see.

We are not idiots. Their rulings are clearly a joke. If they are going to be politicians, they should resign and run for public office. Until then, we must persuade the legislatures to impeach them.

Blind Justices

By Richard A. Epstein - Sunday, July 3, 2005 - Wall Street Journal (Opinionjournal.com)

The scandal of "Kelo v. New London".

Last week's regrettable 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London marks a new low point in the Supreme Court's takings jurisprudence. The Constitution allows private property to be taken for public use only on payment of just compensation. But what counts as public use? In Kelo, Justice John Paul Stevens held that courts, especially federal courts, should be hugely deferential to a government decision, done after comprehensive hearings, to displace one private property owner in favor of a second private party in the name of overall economic development.

We have become a government of the judges, by the judges, for the judges.

The courts are becoming more arrogant and less accountable with every ruling. The power of a lifetime appointment with no reasonable restriction or accountability for their actions leaves these justices arrogant and self righteous. Only mass impeachment of every justice who voted in favor of a ruling like Kelo will return appropriate balance to our system of government.

It is time for our legislature to act.

Public 'Interest' Shouldn't Mean Money

By Mark Steyn - July 3rd, 2005 - Chicago Sun Times

Do you know Nancy Pelosi? Her job is leading the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives. They should have asked for references. Here's her reaction to the Supreme Court's recent decision on "eminent domain": "It is a decision of the Supreme Court," said the minority leader. "So this is almost as if God has spoken."

That's not the way Abraham Lincoln saw it: "If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court . . . the people will have ceased to be their own rulers."

I am not sure why the Chicago Sun Times has suddenly become an activist publication for limitations on our courts. Maybe it has something to do with the court abandoning the protection for reporters having unfettered ability to use anonymous sources. The courts had even been permitting reporters to create anonymous sources to say things that damaged those who were not politically aligned with the reporter without fear of reprisal. Can't allow reporters to have limitations on their actions, now can we? That has now ended with the Supreme Court not interferring with sending a couple of reporters to jail. Newspapers were stunned, and maybe the new posture of the Sun Times is their way of retaliating.

Whatever the reason, for the second day in a row, the best article condemning the court's recent decisions has appeard in the Sun Times. In this article Steyn takes apart both the Ten Commandments ruling and the eminent domain ruling. It is an excellent article.

How Radicals In Robes Seized The Judiciary

By Thomas Roeser - July 2, 2005 - Chicago Sun Times

At important periods in history the court has erred. In Dred Scott it ruled that blacks were not citizens based on the founders' original intent -- but President Lincoln correctly pointed out that when the constitution was written ''in five of the then 13 states, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, free Negroes were voters and, in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had.''

It took a war to change things and since then, at certain times (including our own), the court has been a disruptive bully, as with eminent domain that sides with the rich against the poor, and torturously confused, as in the Ten Commandments cases.

This article is an excellent portrayal of the real battle that is shaping up over our Superme Court. It is the battle, not between conservatives and liberals but between those who believe that the courts cannot make law, and those who are willing to turn our country over to the tyrants in black robes. It is a critical battle. If the "make law" proponents win, the legislature becomes more useless than it is today and representative democracy is the loser.

Alberto Gonazlez says that he agrees with those who restrict the courts to interpreting law. However those who oppose affirmative action are unhappy with the fact that he therefore supports laws they do not think should have been passed and they oppose him as a result. He hasn't even been appointed and they are attacking him. This proves they are not unhappy with an activist court, they just want a court that is activist for their positions. This is a duplicity I will not support.

This is also the greatest risk of the current battle. Republicans must not let it become a battle over politics. If the unelected courts become our rulers, Kelo (the decision that government can take your house) has proved that only the rich and powerful win. Since twice as many rich support liberals and democrats (a truth democrats still don't want to accept), that leaves Republicans the losers.

What's The Excuse For Inaction Now?

By Gary Bauer - 7/1/2005 - The American Spectator

Back in 2000, 70 percent of Nebraskans expressed the desire that marriage remain between one man and one woman. A single judge decided he knew better.

While this is not the first time a judge has sought to redefine marriage against the people's will, this is the first time a state constitutional amendment has been struck down. It was the supposed strength of these state amendments to which many politicians alluded when they falsely claimed that a federal marriage amendment was unnecessary.

Senator John McCain called an amendment un-Republican because it imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid stressed that he "believe[s] in the sanctity of marriage" but that, "before we tinker with our most cherished rights, we should allow the states to deal with this issue..."

The Nebraska judge's decision is irrefutable proof that those who say marriage can be handled state by state are categorically wrong. Such assertions ignore the reality that federal judges have signaled unequivocally that they will not allow the people to decide for themselves.

Our courts are corrupt. The "rule of law" does not permit courts to make law. The "rule of law" does not permit courts to be conservative, moderate or liberal. Both of those are politics, not "rule of law". The "rule of law" assumes there is justice in our courts. However there can be no justice when the courts have become a law unto themselves. The courts have reached a point where they are unconcerned with the Constitution, the people or the legislature.

They have created a revolving door criminal justice system where citizens and victims of crime have no rights, and criminals who give lawyers fat legal fees can do just about anything they want.

They now allow government to seize any property that they want; assuring that rich developers can bring cases into court that previously needed local government to rule.

To expand their power to issues of immigration policy, they have granted the right to citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, even as the children of some legal aliens do not become citizens.

To allow judges to involve themselves in setting marriage policy, they have created a gay marriage right that 70% of the people oppose.

They claim all of these seized powers under the premise that we have a "living" Constitution. This premise has evolved to an assumption they can do whatever they want. The end result is that the Constitution has become meaningless. What they have given us is a "dead" Constitution, a Constitution which does not exist and to which they owe no fidelity. Judicial activism has really become judicial corruption.

The article listed above proposes that our federal legislature create a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman. Since the recent rulings of the court, this is an ignorant proposal. If the Constitution is "dead", what difference can it possibly make to put more words into the Constitution to be ignored by a corrupt judiciary?

Unless the legislature starts mass impeachments of justices who are themselves violating the constitution and their oath of office, they will soon be irrelevant. Passing useless amendments will not change that.